Finding Real Peace

A SPORTS broadcaster in our area obviously loves the home team. He's elated when things go well for the team, dejected when things go badly. While this can make for good sportscasting, it often seems as though he's on an emotional roller coaster, his mood at any moment strictly the result of what's happening on the field. Listening to him, I've sometimes been reminded of how we all tend to react to events. It seems as though whatever is going on at the moment--whether good or bad--determines how we feel. In one sense it's understandable that events impress us this way or that. Yet tying our responses to events puts inner peace on a shaky foundation. While we all face the challenge of circumstances that seem unjust, insurmountable, or both, we can take steps toward overcoming the feeling that the world, in effect, runs us--telling us whether we're happy or not. This is a feeling--and a false one. It's not the way things actually are. Why? Because God gave man dominion. This is the fact. It's our divine right, then, to have a feeling of dominion, of peace within. "The kingdom of God is within you, Christ Jesus taught. These words in Luke's Gos pel tell us that there's a different basis for living than the one we may have been accustomed to. It's a spiritual basis that brings to light God's wise government and the peace that only He can give. We tend to think that we live in a material world that dictates our well-being or lack of it. In such a world, random happenings, even on the other side of the globe, can influence our experience for better or worse. It appears that this is the way things are. And there are many people in unfortunate conditions who could testify to the cruelty of circumstances that such a world includes. Yet if God is good and all-powerful--and He is--there has to be a more secure basis for living--one that benefits all people. Jesus' teachings and healing works point us to spiritual existence, to the reality of creation beyond what our eyes and ears take in. They illustrate the truth of man, not as a mortal living precariously in a material universe but as God's spiritual likeness, within the safety of the creator's care. The Way-shower's works prove the presence of divine law. They demonstrate the supremacy and practicality of that law, even in instances where it seemed inevitable that the world's injustice would have the final word. As the events of daily life come at us, sometimes imposing fear or reports of misfortune, we may not always feel we can respond calmly. But to the degree that we begin to see beyond the moment's drama to the reality of God's government of man, we'll inevitably feel more of that kingdom within. We won't be ignoring evil, but we'll be helping to forward its ultimate demise through clearer views of the creator's omnipresent love. The need is increasingly to cultivate spiritual sense, that inherent faculty by which we discern God and the harmony of His spiritual creation. As Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "Spiritual sense, contradicting the material senses, involves intuition, hope, faith, understanding, fruition, reality. Material sense expresses the belief that mind is in matter. This human belief, alternating between a sense of pleasu re and pain, hope and fear, life and death, never reaches beyond the boundary of the mortal or the unreal. When the real is attained, which is announced by Science, joy is no longer a trembler, nor is hope a cheat. Our prayers for spiritual sense, for a steadier realization of the kingdom within, will help us get beyond the feeling that the world is in charge. We'll feel a deeper, more secure peace, and help forward a wider perception of God's care of man.