As a cargo pilot, I’ve been flying around the world with a front-row seat, you could say, on the global pandemic. Businesses have been opening up again, but for many weeks cities such as Paris, Dubai, and New Delhi were empty and airport shops shrink-wrapped. And then there was China, which seemed like another planet. In late March, after blocking in at our gate in Guangzhou, it took about three hours for us to get through Customs and Immigration and medical screening for COVID-19. 

The fear of contagion is something pilots deal with all the time, traveling from country to country and being in close quarters in a cockpit for long periods. By watching my thoughts and allowing in only spiritual thoughts from God, I’ve had quick healings of contagious disease and have often experienced the preventative effects of prayer.   

This latest trip to China reminded me of a time several years ago when I was flying around Asia and the captain came down with symptoms of the flu during a flight into Guangzhou. The coughing and other symptoms were aggressive, and he apologized to me several times because he was sure he had passed the flu on to me. 

After we landed, the captain called in sick and removed himself from the rest of the trip. I went into my scheduled crew rest at our hotel. When I woke up the next morning, I had all the symptoms of the flu. Feeling the need for support, I called a family member and asked her to read to me the essay “Contagion” by Mary Baker Eddy, in which she assures us that “… good is more contagious than evil, since God is omnipresence,…” The essay also includes this passage from Psalm 91, which speaks of God’s protecting power: “Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 229). 

I felt much better as I pondered and accepted with conviction the ideas of divine Truth in this essay. Within a short time that morning, I was totally free of the flu symptoms and able to fly the rest of my scheduled trip. 

We are not the medium of evil or disease, but reflect and express God’s goodness and harmony. 

Today, as I think about the many who have been affected by the COVID-19 crisis, several thoughts have come to me. For instance, in regard to the issue of breathing, I have thought about something that the Discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, once told one of her students: “May, O may the Love divine feed you and fill you with a strong sense of liberty, of waking from the [dream] of life in lungs—the Infinite in the finite[—]and show you just how a lie destroys itself by saying I am real” (Mary Baker Eddy to Calvin C. Hill, April 10, 1908; L15590, The Mary Baker Eddy Library; © The Mary Baker Eddy Collection).

As I pondered this statement while praying one day, I became increasingly convinced that life is not dependent on lungs, or any other organ, because I understood that as God’s reflection, we are entirely spiritual. Life and being are sustained not by matter, or even an etherealized form of matter called air, but by divine Spirit, which governs every aspect and function of our being. I saw more clearly that the infinite was not in the finite—not in lungs, not in the material body. What we need is more of the inspiration of Spirit—of the understanding of the fundamental point that infinite Life, which man expresses as God’s reflection, is independent of inert, mindless matter. We are not the medium of evil or disease, but reflect and express God’s goodness and harmony. 

This is brought out in Christ Jesus’ statement “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). That simple, deep, and powerful truth has healed me so many times. This doesn’t mean that the infinite, God, is contained in the finite, or even in His spiritual formations, for that would be impossible. But rather, infinite Spirit, God, is reflected by man, and reigns within us totally. And if the kingdom of God is within me and everyone—if divine Truth and Love are supplying us with the consciousness of goodness, health, purity, and holiness—there’s just no room for anything else in our thinking, and the body manifests what’s in thought. 

Rather than run from my neighbor’s problem, I shut out the fear and started to pray silently.

Now, as I fly around the planet I feel God’s presence more consistently, and that God, good, is omnipresent and fills all space. I love how Mrs. Eddy says it: “Our Father is everywhere present and it is His presence and power that heals” (Mary Baker Eddy to George B. Wickersham, March 19, 1885; L07907, The Mary Baker Eddy Library; © The Mary Baker Eddy Collection). This is a potent reminder that holiness and health are more “catching” than sin and disease because God is the only cause and is everywhere. Still more, I’m gaining a conviction that because God is good, and is infinite Love, He didn’t make COVID-19 or any other disease. They are no part of His creation, which is entirely spiritual and good. 

Recently, I had another opportunity to affirm these truths. While I was staying in a hotel in the United States, a man in the room next to me started coughing incessantly. I needed to sleep, so I was tempted to pack up and move to another room. But the man’s hacking sounded so alarming that I felt compassion for him. Rather than run from my neighbor’s problem, I held my ground, shut out the fear, and started to pray silently. As I prayed, I felt this conviction that God fills all space. I declared that the kingdom of God is within me and my neighbor, until this spiritual truth broke the dream of disease in my own thought. After about ten minutes, the man in the next room stopped coughing. I went to sleep. In the middle of the night I woke up. All was still quiet and peaceful next door, and I decided to include all mankind in my prayers before going back to sleep. 

In my travels I’ve had many opportunities to pray for myself and mankind, whether I’m in a hotel room or in the confines of our plane’s cockpit miles above the earth. When I hear about anything related to this pandemic, I always return to the fact that God and His goodness are everywhere, filling all space. This is the spiritual, disease-free atmosphere in which we all “live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28).