Watching before the news
For many today, keeping abreast of current affairs means “doomscrolling” – exercising the digitally enhanced ability to consume a constant stream of sensationalized or bad news. At the other end of the spectrum is “news avoidance,” ceasing to consume news at all for the sake of one’s mental well-being.
But there’s a standpoint from which we can actively engage with the news with God-grounded hope. We can take to heart the good news shared by Jesus – that there’s an actual kingdom of good to behold, one that the material senses can’t see but that a spiritual sense within us all is fully capable of discerning. Every glimpse of this all-harmonious kingdom lifts us above either pessimism or optimism to trust the impact of God’s influence.
Such a steady trust in God isn’t blind faith in an occasionally interventionist creator. It’s “fact-checking” against Christ, the true idea of God, all that we take in. As infinitely powerful and all-loving Spirit, God creates, sustains, and knows us as His spiritual offspring. We can feel the assurance of this when barraged by reports of problems near and far.
Jesus best evidenced the power of this higher, healing Christ view to beneficially influence issues, and we can follow his example rather than simply reacting with fear, anger, or resignation. The Gospel of Matthew reports what happened when Jesus was presented with a stream of “bad news” reports on a mountain near the Sea of Galilee: “Great multitudes came unto him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus’ feet; and he healed them” (15:30).
Jesus wasn’t just physically up on a mountain; his consciousness was elevated above what materially seemed to be. Jesus’ outlook – his elevated view of knowing what we each spiritually are – transcended, and thus corrected, the physical senses’ false report of a litany of woes. Today, we can pattern his approach and lean on God with a steadfast heart to hear inspired healing ideas that lift us to perceive what’s spiritually true – whether we’re helping an individual seeking physical healing or discerning humanity’s broader yearning for solutions to economic, social, and political woes.
Even when we desire to respond in this healing way, though, the feeling that there is just too much to pray about can keep us from praying about anything. But we can counter this suggestion.
First, we can take steps to purify our motives in ways that we want to see the world’s motives purified. Prioritizing our own spiritual growth does not mean neglecting humanity’s needs, as the discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, intimated to a student of hers.
She wrote of such growth in the understanding and demonstration of what’s spiritually true of our relationship to God, “Yes, dear one, begin at home as you said; labor for your own sanctification, spirituality, health, holiness. I find that in proportion as I do this for myself, the whole world feels it” (Yvonne Caché von Fettweis and Robert Townsend Warneck, “Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer,” Amplified Edition, pp. 238-239). To the degree that we replicate this honest, humble labor of love, we too can be confident its impact will be more widely felt.
Second, we can keep from being overwhelmed by all that’s happening in the world by simply starting with a single issue of concern. In whatever way it comes to us to do this, we can pray to grasp the spiritual counterfact that divine harmony never lapses into inharmony. Then, like a sentinel who’s clear about what the surrounding landscape should look like, we will discern specific lies of the belief in matter-based life that don’t represent the all-harmoniousness of divine Life, God. And we can refute those claims as false, with powerful prayerful protests.
We can know that God, good, is the only cause. We can hold to the substantiality of the qualities that Christ reveals as real, such as love, generosity, and peace. Understanding that these ever-constructive qualities infinitely outweigh their suppositional opposites is an unseen but not unfelt influence in world consciousness. It helps tip the scale of thought to spiritual ideas that open the way to solutions.
Giving more time to self-purification and specific prayer for issues needing healing relieves us of either doomscrolling or news-avoidance habits. And it brings Christ’s ever-present healing influence to bear where it’s most needed: on the front line of thought, aiding humanity’s progress by bringing to light the divine Mind’s sole control.
Adapted from an editorial published in the July 24, 2023, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.
