WHEN someone is caught in the icy grip of intense fear, it's still possible to become aware — even if only for an instant — that something very different from evil is there to be felt. It's tangible and good — a call just to be still, even when you think you can't possibly do that. But the briefest awareness that it's actually possible to think for oneself, even in the face of fear that seems overwhelming, also brings the promise of more such moments. And it only takes an instant to begin.

A calming moment of heaven-sent peace is the beginning of fresh readiness to face down anxiety and act responsibly in spite of it. It's a kind of split-second prayer. And I've been doing a lot of this sort of praying lately in trying to follow the wild whipsawing of reporting: "Cities in America and Europe have the jitters over war and terror threats"; "Duct tape now"; "Duct tape not yet." These reports remind me of other stressful times when brief instants of intelligent reassurance became longer moments of real peace from within. And it's those instants I remember most. They remain long after fear has faded.

When the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 came to a peaceful end, everyone was greatly relieved. But as a naval officer who had received a specific threat of hostile fire against my ship, heavily loaded with aviation gasoline, the relief was unforgettable. I had to grapple with intense fear right where I stood, uncomfortably close to the South China coast. And it was an instant of deep calm coming straight from the divine presence that pulled me through to do what I needed to do right then.

A decade later while I was living in the Philippines, the house next door to me came under heavy machine-gun fire from a communist New Peoples Army hit squad. As I crouched on the concrete floor with bullets streaming around, it was one instant of inner stillness — the presence of the divine dimension of life — that calmed my fear and helped me help others begin to feel that presence themselves.

These moments when we learn that nothing can stop the warm flow of intelligent guidance and safety coming from God, who is the divine Mind, bring the assurance described in the 91st Psalm that there is always room for us in "the secret place of the most High." This is the presence of a real God, experienced as refuge, fortress, strong deliverer. In one of her sermons, Mary Baker Eddy amplified this forcefully: "Know, then, that you possess sovereign power to think and act rightly, and that nothing can dispossess you of this heritage and trespass on Love" (Pulpit pulpit and Press, p. 3).

Later on, in the spring of 1986, moments of assurance and deepening trust helped me and my family as we dealt with the mental and physical fallout from the Chernobyl disaster. Near the end of a conference on responsible media reporting in Vienna, we were part of a dinner conversation with then director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Dr. Hans Blix, as he received the first word of the nuclear catastrophe and hurriedly excused himself. The expression that night on his usually impassive diplomat's face was unforgettable.

Fear had to be faced then just as it does now. For many weeks after Chernobyl, undercurrents of panic and dire predictions spread wildly in the European press. Was the milk safe or contaminated? Had mountain trout and Finnish strawberries and children's sandboxes absorbed fallout?

On work assignments in far northern Scandinavia, Poland, and while at home in central Europe, I was able to have moments of healing reassurance, as did others coping with gnawing uncertainties. Over and over again, I felt the effects of split-second prayer leading to deep-seated calm. This wasn't — and isn't — a mere denial of catastrophe. I was really being helped to face down fear. It showed me we can feel God's care, day or night. And it starts with an instant!