A scientific response to Mexican drug cartels
Veracruz, Mexico. From dried chiles and spices to fresh produce and seafood, vendors display their goods at the Mercado Unidad Veracruzana on November 17, 2011, in Veracuz, Mexico.
Since the war with Mexican drug cartels began in the mid-2000s, at least 40,000 people have been killed, including about 4,000 children. Some 230,000 Mexicans have fled from their home cities to escape the violence. Almost daily, newspapers recount the latest actions of the drug dealers who use terror to claim that they are the law of the land.
When President Felipe Calderón, took office five years ago, there were about six cartels—multi-billion dollar operations that control much of the illegal drugs entering the United States. It’s said that the dealers are “just” businessmen with no political agenda, but holding a nation hostage while dealing in illegal drugs is hardly a legitimate business.
President Calderón has made it his business to interrupt their business, and by most accounts his efforts have had some success. Since Calderón cannot succeed himself, a new president will be elected this year. It’s important that the commitment to breaking the grip of the drug lords continue. Readers who are interested in healing have an opportunity to include Mexico, its citizens and its leadership, in their prayers.
Refuse consent to evil
Sometimes situations seem so remote or gruesome that the tendency is to ignore them, or even be grateful that those things aren’t happening in one’s own immediate neighborhood. In today’s world, however, our sense of “neighborhood” has changed radically. Now, neighborhood isn’t composed of just the houses on the block or the apartments in one’s building. Thanks to high-speed travel and communications, we learn about the needs of people in other parts of the world very quickly.
So in the spirit of loving our neighbors as ourselves—and thus following Jesus’ teachings—it seems right to embrace the people of Mexico in our prayers.
A good first step is to reject the belief that evil thoughts and actions are possible in Mexico or anywhere. Given the Christian Science concept that our thoughts govern our experience, if one consents to the belief that evil is active and real for some people, one is, to a degree, accepting the alleged reality of evil for all, including oneself. The argument that evil is real can be challenged by asking, Is there a place where infinite divine Love has chosen to be absent, that is too hopeless or unworthy of God’s love?
That simply isn’t possible under the rule of infinite good. Because God is everywhere, Love, Truth, and Principle are everywhere. And the reality of that divine nature gives strength to our prayers for our own communities and for the Mexican people.
I love this passage from the Bible: “Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there” (Psalms 139:7, 8). The psalm goes on to say that even in the midst of darkness, God is present.
The light of the Christ-truth that Jesus taught and lived is available to all. It provides protection for those who are in trouble or threatened by the drug lords. Its light can guide law enforcement to caches of drugs or weapons, to data that can help interrupt the flow of drugs, and to the perpetrators themselves. It can also turn toward the light those who wish to change their lives for the better.
This same light can provide intelligence and wisdom to the innocent and to those living their lives on the side of good. It will reveal when to act and when to wait, when to go into the enemy’s territory and when to stay away. It can provide patience in the midst of pressure to go forward, or instill courage when fear may seem overwhelming.
Address the fear
Read almost any report on these crimes, and you’ll find that the cartels are sustained by the fear they instill in the community. Some people are courageously rising up, holding antiviolence marches, and so forth. Prayer by those who are not on the battlefront can help sustain them.
Is there a place where infinite divine Love has chosen to be absent, that is too hopeless or unworthy of God's love?
Divine Love truly is ever present and all-powerful. Even though this spiritual fact must be proved, that doesn’t diminish its reality. The first letter of John in the Bible declares, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear” (4:18). All who learn to trust this spiritual truth, even slightly, gain new strength and insight into how to address untoward situations. And they often find that they are lifted out of the necessity for dealing with them.
Jesus demonstrated this perfect love for our benefit. In its ultimate sense, it’s the ability to see each individual as the spiritual idea of God, divine Love, and also to recognize one’s own spiritual authority as God’s idea.
Rule of law
In the midst of fear, death, and chaos, it may be hard to see that the rule of law is even present, much less that it could prevail. Animal magnetism, which Mary Baker Eddy defines as all evil, takes form as a material sense of things. That sense obnoxiously declares: “I am wholly dishonest, and no man knoweth it. I can cheat, lie, commit adultery, rob, murder, and I elude detection by smooth-tongued villainy” (Science and Health, p. 252). Such villainy may seem to go on for a time because its hypnotic effect tends to breed a kind of hopeless passivity, but it can’t permanently blind anyone to the power of good and its ability to overturn evil.
Good prevails because the very nature of the universe is good. Actually, it’s not just good; in the words of the Bible, “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). This is the true nature of all being. Even those who would deny it, ultimately and in some way, will come face to face with unadulterated good. This is an inescapable outcome because Science and Health declares, “Truth, Life, and Love are a law of annihilation to everything unlike themselves, because they declare nothing except God” (p. 243).
Unity of Spirit
In complex situations, there is often the argument that prayer is ineffective or impractical because there are so many individual minds and personalities, all engaged in their own enterprises. The forces of honesty may be divided by different views of how to proceed. The individual drug cartels may seem overwhelmingly massive in workers, resources, and so forth.
Effective prayer turns away from this environment of many warring minds, each struggling for supremacy. It recognizes instead that there is only one power, and only one Mind—namely, God.
Science and Health reveals Mind’s authority over humanly complex situations, declaring, “The exterminator of error is the great truth that God, good, is the only Mind, and that the supposititious opposite of infinite Mind—called devil or evil—is not Mind, is not Truth, but error, without intelligence or reality” (p. 469). The one Mind is well able to guide all those involved in the quest for good.
The people of Mexico have the right to see and to feel God’s healing and protecting presence and to enjoy their beautiful country. Each of our prayers can help open that door to peace.
