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Navigating the news with hope

A Christian Science perspective.

  • By Barbara Vining

Anyone who takes an active interest in the daily news naturally hopes to see signs of progress in areas of concern for humanity’s welfare. Many people turn to the Monitor to help them navigate through the news and find these positive signs. No one wants the news of the day to toss his or her hope around like a small vessel on an angry sea.

What helps me keep from being agitated by a relentless barrage of negative news is to anchor my hope in God’s ability to guide human thought in healing directions. Then I can bring hope to the news instead of letting the news cast my hope aside.

One definition of hope is “desire accompanied by expectation.” Everyone desires to see improvements in human conditions. The question is, where do we expect these improvements to come from? One of the psalms in the Bible attributed to David tells where he placed his hopes and expectations: “My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him” (Psalms 62:5).

We can expect good to come from God because He is the infinite, divine Mind from whom all creative intelligence derives, and which governs the universe and His sons and daughters, His spiritual reflection. The goodness of God is felt in our lives when we turn humbly to God in prayer with a heart open to His daily inspiration and guidance. With our thought, and therefore our hope, anchored in this spiritual expectation, we will see signs of progress otherwise missed – instead of feeling the constant disappointment that comes from viewing things through our own personal opinions.

With God-anchored hope we can set sail for our journey through the daily news. Through prayer we can hoist our sails (thoughts) in preparation for departure – freed from prejudicial outlining, negative criticism, fear, and apathy. We can do this because it is God Himself that works in us to surrender to the gentle winds of His guidance. “Knowledge that we can accomplish the good we hope for,” wrote Monitor founder Mary Baker Eddy, “stimulates the system to act in the direction which Mind points out” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 394).

Departing for the day’s journey with thoughts full of love for God, and for our fellow beings, we will bring to the news of the day the healing influence of divine Love. This Love will keep our own thoughts at peace even while we grapple with the tough situations facing humanity that we read and hear about. We’ll be able to discern ideas for possible solutions, recognize God’s ability to elevate our thought and the thoughts of others to His wise and intelligent guidance and love, and trust that our prayers are having their beneficial effects.

Because the news of the world comes to us from all directions every day, we can stay on the right course through daily prayer. Hope anchored in God is safe amid the agitation of human alarms and fears. Each day is a new adventure in the power of divine Love to inspire, transform, and redirect the minds of men and women in creative, healing ways that promote progress for everyone. Your prayers contribute mightily to that result.

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

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