Turn off the “evening news blues”

In 1968, I was involved with a commission in New York State whose goal was to reduce racial intolerance among young people. Although I followed civil rights news carefully, I didn’t hear that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had been assassinated until I was on the train the next morning, on my way to a meeting of this commission in New York City.

I’d spent many hours on the commission, helping to develop steps toward improving racial relations, so when I heard this news, I felt things were hopeless. The work we had done suddenly seemed to be going nowhere. I got off the train and headed to the meeting feeling numb.

The Governor, who was at the meeting, was a good friend of Dr. King, and while he was deeply saddened, his remarks pointed to the work yet to be done. This idea helped start my healing process.

On the train home, I opened my copy of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy and came across some statements that helped me put the event into perspective. They also helped me understand what I had to do next.

Speaking of evil in all its forms, which she named “animal magnetism,” Mrs. Eddy wrote: "The mild forms of animal magnetism are disappearing, and its aggressive features are coming to the front. The looms of crime, hidden in the dark recesses of mortal thought, are every hour weaving webs more complicated and subtle. So secret are the present methods of animal magnetism that they ensnare the age into indolence, and produce the very apathy on the subject which the criminal desires."

As I read this, I realized that on my train ride that morning I had almost been “ensnared . . . into indolence” by my feelings of hopelessness and futility. If I had followed those feelings, I might have just turned around and gone home. How grateful I was that my prayers on behalf of racial justice and harmony had strengthened me to go on to the commission meeting instead. It does take courage and a deep desire to see things improve in human affairs to enable one to stand up to such terrible acts as this. That day I was grateful to be able to fall back on the insights I had gained when praying for the work of the commission and also at other times when acts of violence occurred. These prayers came to my aid now and started to replace the hopeless feeling with light from a more active prayer for peace and harmony.

On the ride home, my prayers kept me from being caught in the web of despondency. I could, through the insights of Christian Science, make a contribution to the healing of both the perpetrators and the victims. I knew I had to replace the broadcast picture of violent men and victimized innocence with what I really knew about the man of God’s creating who is spiritual and good.

Mrs. Eddy’s book gives a powerful antidote to apathy: "Mankind must learn that evil is not power. Its so-called despotism is but a phase of nothingness. Christian Science despoils the kingdom of evil, and pre-eminently promotes affection and virtue in families and therefore in the community."

I realized that I needed to extend the affectionate borders of my own sense of community—beyond family and church, beyond maybe even the community I live in, to the world. I came to see that affection was not merely feeling good about someone or something but was a deep and penetrating understanding of the true nature of man, and loving that truth as the actual desire of all people as they progress toward a more spiritual way of life. As these ideas became clearer in my thought, I was able to gain a new sense of the good that could come from such prayers even in situations like this one. It seemed that the very nature of affection was to be hopeful. And I felt convinced—thanks to relying on Christian Science for solving all kinds of problems—that these healing thoughts would make a difference.

Key to those healing thoughts was the knowledge that each of us is truly spiritual, made in God’s likeness. In practice, this means that people can and do respond to their higher nature, and that our prayers can help them make this change for the better.

These thoughts gave me a new commitment to mentally embracing all people, everywhere. As I prayed in this way, my view of the world changed for the better—permanently. I became much more alert to affirm God’s active presence in the world, not just for me and my family, but for everyone.

Prior to this incident, my teenage son used to come into the living room in the evening and turn on the TV, remarking: "Let’s see what's on the evening blues." Since that day on the train, I have tried to make sure I do not let violent and destructive news reports cast a blue shadow on my understanding of the truth that man—meaning both men and women—is God’s child and is cared for by Him.

I’ve been able to respond to each report with a spiritual fact about man’s innate spirituality and affection and how that is really the governing power in everyone’s future.

I truly believe that as each of us engages in this vital resistance to hatred toward others, we will see great changes for the better in human relations and the world.

Peace and healing:

Science and Health
102:16-23
102:30-2 

King James Bible
Mark 12:31
Ps. 18:2