A spiritual solution to crime

Many people, troubled by the increase in crime, fear there's little they can do to control it. But there is a spiritual solution that can be applied with precision and power to the challenge.

Isn't a central issue in this problem the fear that we can be victims of the misguided thoughts and actions of others? It appears that the world is composed of billions of individual minds, some enlightened, others unenlightened, some balanced, others unbalanced, some satisfied, others dissatisfied.

But is the mind nothing more than matter? Is matter actually the source of thought and action? If we answer yes, we've left God out of the picture. In effect, we've made a god of unintelligent matter.

The only true God is Spirit, as the Bible tells us -- infinite, intelligent divine Mind, the only creative power. Here is where the solution must be found. Because God is good, Mind is good, and because God is infinite, Mind is infinite. There can't be any place in this infinitude for a malicious or deranged material mentality. But because the very opposite seems to be the case , we have our work cut out for us. We can't leave this potent spiritual truth in the realm of abstraction.We have to begin to understand it, trust it, and prove its practicality.

The concept of one infinite Mind, wholly good, is right in line with the Old Testament commandment, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." n1 Christ Jesus reiterated this command, which was clearly the basis of his own unparalleled healing work.

n1 Deuteronomy 6:5;

Wasn't it Jesus' understanding of God's unopposable power and of the true nature of man, forever expressing the one Mind, that enabled him to heal the demoniac? The Bible tells us that the man who had been possessed with the devil was found afterward by his countrymen "sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind." n2

n2 Mark 5:15;

We can all, at least to some degree, express this same healing power in dealing with the lawlessness that seems so prevalent today. Perhaps a first step is to acknowledge that there's no circumstance beyond the reach of God's omnipresent, harmonizing power -- and that there ism just one God, who is good.

To realize that there's only one God and therefore one infinite Mind is not to deny individuality or freedom of thought. It's to acknowledge that all true thought, all genuine intelligence and wisdom, originate in God. It's to acknowledge that each of us, in truth, is the perfect offspring of God, expressing His unlimited intelligence. It's to acknowledge that each of us is actually inseparable from God, governed exclusively by Him. It's to deny authority, power, and existence itself to a perverse criminal mentality or to any state of thought opposed to God's nature.

Prayer that springs from an understanding that man is governed by God alone ism effective. It helps us see more clearly that we're not helpless in the face of crime, that God is always caring for His creation, even though the five senses tell us otherwise. It helps us see that evil isn't really mind and therefore it's not a relentless, uncontrollable force. It helps us see that under God's government there is no victim and no victimizer -- God is providing for and motivating each of His offspring in accord with His law of good.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes, "Consciousness, as well as action, is governed by Mind, -- is in God, the origin and governor of all that Science reveals." n3

n3 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,m p. 480.

It's precisely because human life seems such a contradiction of this truth that we need to cultivate a clear perception of God's government, of the spiritual fact that there is just one Mind, one infinite, divine cause. As we do, we'll contribute in a powerful way to the lessening of crime and to a recognition of the peace and safety that God alone provides. DAILY BIBLE VERSE Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up thine hand: forget not the humble. . . . Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man: seek out his wickedness till thou find none. The Lord is King for ever and ever. Psalms 10:12, 15, 16