Article April 28, 2014 Issue

Coram Deo

Christopher Cieply

As I scanned down to the end of a friend’s e-mail, concluding his signature were the words coram Deo. We live in a time of fascinating valedictions and closings to written communication. How uniquely interesting to see this Latin mystery—I was going to have to look this one up.

It turns out that coram Deo translates loosely as “in the presence of God.” In other words, my friend was affirming his allegiance to live in God’s presence, under His authority. How beautiful.

Christian Science reveals this fundamental fact of being: that man is never really outside of God’s presence. The presence of God and the presence of man are never two separate states of being, though it may seem otherwise. The reality is that there is only the unity of God and man. To me every healing in Christian Science is accompanied in some way by the realization of the presence of God.