If you're like me, you not only love living creatures, you also love the earth itself. Saturday, April 22, is a special day if you are a planet lover— it's Earth Day.

My love for our planet doesn't stem from political grounds; it stems from my love for just plain grounds—the ground we grow food on, camping grounds, the ground washed by the sea in the state where I live. I'm also grateful for the ground on which the trees grew that became a part of my house, for the ground that produced the ore that was refined into the structural steel for the buildings in my city, and for the ground that held the oil that made it possible for me to drive to the train station today. The latter may sound odd because, along with such benefits, strip-mining scars and oil spills are among the destructive things that mar our beautiful world. Yet, managing natural resources doesn't have to mean ruinous exploitation.

From a satellite's-eye view, our world looks very inviting. Along a trail I was hiking last summer, the view was more than inviting, it was inspiring. It made me wonder whether it is possible to rescue nature from the things that would despoil it, and restore earth's loveliness around the globe. Yes, it is—and many today are discovering that through discerning the spiritual reality of God's creation we begin to see the most effective remedy— the remedy that prayer provides.

"The Indians," writes Mary Baker Eddy in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "caught some glimpses of the underlying reality, when they called a certain beautiful lake 'the smile of the Great Spirit'" (p. 477). Don't we often feel inspired by nature's beauty because it hints of God's presence and majesty? The early prophets discerned this. As the book of Jeremiah asks: "Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord" (23:24). Yet, spiritual sense makes it clear that nature isn't God. God is divine Spirit. Thinking of God as nature is the basis of pantheism, which misinterprets God altogether. Christ Jesus said, as John's Gospel records, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth" (4:24).

God's creation isn't material at all. It doesn't even embrace matter. And a realization of this fact is the basis for an improved environment. Referring to pagan sun worshipers, Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, comments in The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany: "They were content to look no higher than the symbol. This departure from Spirit, this worshipping of matter in the name of nature, was idolatry then and is idolatry now" (p. 151).

We look "higher than the symbol," because in this way we perceive, even if only faintly sometimes, God's, Spirit's, expression. There is truly only one creation—God's spiritual creation. Instead of searching for God in the material, we find both God and His creation when we start our reasoning from the basis of divine Spirit as the only reality. Then we value more deeply God's spiritual qualities hinted at in nature's magnificence, solidity, and beauty. Understanding that there is only one creation, entirely spiritual and good, helps to bring renewal and regeneration to the earth and its resources, and to prevent potential damage or danger. How does this happen? Through prayer!

Knowing that God's creation is substantial, or, more accurately, spiritually substantial, gives us an effective basis from which to pray when we hear of poisonous mine tailings and oil spills, of deforestation in South America, Africa, and Asia. Why does prayer actually work to contribute to healing the environment? Because the human experience is the outcome of how people think. In other words, our quality of life is determined by our quality of thought. And prayer, discerning spiritual reality, enlightens and purifies human thought.

Prayer does not involve changing thought through human will. Rather we look to the fact that God alone is man's Mind and that this Mind is the only power, and is able to render destructive impulses harmless. No disaster can abuse or deplete the activity of God's law. Knowing this doesn't trivialize disaster—it brings divinely based power to bear on human needs.

For example, when Christ Jesus and some of his disciples were crossing the Sea of Galilee, a sudden, dangerous storm threatened to founder the craft. "Peace, be still" was Jesus' authoritative rebuke to the storm. The power behind divine law understood, manifesting the truth of God's harmonious creation, enabled Jesus to speak with this authority. The Bible account in Mark's Gospel then says, "And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm" (4:39).

We can follow Jesus' example and pray about natural (and man-made) disasters—both the ones that happen suddenly and the ones that seem to be happening gradually. And our prayer can have the same power of God to change human thought, thereby changing the environment. Knowing that we don't depend on "mother earth" but on the one true cause and creator, our Father-Mother God, gives us a sure, spiritual basis for restoring or maintaining earth's beauty and purity. God's infinite goodness can't ever be depleted or misused.

"Eternal things (verities) are God's thoughts as they exist in the spiritual realm of the real. Temporal things are the thoughts of mortals and are the unreal, being the opposite of the real or the spiritual and eternal," states Science and Health (p. 337). God's perfect, spiritual creation is what we all depend on, and this is what the magnificence of nature points to when viewed from the proper perspective. From the most simple to the most majestic, mountains, animals, seas, and icecaps hint at the permanent place of every spiritual, good idea, constantly reflecting and expressing God.

Mark Swinney Managing Editor