Making a difference with ‘thermostat’ prayers

A weather alert flashed across my smartphone, advising me to prepare for another day of record-breaking temperatures. Not just where I live, but globally, weather extremes have affected millions of individuals.

Having previously experienced the effectiveness of prayer through my study and practice of Christian Science, I wanted to pray about this – but how?

That’s when I came across a quote by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Referring to the early days of Christianity, he wrote, “In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.”

While Dr. King’s words were aimed at social justice, they got me thinking about how the idea of thermometers and thermostats might apply to prayer about the weather. Thermometers record. Thermostats transform.

Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, saw a connection between the damaging characteristics of mortal, selfish, material ways of thinking and destructive environmental phenomena. She observed, “Erring power is a material belief, a blind miscalled force, the offspring of will and not of wisdom, of the mortal mind and not of the immortal. It is the headlong cataract, the devouring flame, the tempest’s breath. It is lightning and hurricane, all that is selfish, wicked, dishonest, and impure” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 192).

By contrast, God is the infinite, all-loving, all-powerful divine Mind that “sends forth the aroma of Spirit, the atmosphere of intelligence” (Science and Health, pp. 191-192). Being infinite, this Mind, Spirit, is the only legitimate source or creator. And its creation – all that’s good and true – is entirely spiritual and harmonious.

Christ Jesus illustrated how realizing the supremacy of this atmosphere of divine intelligence – recognizing spiritual harmony, not physical inharmony, as fixed fact – has practical value. Once when Jesus was traveling with his disciples by boat, they encountered a fierce storm. His disciples were afraid that they all might perish. But instead of accepting the storm as inescapable, Jesus brought the disciples into the peace of God – the only real atmosphere there is. He did this by casting out the fear that had kept the disciples from discerning the harmony of God right at hand.

Each of us, too, can learn from Jesus’ example and apply it today.

Several years ago, our family partnered with a farmer to grow crops on some land that we owned. One year the farmer informed us that due to extreme drought conditions, we would likely lose the entire crop.

I had experienced through Christian Science that the human picture adjusts as spiritual facts clear away material beliefs and fears. So my prayers to address this situation involved reasoning with spiritual facts.

For instance: All that truly exists is spiritual ideas – created and sustained by the Mind that is God, and therefore already including everything needed to be complete and healthy. God’s creation can’t lack anything needed to fulfill its purpose and be productive. Also, since another synonym for God is Love, as the Bible puts forth, divine creation includes no harshness to cause damage.

It took some discipline to hold to those spiritual facts, since initial reports did not support that outlook. However, when we next had the opportunity to visit the area, neighbors asked us what we had done to produce such a good crop. We hadn’t even been able to water the crops. The only thing that accounted for the difference was prayer!

In a short piece for the Boston Globe, Mary Baker Eddy wrote, “... the atmosphere of the human mind, when cleansed of self and permeated with divine Love, will reflect this purified subjective state in clearer skies, less thunderbolts, tornadoes, and extremes of heat and cold...” (“The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany,” p. 265).

Prayer based on the spiritual fact of God’s goodness and supremacy brings about an understanding that turbulent, destructive qualities are not part of the true nature of any of God’s creation – including us, as children of God. This opens the door to seeing inharmony give place to harmony.

Such prayers are more than thermometers rising and falling with prevailing attitudes. They have the potential to be thermostats, bringing to hearts, minds, and lives the calming influence of divine Love as a fresh breath from heaven.