Fallout from the US subprime mortgage market is rippling around the world, and on Friday the US Federal Reserve intervened, cutting its discount rate by half a percentage point in an attempt to ease the turmoil. The Fed also is signaling another intervention may be in order: a drop in short-term interest rates in September. But whether or not the Fed takes further steps, each one of us can intervene in very helpful ways.
The problems in the subprime mortgage market were caused by a variety of dubious practices, some of them downright fraudulent, which resulted in an inordinate number of bad loans—loans which borrowers now cannot repay. Looking at things from a spiritual perspective, we can help undercut fraud and its effects.
Speaking of God, the Psalmist says "Honour and majesty are before him: strength and beauty are in his sanctuary" (Ps. 96:6). It seems honesty and majesty were conspicuously absent from some areas of the subprime mortgage market—a market now exhibiting anything but strength and beauty. Does this mean that God is absent and unable to help in the current situation?
No. God is very present, and so are His honor and majesty—honor and majesty that must be expressed. That's the spiritual fact. As we stick with it as we go about our daily lives, we'll be doing our part to undercut fraud and strengthen financial markets and humanity as a whole.
How do we do this? The Psalmist has some ideas about this too. Referring to God, he says, "Be thou my strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort: . . . Let my mouth be filled with thy praise and with thy honour all the day. . . . I will go in the strength of the Lord God: I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only" (Ps. 71:3, 8, 16). We can realize that we "live" with God and so live with His honor and majesty; we're His spiritual expression, so in reality we can't do anything but express His honor and majesty. This gives us strength to think and act properly. If we see evidence that others aren't thinking and acting the way they should, we can "make mention of [God's] righteousness." This probably doesn't mean walking through the doors of financial institutions and spouting Scripture. Rather, it means that we mentally reject the evidence that anything can be outside God's control, outside His honor and majesty; we allow only His goodness to fill our thought. This has results, as Christ Jesus famously proved when he reformed a corrupt financial official by seeing him as "a son of Abraham" (see Luke 19:1–10)—as God's spiritual expression. It can have the same sort of results today. As Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, which explains the spiritual laws that Jesus applied, writes, "Holding the right idea of man in my mind, I can improve my own, and other people's individuality, health, and morals. . ." (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 62).
Sticking with the spiritual fact of God's honor and majesty, we see that we and everyone else have to express honor and majesty. This can short-circuit fraud, greed, and fear. It allows us to identify ourselves and others as spiritual, fully sustained by God, rather than as fearful, money-hungry mortals grabbing for bigger pieces of the economic pie by whatever means are at hand. And this viewpoint wields spiritual power. As Mrs. Eddy writes in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (p. 114), "Christian Science explains all cause and effect as mental, not physical. . . . It shows the scientific relation of man to God, disentangles the interlaced ambiguities of being, and sets free the imprisoned thought." Focusing on the spiritual fact, we grasp that there aren't a variety of factors operating, sometimes in arcane or even inexplicable ways; we see instead that everything is actually derived from God, good, and this understanding brings good into our lives and the lives of others as well.
And we don't have to worry that there isn't enough good to go around. Jesus proved this on various occasions when material resources looked hopelessly inadequate (see, for instance, Matt. 14:15–21). Christian Science points out the spiritual law behind such abundance: "God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis. . . . The human capacities are enlarged and perfected in proportion as humanity gains the true conception of man and God" (Science and Health, p. 258). We all have a boundless basis, and understanding the relation we all have with God as His spiritual expression can bring abundant goodness into our lives here and now, no matter what financial statements and balance sheets are saying.
As we gain clearer views of our relationship with God, will all the world's financial hardships disappear? No—certainly not overnight; there's lots of thought out there that runs contrary to what's spiritually true. But as we keep our own head in the right place, we can expect adequate finances ourselves, and our mental stance will help others move in that direction too.
James writes in the Bible, ". . . whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed" (James 1:25) And the Apostle Paul writes, ". . . where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (II Cor. 3:17). Grasping God's goodness, realizing His presence, and living that understanding to the best of our ability, we'll be "intervening" in financial markets in ways that can help everyone have all they need.
That's effective intervention.
Link
The Christian Science Monitor — "Fed Eyes Rate Cuts to Calm Market"
