Miracle of Radio
World War II was the first war in which radio played an important role in civilian and military communications. The science of sending code and voice transmissions through the airways was pioneered in the early 1900s, and the first commercial broadcast stations were licensed in the 1920s. One of the earliest practical uses for this new technology was communication with ships at sea, making the U.S. Navy an early and vigorous proponent of its military use. By the early 1940s commanders were able to stay in regular although sometimes tenuous contact with their ships and units around the globe. Within the civilian community, families gathered around their radio sets to be entertained and to hear the latest news of the war.
The following prayer was written by a well-known Navy chaplain in 1944 giving thanks for this marvelous invention:
Thanksgiving for Radio Communication
Infinite God, who hast founded the known upon the unknown, and hast hidden the secrets of Thy universe beneath the twin cloaks of silence and invisibility: Who has dared Man to divine the meaning that there lies hidden, and has made Man of such a disposition that he can find no satisfaction as long as there remains one unanswered question: We thank Thee for the mind and spirit, the indefatigable energy and the questing intelligence of those scientists and technicians in physics and electricity, who took Thy cosmic dare, and by the force of their insatiable curiosity and their persistent imagination made possible radio communication and brought forth from the silence of electricity the beauty of sound and from the invisibility of light the beauty of color. Thou who hearest our unspoken prayers across the unimaginable abyss of eternity; we thank Thee for all those who have helped Man to enter into communication with Man across the echoless miles with a wonder and fidelity that is akin to prayer. Amen.323
The final thought in this prayer is startling and thought provoking, comparing the communications of man through the ether with prayer to God. It is something to ponder.
What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him?
—Deuteronomy 4:7