Harlem Reflection

The smell of hummus wafts through the air and the Muslim call to prayer rings in my ears on the streets of Jerusalem. The beautiful and haunting Arabic became one of my favorite sounds during my visit to the Holy Land. All of these memories come back to me with nostalgia and tinges of sadness as I read today’s Monitor articles and discuss terrorism in my Current Issues class. Ever since my visit to Israel, I’ve felt a personal connection with the plights of different peoples in the Middle East. Through reading the Monitor the past couple months, I discovered different ways to pray for this troubled sector of the globe. The Monitor’s purpose, “to bless all mankind” from Engaging with The Christian Science Monitor has inspired me throughout the Praying for the World curriculum. When I read different articles about the Middle East like “Saudi women face off against men for
One specific insight that contributed to my prayer for the world was a comment in a TED talk that we watched about cultural appropriation. A student described the unique sights, sounds, and smells of Harlem. This student’s perspective was contradictory to another’s, who only knew of the neighborhood what he heard by word of mouth. This flawed view consisted of solely danger and poverty. When the student with the flawed view heard a real description of Harlem, he was awed into remarking, “Show me THAT Harlem”. This remark partly encapsulates how I’ve prayed for the world. One of the biggest battles we can fight mentally is combating ignorance. I learned to see the good in any environment, as well as recognize present harmony, as Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures page 470, “…Science knows no lapse from nor return to harmony”. Through reading and reflecting on the Christian Science Monitor, I grasped a deeper meaning of harmony and the way it’s expressed in our ever-changing