Article July 6, 1912 Issue

SPIRITUAL-MINDEDNESS

J. W. WRIGHT

The very fact that one's nature rebels instinctively at anything which calls for excessive effort, indicates that such effort is abnormal. An overwrought and overanxious condition of thought is neither natural nor effective of results. Discouragement sometimes comes to the person who is taking his first steps Spiritward, toward higher and nobler levels, and this through the mistaken belief that his progress will require deep and constant spiritual work of some sort—so deep and so constant and so complex that it will be beyond his modest ability; but this erroneous thought is dispelled by Paul's statement that "to be spiritually minded is life and peace."

If we can achieve "life and peace," we may well feel that we have gained all that can be desired or expected on this human plane; and Paul clearly points out a very simple and practical way, viz., to be spiritually minded. No vast task is set before us; no complex work is required of us; no overanxious straining to achieve is necessary. Per contra, we have only to be spiritually minded—then we advance quietly, deliberately, calmly, joyfully, in a wholly normal and natural manner. The wish to be right and just and pure, the quiet seeking for and progress toward the good, the beautiful, and the true, the occupancy of one's thoughts with wholesome things, which means daily right living according to our light,—these simple and joyous and uplifting efforts constitute spiritual-mindedness. This condition is not to be regarded as a distant goal to be reached only through strenuous and long-continued effort of some sort. It is to be a simple, every-day condition of thought and purpose, a mental reaching out "toward the imperishable things of Spirit" (Science and Health, p. 21).

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