“One of the purposes of prayer is to allow its participants to transcend the nagging particulars of life that normally preoccupy us. Prayer allows ordinary people to become players in much larger stakes; Washington, the United Nations, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and the totality of the world. There is a time for prayer to address immediate and  local problems, even Uncle Larry’s lumbago and Aunt Gertrude’s gout. Prayer can petition God to cure many of our aches and pains. But I suspect that what prayer really needs to do is displace our self-serving agendas with more critical concerns.” Darius L. Salter