A healing answer to the Gulf oil spill
As oil continues to pour out of the well in the Gulf of Mexico, industry and government officials still struggle to master stubborn forces of geology and oceanography. In the face of an environmental and economic crisis of the utmost severity, the great need is to understand the presence and power of spiritual laws that supersede the laws of physics. Prayer based on spiritual law opens the door to healing and restoration.
God’s law, rightly appealed to, governs every phase of human experience. God’s benign governance always operates to arrest discord and preserve harmony. And it does so with the power and authority implied in this profound affirmation in the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” As the Psalmist confirms: “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof” (24:1). This great truth, understood, establishes order and balance, quelling the destructive forces unleashed by misdirected human action.
Challenging the premises and conclusions of limited, matter-based thinking, the Bible makes clear that law and causation are not physical and material but entirely spiritual. It is a point demonstrated by Christ Jesus, who so clearly understood divine law that he was able to walk on the waves and still violent storms. “What manner of man is this,” his astonished disciples exclaimed, “that even the winds and the sea obey him!” (Matt. 8:27). The fact is that spiritual law is preeminent; that God’s creation is now and always has been indestructible, never vulnerable to injury or impairment. Understanding this fact brings human circumstances into alignment with God’s perfect law of harmony.
Following Jesus’ example, we can pour into thought the spiritual understanding that affirms the control of Mind, God, in the face of seemingly uncontrollable human events. However threatening, no human circumstance is beyond the reach of divine Love’s healing, salutary influence.
In reality, each of us, as an expression of God, as the idea of divine Mind, is governed by divine intelligence. As Moses, following the leadings of divine Mind, was able to guide the children of Israel out of harm’s way and into the Promised Land, so, too, can the receptive human thought be led to take the steps needed to staunch the flow of oil into the Gulf and to reverse the damage that has been done. This truth has yet to be manifest in the Gulf – a fact that throws the need for prayer into the sharpest possible relief. The Christ, or spiritual idea, can lead out of danger by drawing thought irresistibly to the right course of human action. Nor does prayer that recognizes the all-power of God’s government merely lead to a cessation of untoward circumstances but to complete restoration as well. And beyond restoration, prayer based on this divine law lifts thought to the conviction that spiritual creation is always in perfect balance – beautiful, pure, and uncontaminated. This spiritual truth has a practical effect on conditions where arestoration is needed, because it relies on the ever-present Mind to make its purifying presence known and felt.
Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered and founded Christian Science, provided an insight relevant to the crisis in the Gulf. “Adhesion, cohesion, and attraction,” she wrote, “are properties of Mind. They belong to divine Principle, and support the equipoise of that thought-force, which launched the earth in its orbit and said to the proud wave, ‘Thus far and no farther’ ” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 124).
To the onrush of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, God’s law can say again, “Thus far and no farther.” Step by step, as each of us comprehends something of the order and indestructibility of God’s creation, we can gain the spiritual conviction that proving God’s uninterrupted control of creation is possible in the Gulf, in the sea, and on land. Our prayers can help those closely involved in the efforts to contain and clean up the oil spill – wherever healing and restoration are needed.
