The first element of the foursquare structure outlined by Mary Baker Eddy coincides with the first chapter of her textbook of Christian Science: Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. The tile of this chapter is: Prayer. What are we aiming at in prayer? Do we seek an exception from reality, a special favor, a pardon for failures? Or do seek but a fuller realization of the riches and power we already have within the dimension of our divine humanity that is the reality of our being? 

Is there really anything we could ask for that is not already ours in the divine design, reflecting the harmonizing Spirit of infinite Intelligence and its all-encompassing Principle? This means we have the divine right and capacity to be wherever we want to be in experiencing what reflects Truth. We have no justification for a sense of impotence. But how to get put of this trap? That's the subject of prayer. It's scientific signification makes it an intention to embrace Truth, a longing for Truth, a longing for understanding reality, a process that clears the mental horizon of the far too many limits stand in our way that we have the power to overcome. God is Principle. We cannot change God and its reflection. Indeed, why would we want to 'improve' what reflects infinite Intelligence. Our highest hopes therefore is to bring ourselves into harmony with the Principle that is expressed in the design of the universe and man. And this is quite an exciting task with vast potentials and no real limits in sight. In this sense Prayer becomes an exploration.

There are three mayor groups of principles that one can recognize in the universe, pertaining to the abiotic, the biotic, and the spiritual spheres. Profound aspects of Principle are recognized to operate in the abiotic sphere, sometimes called the material world though physical science does not recognize the existence of any basic matter. The biotic sphere is the sphere of the living processes. A totally separate set of aspects of Principle comes to light here, and at a higher level still, we find the world of what we call the spiritual aspects of Principle. While Principle and its idea is one, we can recognize an ordering of its aspects in which the higher-order aspects enrich the lower order aspects. One example is that the living processes enrich the non-living world. Our earth would be a desolate place without life. The living processes in turn are enriched by the spiritual processes, such as the intention for healing. The divine Principle of scientific mental healing that Mary Baker Eddy discovered and termed Christian Science is an example where the lawful application of Principle in the spiritual sphere uplifts the biological sphere to greater perfection, which we call healing. Healing does not happen automatically. There is an intention involved that utilizes a discovered aspect of Principle to come to fruition. And so spiritual healing happens. We didn't create the principle that enables the process. We couldn't do anything if this principle already exist. But a vast body of healing experiences, after the principle was discovered, demonstrate that this principle does exist. In Christian Science healing we utilize a principle that has been divinely provided for this purpose that we are free to make use of. This changes the dimension of prayer. We don't kneel on bended knees to beg for exceptions of any kind, but accept with gratitude what has already been established and put within our reach.

Mary Baker Eddy points out that the healing effect of prayer is not the result of a force generated by the human mind to change the universe. as the human mind is not a factor. The healing effect results from the action of the divine Mind that is all-acting, all-moving, all-intentional, all-loving. But prayer helps us to "hitch our wagon to a star." The healing for is not our own, but the intention to latch onto it is. And so we move with God. We move as God moves. We step into the light and move with it.

A primitive analogy may be found in the utilization of the universal principle of gravity. Gravity is a force in the physical universe, which we did not create, but which we learned to utilize, for example, to generate electric power. If this principle wouldn't exist, the universe wouldn't exist. We are not responsible for it, but we can "latch our wagon to it" and generate electric power with its force. If the power of the divine Mind did not exist as a healing and harmonizing impetus, Christ Jesus would have stood powerless and all the countless Christian Science healings that have occurred, would not have occurred. Prayer does not exist as a process to alter the universe, but to enable us to bring ourselves into harmony with it, to bring us into the flow so to speak.

But what is sin? Some say that purpose of prayer is to purge us of sin. In a sense one could say that. Mary Baker Eddy points out that the test of prayer lies in the answer to the question of whether we love our neighbor better because of it. Then sin becomes the equivalent of a lack of love, including the love that embraces ourselves as a divine idea. The father we are from love, the farther we are from God, and the emptier our life is. How than, in this case, do we latch our wagon to the movements of God, divine Love? Mary Baker Eddy points out that sin (emptiness of love) is not forgiven in prayer, and can never be forgiven, but can only be corrected. The effects of the emptiness will prevail until the cause for it ceases and love becomes a factor in our life. Still, prayer can help by causing us to open ourselves up to love, to the flow of divine Love in order that Love may become profoundly reflected in us.

Of course this 'prayer' that relishes the love of God in the vast dimension of divine Love, is not limited to uplifting the biotic sphere only and cause healing there. It has power to uplift everything, such as our mental processes, relationships, culture, economics, and even the physical universe. Metaphysics is a process where mental 'action' reflecting the divine action uplifts also the physical world. One crude example is again found in electric power generation. Here the mental process of discovering available physical principles has enabled mankind to uplifts its physical environment towards more efficient and productive forms of living. In this sphere, it seems we have barely scratched the surface of the potential that is in our reach. In this sense the concept of prayer takes on a totally different meaning that we find it in the conventional sense. On this boundless scientific platform we certainly have the potential to create the necessary infrastructure to not only live through the next Ice Age that is already on the horizon, but to do so in a richer fashion that we live now. When seen in this light, prayer is no longer just a theological aspect of pleading with god, but a profound aspect of intelligent realization that is key to civilization itself and the survival of mankind in the face of the worst imaginable challenge, and with a boundless future.

The same can also be said in terms of relationships. When prayer uplifts relationships, it does so with vistas of Truth that raise the social platform to such heights, why above the sewer, such as has never been seen before. For example, as a means for ending the Thirty Years War a principle was discovered in those days, the Principle of the Advantage of the Other, that instantly created a whole new platform for civilization that is still a foundational element today,  even 360 years later. In prayer we touch the unlimited, and who knows how far we can yet go on this road?

There exists an old North American Indian legend of a canoe that enabled the traveler to go instantly to wherever it was desired. We have that capability mentally. What inertia would hinder the realization of God? What would annul divine Principle? Oh yes, we can list countless impediments that we bow to rather than claiming our freedom to move and to live in the divine universe. The novel, Flight Without Limits, encompasses a wide range of dimensions that are really dimensions of prayer in the context of divine Science, though the word prayer is never used and the concept even hinted at. Nor did the intention exist to do this in writing the novel. However, we can't get away from it, can we, when we begin to explore the universe of Spirit that is unbounded in nature. Are we surprised then that when healings occur that they occur instantly? Christian Science healing often unfolds that way, but it can't really unfold until the baggage is left behind that ties us to the narrow world that we want to get away from. This baggage covers quite a wide range of failures, each with a broad scope: disease, domination, oligarchism, violence, isolation, to name just a few. In the larger scope the novel deals with impotence and a false sense of power, which is also one of the great problems in the modern world where scientific mental healing is urgently needed. 

Isn't that really at the heart of prayer, focused so that the good and beautiful and their immortality may come to light?