Article July 7, 2014 Issue

Addressing the threat of forest fires

Paula Broock

As I prepared for a trip last summer, I wondered if it was prudent to drive into areas where the fire danger was posted as high. Even in my home state of Oregon, a forest fire had been burning for many weeks and was still being reported as zero percent contained. There was definitely an element of fear and worry involved in planning my trip.

I thought back to a forest fire that had burned across southern Oregon in 2002. While firefighters from around the world worked tirelessly to contain the blaze, our Christian Science branch church decided to do a round-the-clock prayer watch with volunteers taking turns praying for two hours at a time. The experience really brought home to me that we can do our part in helping during times of trouble through prayer.

I still remember some of the comforting ideas I heard from the “still small voice” (I Kings 19:12) during my first watch in the middle of the night. They all centered on divine Love: Love “turneth away wrath” (Proverbs 15:1); “... Love fill[s] all space” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 520). It was clear to me that there can be no other presence or power apart from God; no place outside divine Love’s care and control; no place for error to go or spread or build. Since divine Love is the only presence, there is nothing to feed or fan a destructive fire. In fact, fan is the “separator of fable from fact; …” (Science and Health, p. 586). Elsewhere, Mrs. Eddy adds: “The human mind will sometime rise above all material and physical sense, exchanging it for spiritual perception, and exchanging human concepts for the divine consciousness. Then man will recognize his God-given dominion and being” (Science and Health, p. 531).