Safe in the city

It was hard to miss the dirty handprint on the wall next to the open window in my new apartment. It hadn’t been there when I’d left the evening before.

The previous day—full of excitement at the prospect of having my own place in this city neighborhood—I had picked up the keys to my apartment and brought over a first load of belongings, including some valuables. During the night, someone had climbed the building’s fire escape, pulled himself through my window, and stolen some of my most prized possessions.

It was quite a shock. The intruder’s handprint on the wall was a vivid invitation to believe that I would not be safe in my new home.

At one time or another, many of us may have received such a dubious invitation from the world around us—whether it’s a media report of crime or something we witness or experience. At such times, we actually have a choice: to accept danger and crime as fixed facts or to turn wholeheartedly to God in prayer and prove His protecting power.

Throughout the Bible, we find compelling evidence of God’s care for His children in times of threat. David defeating Goliath is one example. Christ Jesus, our Way-shower, fully proved the Father’s protection, walking unharmed through angry crowds intent on killing him. These accounts point to a law of God always in effect—a spiritual law of safety understood and trusted. “The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by him,” the Bible tells us, “and the Lord shall cover him all the day long, and he shall dwell between his shoulders” (Deuteronomy 33:12). 

God is infinite, omnipresent Love, and the unceasing activity of Love is to bless. In the divine Love that fills all space, then, how can there be any activity that threatens or harms? In reality, danger has no source or presence. Love’s tender embrace encompasses us all in safety.

We can turn to spiritual facts such as these when faced with a threat of danger or crime. When prayerfully held to with courage and conviction, divine Truth has a definite healing effect in our lives. In fact, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, had strong expectations for the efficacy of our prayers in Christian Science. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, she writes: “… those who discern Christian Science will hold crime in check. They will aid in the ejection of error. They will maintain law and order, and cheerfully await the certainty of ultimate perfection” (p. 97).

Holding crime in check starts in our own thought, with what we are accepting as reality. Suppose, for example, we hear of someone who has committed a crime. How are we thinking about him or her? As a dishonest, desperate mortal? Or as the Bible teaches, the image of God, spiritual and perfect?

Because man is actually the spiritual likeness of God, he is like his Father-Mother and expresses all His varied qualities. God is wholly good, so man must be the expression of good, having only pure motives and thoughts. As the image of Truth, he is naturally truthful and law-abiding. As the expression of infinite Spirit, man is complete, lacking nothing. We can reject as false any picture of man as unlike God.

Holding crime in check starts in our own thought, with what we are accepting as reality.

In our work to “maintain law and order,” we’re not praying to change a bad or dangerous reality into a better, safer one. We’re turning away from the lie of material discord to discern what God already knows about His spiritual creation—its present harmony and perfection. As the spiritual facts become more real to us than the lie, our outward human experience is transformed to give evidence of those facts. In ways we often cannot outline, protection is made evident, harmony is restored, and crime is held in check.

That is exactly what happened in my experience with my new apartment. As I settled in, I prayed to feel more of God’s encompassing love. I also tried to refute any suggestion of possible criminal activity, large or small, that came to thought. My home began to feel safe and comfortable to me.

But God had more to show me of His protecting power. I had been particularly praying to understand that because God is the all-knowing divine Mind, He is ever watchful, ever caring for His children. I had endeavored to see more clearly that as the reflection of this Mind, I could express alertness and watchfulness regarding my home. Not long after, I saw the fruits of these prayers in a dramatic way.

I was wakened from a sound sleep one night with an urgent impulsion from Mind to go quickly into the living room. As I got out of bed, I heard the sound of the living room window being pried open. I ran into the room and came face to face with a man climbing off the fire escape through the window. Still feeling wholly impelled by God—there was no time to reason out what to do—I yelled at him to leave, and I turned to call the police. When I looked up from the phone, he was gone. I had been beautifully protected. God was at that moment my “refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalms 46:1).

The next day the fire escape was adjusted to prevent further intruders, but I had much work to do to feel safe. Despite this clear proof of God’s protecting power, I allowed many “what ifs” to play through my thought. Soon, I found myself terrified to be at home—and equally frightened to be out in my neighborhood. Where could I find safety in this city where I was living?

The answer was to find my safety in the heavenly city that the Apostle John saw in prayer and described in the Bible’s book of Revelation. “The city lieth foursquare …,” he wrote, “And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie” (21:16, 27).

Since God’s allness is wholly good, there could be no “out there” where danger
or evil could come from.

“The Revelator was on our plane of existence, while yet beholding what the eye cannot see,—that which is invisible to the uninspired thought,” writes Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health (p. 573). As experienced through the material senses, a city appears to include both good and evil, because to uninspired thought, it is material. But John saw the heavenly city through his spiritual sense—a city that was wholly spiritual, wholly good. It was a vision of the purity, safety, and protection that are inherent in the allness of God. This heavenly city is actually the only city we really dwell in, and our prayers can lift us from the false picture of city to the true—and cause us to experience the safety of its spiritual walls.

Mrs. Eddy explains the significance of the city’s four sides. She writes: “This spiritual, holy habitation has no boundary nor limit, but its four cardinal points are: first, the Word of Life, Truth, and Love; second, the Christ, the spiritual idea of God; third, Christianity, which is the outcome of the divine Principle of the Christ-idea in Christian history; fourth, Christian Science, which to-day and forever interprets this great example and the great Exemplar” (Science and Health, p. 577).

My eye fell on this passage one day as I was praying to be free of the terror that was plaguing me. I asked myself, “What does this holy city mean for my experience?” If “this spiritual, holy habitation has no boundary nor limit,” I reasoned, I must in fact dwell in God’s allness—the all-encompassing embrace of divine Love. And since God’s allness is wholly good, there could be no “out there” where danger or evil could come from and nothing to invade my home. In the vast everywhereness of God’s allness, there was only safety, harmony, and peace.

I began to see how the four spiritual walls were encompassing my consciousness and were in reality my true home: 

The Word of Life, Truth, and Love. God was expressing Himself. The Word of Life was establishing my being—free, joyful, and full of dominion. The Word of Truth was precluding any false sense of man as evildoer or victim, since the Word declares man to be perfect and good. The Word of Love was destroying fear and comforting me with a tangible sense of my Father-Mother’s care.

The Christ. The Christ, the power and activity of Truth, was lifting me to know who I was as the child of God. I was unscarred and untouched, my consciousness full of the light of the Christ.

Christianity. Both during Jesus’ ministry and afterward, the Christ-idea had been made evident through lives transformed and healed. “The history of Christianity,” Mrs. Eddy writes, “furnishes sublime proofs of the supporting influence and protecting power bestowed on man by his heavenly Father, omnipotent Mind, who gives man faith and understanding whereby to defend himself, not only from temptation, but from bodily suffering” (Science and Health, p. 387). God’s power to support and protect was with me moment by moment, just as it was for Christians through history.

Christian Science. The law of God, divine Science, was governing the universe—including me, including my home. It was maintaining order, perfection, and security.

That day, and in the weeks that followed, I felt the strong protection of the walls of the holy city. A complete healing of the terror came very naturally, and a sense of safety returned. I lived in that apartment very happily for several years and had a lovely home there, with no further incidents.

Each one of us has the protection of the four walls of the holy city. The more we understand of God’s omnipresence and omnipotence, the more we can reject the “invitations” that come to us to feel threatened by crime. We get a clearer and clearer sense that the four walls cannot be breached, and that nothing can enter our experience that “defileth … or maketh a lie.” The result is peace and security. Whether we live in an urban neighborhood, the suburbs, or the wide-open countryside, we are safe in “the heavenly city.”