The tangled skein of events in the Middle East—especially current happenings in Iran—may lead us to feel we know where stability is not. Yet stability can be found in Spirit, and Spirit can be found everywhere, because Spirit is everywhere. The role of Christian Scientists in helping to bring healing to discord is not primarily to make political assessments but to know such spiritual truths of being.

According to Christian Science, Spirit's infinitely stable, peaceful kingdom is the only true one. Graphic television coverage of violence and counterforce, of the comings and goings of religious and political personalities seeming to hold vital keys to the Iranian situation, should stir us to affirm truths of being that will help bring calm and healing to the storm and that will support negotiations aimed at settlement. Our need is to focus, just as acutely as we can, on the unchanging, continuous reign of the omnipresent laws of divine Love. In absolute Truth, these laws can never be challenged, and they can never be ineffective.

Our perceiving the spiritual truths of which troubled world events are an inversion plays a pacifying role. It can help modify harsh clashes. The suffering coming from conflict between modernists and traditionalists—between whatever opposing forces claim the attention of mortal thought—can be tempered and healed through prayer. Paul refers to "one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." ^{Eph. 4:6;}

The Science of Christianity shows us how to distinguish between mortal government and divine. The government of Spirit, the only real government, is righteous and steady. It is characterized by continuity. It cannot be fragmented, as human government can be, into abruptly changing political courses bringing chaos. Knowing this, we are assured that under spiritual direction, human adjustments can take place peacefully.

If we are to contribute prayerfully to mankind's well-being, something must happen to our own sense of things. In our thought, matter must give way to Spirit, a sense of government by fallible mortals must give way to the perception of government by divine Principle. We must be attributing healing power to our acknowledgment of real being, knowing that this acknowledgment originates in divine Love and has divine authority.

"An unsettled, transitional stage is never desirable on its own account," ^{Science and Health, p. 65;} Mary Baker Eddy observes, but the outcome of transitional periods—changeover times between old and new forms and attitudes—can be hugely progressive when the truths of Christian Science are understandingly applied. A stirring up of thought and events often presages a healthily steady state of affairs. The important thing is to exercise spiritual sense and see beyond the noise and smoke and confusion of mortal thought. How sure are we of God's love and control? Applying the yardstick of Christ Jesus' judgment to a public crisis of her own day, Mrs. Eddy asserted, "He would mightily rebuke a single doubt of the ever-present power of divine Spirit to control all the conditions of man and the universe." ^{The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 294;} We can rebuke any such doubt we detect in ourselves.

The Middle East is the home of monotheism. The truths of one universal God are potent, when spiritually apprehended, to bring stability and justice where these elements seem lacking. Mrs. Eddy gives this cardinal spiritual truth of government: "In divine Science, God is One and All; and, governing Himself, He governs the universe." ^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 258.} Under divine government there are no boiling passions, implacable hate, or warring factions. The implications of absolute, divine Truth give us ample food for thought and prayer and a solid base for demonstration. The conditions of man, who is the idea of universal Deity, are not in the grasp of mortals but held in the ever-protective palm of divine Love. That is where stability is, always.