Article June 4, 2012 Issue

Be yourself

Jon Ward

Anyone who has been involved in drama or theater productions knows about portraying a fictitious character. But don’t we all sometimes play roles, knowingly or unknowingly? We may find ourselves acting in ways that include elements of selfishness, anger, or dishonesty—qualities we wish not to express.

In a way, it comes back to the popular mantra, “Be yourself!” We each have a unique spiritual identity, comprised only of good qualities that we reflect from God. And being authentic really means being true to this perfect identity. Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, wrote in Science and Health, “The divine Mind maintains all identities, from a blade of grass to a star, as distinct and eternal” (p. 70). And, later, she added: “Identity is the reflection of Spirit, the reflection in multifarious forms of the living Principle, Love. Soul is the substance, Life, and intelligence of man, which is individualized, but not in matter” (p. 477).

You know, if several of us stood around, say, the Washington monument in Washington, DC, and all of us produced a detailed sketch of it, each rendering would present a different view because we would be standing in different places. We would have seen the subject from a unique perspective, so we could not produce the same image. Just so, we are all individual reflections of God, each having the same subject, the Father, and repertoire of spiritual qualities—but our own uniqueness. Our identity includes no element of limitation or error—but it’s also a completely unique expression of God’s qualities. I once heard Dr. Laurance Doyle, in giving a Christian Science lecture, put it like this: “We are all originals . . . no one is as good at being you as you are.”