Editorial August 28, 1909 ISSUE

SELECTIVE LIVING

John B. Willis

The truly Christian life may be defined as a continuity of right choices, the persistent reelection of the true, the beautiful, and the good to rule over us. The ideal is thus kept ever present, the ethical imperative is ever obeyed, and life is lived on the heights every day. With this position and perspective one learns to divine the deeper significance of every least determination, while the relation of his faithfulness "over a few things" to his rule "over many things" begins to be demonstrated. There is thus brought to unnumbered little choices the moral quality of a great decision, and the reflex stimulus to character becomes that of a stand for right in some momentous crisis, and for the reason that each choice is now a choice for God.

With the average person the passing impulse, which is ordinarily two thirds selfish, or some unaccounted for like or dislike, settles the question what he shall do or say with respect to unnumbered every-day affairs. Many of these decisions may have no more moral quality than the question as to what he will have for dessert. Many others, however, and especially those which have to do with personality or with sense gratification, give place for motive, though the matters concerned may seem relatively trivial; and in every such instance selfishness or unselfishness, largeness or littleness of nature, good or evil, will add to its stature in him, by forming his choice and thus ruling over him.

In the midst of social and business life, all who are not stupidly indifferent or deliberately adrift find themselves ever at the parting of the ways. Their success and happiness, or their defeat and distress, lie just beyond, and the history of human stumbling presents no more pitiful fact than the regret and self-condemnation for some overwhelming loss which has resulted in the failure at a given time to stand for an ideal which was clearly seen but reckoned too unimportant to be given the scepter. Nevertheless, the heartache of many such experiences often seems necessary before men are willing to learn that spiritual growth is a matter not only of sensitiveness to the divine in the detail of experience, but of loyalty to God in these little things.

It is apparent that the effort to live in this selective way, though ever so sincere and continuous, must prove wholly unsatisfying and unsuccessful if it is not intelligent. Things must be looked at in a broad way, discrimination must be made between essentials and non-essentials, and the necessity of a choice of the lesser of two evils must often be recognized. Mrs. Eddy has frequently called attention to the unwisdom of trying to meet the demands of absolute Science, whether or no, and has counseled Christian Scientists to be reserved about undertaking that which lies beyond their present spiritual realization. They are "to abandon so fast as practical the material" p. 254, and thus come into the fulness of their freedom and efficiency not perforce, but through the unfoldment of truth in consciousness. Selective living thus calls for the determination both of what is right and what is possible under present conditions. We need to know not only what pertains to absolute Science, but what pertains to human sense at a given stage of its advancement; and it is here that the inconsiderate and enthusiastic are likely to merit the name "crank," and become a disability to the cause they honestly desire to serve.

The initial choice of selective living is always made in the realm of thought, and hence the significance of our Leader's counsel to "stand porter" p. 392 at its door. So long as any hospitality is given to the unideal within, so long will the tempting voices without he given a hearing. When, however, through patient effort the courts of consciousness are made inaccessible to every unholy thought, the seductions of objective evil will have lost their charm, and the true freedom of right choice will have been attained.

John B. Willis.
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LETTERS TO OUR LEADER
August 28, 1909
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