the antidote to hurricanes

By Rosalie E. Dunbar

Whether people in your part of the world call such storms hurricanes, typhoons, or cyclones (they're all technically tropical cyclones), you've probably seen reports about them. And each report is a call for prayer.

Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, found that prayer is an effective tool for protecting oneself from severe weather. She asked her staff to pray during droughts and also to specifically pray for protection against "cyclones ... tornadoes ... destructive lightning." On at least one occasion, she explained that the desired outcome of such prayer is not to control the weather but to experience "God's weather, the weather of Love" (Z32, The Mary Baker Eddy Collection, The Mary Baker Eddy Library).

Despite years of research, scientists still have many questions about how hurricanes develop and what sustains them, but they certainly are not "the weather of Love." A global phenomenon, there are about 85 tropical cyclones each year, and so far no human method of stopping or controlling them has been found.

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