Daily prayer and good health
08.10.11
More Americans are praying about their health, according to reports from the National Health Interview Survey.
Results from the survey of 30,080 adults in 2002 and 22,306 adults in 2007 revealed that 49 percent of adults said they had prayed about their health during the previous year.
The survey also found that people who exercise regularly were among those least likely to pray, and an article by The New York Times this summer about the survey said "researchers speculated they may not have had any health concerns."
I did not take the survey, but now in the middle of my sixth decade, I continue the practice of daily prayer that I began when I was an undergrad at the University of Virginia in 1968. At that time, the draft was still in force, and the Vietnam War was chewing up soldiers on both sides.
It was my third year in the engineering school. I had already seen many friends flunk out, get drafted and find themselves carrying an M-16 , slogging through rice paddies in Vietnam . Some of these guys came back with parts missing; others did not come back.
Source: Richmond Times Dispatch