Article December 26, 1983 Issue

Remove the clay

[Original in Spanish]

OLGA PACCI

One of the basic teachings of Christian Science is that evil, inharmony, disease, and death are not God-created realities. In Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy we read: "The Bible declares: 'All things were made by Him [the divine Word]; and without Him was not anything made that was made.' This is the eternal verity of divine Science. If sin, sickness, and death were understood as nothingness, they would disappear. As vapor melts before the sun, so evil would vanish before the reality of good. One must hide the other. How important, then, to choose good as the reality!"^{Science and Health, pp. 480–481.}

A person might admit that this reasoning is logical, then waver and say, "But what about that which I see and hear? What about the evil that presents itself in many forms—poverty, disease, limitations on all the things around me? I would like to believe that all this suffering is false, that it is not real. But, whether or not it is of God, here it is, and it seems very real to me."

Well, let's imagine that we own a clay statue inherited from our ancestors. We are visited by an expert in antiquities who tells us that the statue is not clay but actually pure alabaster, of incalculable value. In order to enjoy its beauty, he counsels, we should get rid of the clay covering it. Having faith in our friend, we should get rid of the clay covering it. Having faith in our friend, we begin our task and find that in spite of its having been covered for so long, the statue has lost none of its original whiteness, shape, or value. You could say that the alabaster was the truth of the statue all along; it was just waiting to be uncovered.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Spiritual seeing reveals true being