A prayerful response to threats of flu

Centuries ago, the prophet Isaiah delivered a promise from God. It began, “Fear thou not; for I am with thee.” That sounds like a heads-up for the avalanche of 21st-century challenges that cannot be ignored—among them, decisions about healthcare that loom with Goliath-like question marks.

Recent reports about the H1N1 virus, also called swine flu, have gathered some pretty impressive statistics under the umbrella of public health emergency. Plans are under way to launch the biggest vaccination program in US history. But there are also concerns that the new vaccine has been developed too quickly, that the supply won’t be sufficient, and that it takes too long to become effective. Some public schools are confused about when to close and when to stay open. Many parents are in doubt about how to keep their children safe.

But there’s good news, too. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have urged people not to panic. They report that the dire predictions are not likely to materialize. Simple precautions, like hand washing, make sense. So far, swine flu has done less damage than ordinary seasonal flu, although the threat of both certainly demands attention.

It would seem that caring individuals can either react with fear, or respond with healing solutions. That’s why Isaiah’s timeless insight is so relevant today. The promise continues: “Be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.”

Humankind has made valiant efforts throughout the ages to alleviate suffering. Progress so far has largely followed the line of material reasoning. But Christ Jesus brought an entirely different concept to bear on healing. He lifted Isaiah’s comforting compassion to the strength of law. Referring to his own divine nature, Jesus said he had come to fulfill the law. And note how he did it—he healed disease thought to be incurable. He stilled storms. He found tax money in a fish’s mouth. He fed multitudes. He raised the dead. Then he told his followers to go and do likewise.

Taking a deep look at how Jesus established and restored health, one finds that he invariably began with Spirit, not matter. From beginning to end, he put God first. His healing work wasn’t experimental. He taught and demonstrated the inseparable link between God and a creation made in God’s likeness. God originates health; man and woman express it—a perfect partnership.

Christian Science leans on this partnership. It highlights the Scriptural revelation that we are God’s image. It declares that God is the source of all good, and logically, that must include the health of men, women, and children everywhere. From that standpoint, health is not a gamble but the normal, natural condition of everyone as God’s reflection, or likeness.

With God as its source, health is based on and protected by the law of the First Commandment to have no other gods. This law is the property of one God, one divine Mind. Mary Baker Eddy’s book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures clarifies this point: “Health is not a condition of matter, but of Mind; nor can the material senses bear reliable testimony on the subject of health.” That statement jogs us to take a firm stand: Don’t believe everything you hear. Don’t even believe everything you think. Ask God first.

Based on the understanding that health originates in God, spiritual healing doesn’t try to improve on His creation. Rather, it demonstrates what’s already true. That means spiritual health, understood, shows up tangibly in our lives as wellness. The emphasis in healing is on making the perfection of Spirit apparent. Yet the temptation to begin with the problem, and to think health depends on matter, is strong.

To counter this mistaken approach to healing, we need to strengthen our understanding of spiritual law. Since God is infinite good, and we reflect His nature, we all express spiritual wholeness, including health, now and always. It can be helpful to think of this partnership of cause and effect as the law of likeness—what the original is, the likeness must be, as well.

The question is, Can health be demonstrated today as reliably as it was when Jesus blazed a trail of healing throughout his ministry? The answer: If it’s based on the timeless divine law Jesus exemplified, yes, it can.

For example, a few years ago there was a flurry of warnings in the news, similar to those that people are facing today, describing in detail an impending epidemic of influenza—a particularly aggressive form. Children and seniors were declared to be the most vulnerable.

During this time, I received a call from an elderly couple who reported severe symptoms of flu. They asked if I would visit them. I was glad to be of help, but felt the need for reassurance myself. So, as I left the office where I conduct my practice of Christian healing, I paused long enough to pick up copies of the two books ordained as pastor in the Christian Science church, the Bible and Science and Health. The latter explains the law of spiritual healing, referring to this law as Principle, a synonym for God.

As I drove to see this couple, I prayed, listening for ideas from these two books that would strengthen my understanding of God’s law. I knew that this law empowered the healing works of Jesus. I realized that the essence of every idea coming to me began with God, with divine Mind, and not with human intellect. Not with the problem, but with God.

Gradually it became clear to me that wherever God is, health is already present. God is infinite; therefore, God-given health must be infinitely available. That’s how and why it can be experienced—it’s already present. It becomes apparent as we align every thought with the spiritual qualities that constitute the nature of God. Love replaces fear, for instance. Courage removes discouragement. Faith, not hopelessness, is God’s gift. All that is unlike God—anger, resentment, sorrow—must fall before the powerful presence of Principle, divine Love.

Through such reasoning, we begin to feel dominion, spiritual strength. Sickness, having no authority from God, fades. We feel our natural health. This prayerful approach is a mental discipline, but even this is reflected, and not something we originate ourselves.

These ideas were so uplifting to me during my drive to my friends’ home that my confidence reached a state of absolute certainty. When I arrived, I could share with sweet assurance the spiritual ideas that filled my thought. What’s more, I could speak with the same tenderness and compassion I had felt as those healing ideas poured into my own waiting thought.

After about half an hour, I noticed both my friends had fallen peacefully asleep. Healing had taken place gently and quietly. I wanted to sing “Hallelujah!” But it was a moment of such unspeakable joy that I could only whisper my gratitude to God. When spiritual ideas stir thought, they lift prayer to the consciousness of divine Love, where joy is so deeply rooted in the expectancy of good that it prevails even in the midst of a problem. That’s the moment when prayer begins to take on the authority of the Christ.

It’s the Christ, the divine nature of all of us, that moves ideas beyond memorized words to the authority that heals. The Christ inspires, transforms, and spiritualizes human thought. It activates spiritual power, makes prayer effective, and destroys the unhealthy fear that would keep us glued to the problem.

When the Christ removes the mask of a suffering sense of self, and plants identity firmly in the safety of God’s likeness, the Christ-light dawns in individual thought. And that light destroys the darkness of disease. Science and Health says: “Let us banish sickness as an outlaw, and abide by the rule of perpetual harmony,—God’s law. It is man’s moral right to annul an unjust sentence, a sentence never inflicted by divine authority.”

The authority that heals disease also trumps contagion. Contagious disease has an alias—fear. It seems that disease and the fear of it spread together. But, in fact, each of us can reverse this trend. When we feel exposed to our neighbor’s fear, we can stand against it, knowing that, in truth, our neighbor is exposed to the same healing law of Love that we can both understand and express.

Obviously, Jesus didn’t fear contagion, because he touched a man considered leprous and healed him. When an epidemic of fear threatens, we can all find safety by praying for a firmer grasp of our spiritual origin. God has bestowed His healing love upon us, and this dissolves fear and lets our natural, wholesome health shine through.

Flu-proof health cannot be confined to a select few. Through its infinite source, it spreads like a warm blanket over God’s entire creation. Health is a universal spiritual law available to everyone, everywhere, at any time, under any circumstance. It takes effect in individual lives when heartfelt prayer acknowledges God as Life itself.

With fearless compassion, like Isaiah’s, we can embrace all humanity in God’s universal healthcare with this prayer: “God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us; that thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations.”

Marian English, a practitioner and teacher of Christian Science, lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

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