Commentary: Inspiration to look beyond pain medication

A fresh look at relieving pain, especially chronic pain, is turning attention to finding nonmedical routes in place of addictive painkiller use.

One such way is by prescribing meditation instead of medication.

“Increasingly, both doctors and patients are looking for a more holistic way of treating pain,” writes Jeena Cho in an article about an orthopedic surgeon doing just that.

An impetus for the medication-alternative search, a move the Food and Drug Administration supports, are the statistics showing prescription drug overdoses in the United States tragically kill more people than car crashes.

With an estimated 50 million to 100 million people in the U.S. who are dealing with this issue of pain, finding effective alternatives to medication is paramount.

While prayer and meditation may not at first appear to be similar, many now see that the stillness and openness inherent in meditation is also found in deep, spiritual prayer. As writer Douglas Todd comments, “Prayer versus meditation, they’re more alike than we realize.”

Yet that quiet prayer is expressed by the phrase, “Let go. Let God,” indicating that it is not so much an emptying of thought as filling consciousness with an awareness of God and our substance as the expressions of God. This is what enables a person to align with, and evidence, their God-given health.

This nonmedical, spiritual approach was advocated by an early proponent of prayer-based healing, Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy, to address health needs viewed from an individual’s spiritual understanding of God.

“It is our ignorance of God, the divine Principle, which produces apparent discord, and the right understanding of Him restores harmony,” Eddy wrote in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” the book that details her research into the relationship between spirituality and well-being and her thoughtful results.

Eddy found that looking beyond the limited materialistic sense of a self apart from God through prayer was integral to restoring and maintaining health.

What could this powerful idea about prayer’s efficacy in dealing with health issues mean to those currently suffering from pain?

Many, like me, have found that prayer can consistently lead to relief of all sorts of discomfort and health challenges.

As a reduction of pain medication through more holistic approaches is explored, it’s encouraging to hear of more people who have found healthy results through such prayer. The inspired sense of our relationship to God is the cup of cold water that Eddy talks about in “Science and Health”: “Millions of unprejudiced minds — simple seekers for Truth, weary wanderers, athirst in the desert — are waiting and watching for rest and drink. Give them a cup of cold water in Christ’s name, and never fear the consequences.”

Drop by drop, this inspiration will increasingly be sought and found to lead to more health and healing.

DON INGWERSON, a Christian Science practitioner, lives in Laguna Beach.