(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Prayer changes things. For progressives too. [1] ['Jon Paul Sydnor', 'Chitown Kev', 'Belinda Ridgewood', 'Bill In Portland Maine'] Date: 2026-07-02 A friendly note to all Daily Kos readers. This essay was posted to Street Prophets, a progressive religious community on Daily Kos. As a blogger there, I am a progressive like you, only from a Christian perspective. In support of progressivism, I am trying to articulate a progressive Christian political vision. After all, no progressive leaders will be elected without the progressive religious vote. As I argue for progress from a Christian perspective, I am in no way asserting the superiority of faith to atheism, or Christianity to any other worldview. I am just trying to advance humanity from my own particular perspective. I think that God prefers kind atheists to mean Christians. My hope is that we can all cooperate across worldviews to create a more just, inclusive, and peaceful world. Thank you. ***** Being prayed for is different from not being prayed for. When my father was having quintuple bypass surgery at the age of sixty-three, I told many people about it and generally got one of two responses: “I’ll be thinking about you” or “I’ll be praying for you.” One parishioner, Cay Youngdahl, who was very much a person of prayer, asked me the specific day and time of the surgery. As I told her, she wrote the details down in her calendar and reassured me, “I’ll be praying for your dad.” I’m not sure what those prayers did, if they steadied the surgeon’s scalpel or strengthened my father’s spirits, but they calmed my soul. Through prayers of intercession, people entered my world of concern. They did not leave me stranded or alone; instead, they provided the comfort of community and promised me that, no matter what, they would remain. Under no circumstances, no matter how trying, would I be ghosted. God for us inspires the church in which we are for each other, and prayers of petition express this persevering loyalty. Prayer tends to people in a world that is inattentive. Prayer allows us to be intimately present to one another through God, and this presence, in an age of distraction, changes things. It deepens our awareness of one another, thereby revealing our basic unity. It momentarily allows the self to forget the self and all its preoccupations, jettisoning personal anxieties from the center of the universe to the edge, where they belong. Prayer reminds us that the self is not the hub but the spoke of the revolving wheel, shifting our disposition from self-consciousness to self-surrender. There, the quieted soul can finally hear God’s assurance, “You are my beloved.” Prayer is attentiveness in an inattentive world. Jon Paul Sydnor Living in a universe that is prayed. Prayer expresses our gratitude toward God for the mystery within which we live, which none of us earned yet all of us received. It arises naturally from our astonishment at the inconceivable surprise of living, from our gratitude for being present within the unfolding of time. As gratitude, prayer participates in a boundaryless God who celebrates the whole and wants us to as well. In this conception, prayer is more like singing than asking, a joy we are swept into rather than a duty we practice. Prayer comes naturally to some people but is a struggle for others. And that’s okay. An inability to sit and speak with God is not a spiritual weakness; God gives different spiritual gifts to different people so we can fulfill different roles in God’s community. Prayer is a spiritual gift, but other spiritual gifts can become prayer, and prayer alone is never a substitute for action. When Joan Cheever was fined for feeding the homeless in San Antonio, she explained, “This is how I pray. I pray when I cook. I pray when I serve.” Prayer is not a substitute for action; it is our motivation to action, and all action toward the kingdom is prayer. (adapted from Jon Paul Sydnor, The Great Open Dance: A Progressive Christian Theology, pages 230-231) ***** For further reading, please see: Heschel, Abraham Joshua. Moral grandeur and spiritual audacity: essays. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1996. Stillspeaking Writers’ Group. God Is Still Speaking. Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2024. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/7/2/800064116/community/prayer-changes-things-for-progressives-too/ Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/