FROM THE EDITORS May 25, 2009 Issue

REVERSING THE SPREAD OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Editor

IRAN HURTLES AHEAD with its development of both a nuclear weapon and a delivery system for the device. When might it succeed? Pakistan aims to keep its weapons safely locked up. What if it fails? North Korea continues its nuclear grandstanding. What if it miscalculates? Al Qaeda thirsts for a nuclear device. What if it gets one? The unnerving questions spill out in fearful discussions everywhere.

The good news? The spread of fear is actually overmatched by a spiritual reality—the spread of God's care. Could that also be true of the weapons themselves? Could their spread also be overmatched by a spiritual reality—by the divinely impelled spread of God's presence and power? Consider this. The one Mind and Love of all, the one God, comes with a message of safety and calm to every scene of explosiveness, in every time of uncertainty. That message, which is the Christ, comes with irresistible authority, and keeps on coming to humanity until explosiveness and uncertainty begin to give way to the safety of Mind and the calm of Love. In other words, the spread of God's care is made practical and tangible. To affirm this in prayer is not reckless idealism. It is divinely based realism. It is pragmatic spiritual action.

The book of Deuteronomy states a spiritual fact with poetic simplicity. "As an eagle ... spreadeth abroad her wings ... so the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him" (Deut. 32:11, 12). It is in God's nature to extend His care, to spread His protective presence across all His nestlings, all His offspring. It is in our nature to be His offspring and to be aware of that divinely protective action. It is in our interest to become more conscious of God's shielding and sheltering presence. Then the spiritual truth of God's ever-spreading care begins to counter all sorts of dangers, including those that are nuclear.

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