Article March 18, 1916 Issue

Serenity in Victory or Defeat

ELIZABETH H. MURDOCK

In all the relations of life, whether in the family, in society, business, politics, or religion, mankind are apt to experience the friction and inharmony of clashing human opinions and human wills, and well were it if all were able to manifest the beautiful spirit Mrs. Eddy describes when she says (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 224): "We should go forth . . . with a temper so genial that the friction of the world shall not wear upon our sensibilities; with an equanimity so settled that no passing breath nor accidental disturbance shall agitate or ruffle it; with a charity broad enough to cover the whole world's evil, and sweet enough to neutralize what is bitter in it."

It is probably clear to us all that much of our trouble is due to the existence of a dominating quality in human thought, which makes us determined, unconsciously perhaps, to have our own way, proud and vainglorious if we get it, and humiliated and resentful if we do not. Our great necessity is therefore to find some practical way to free ourselves from this human desire to dominate. In my own experience I discovered that in proportion as I was a looker-on at things, I did not experience these disagreeable mental conditions. When I was actively interested, I unconsciously identified myself with the struggle, the victory, the defeat.

The remedy, then, was evidently to gain and preserve, an impersonal sense of things. But though I perceived this clearly, I was seldom able to put it into practice. I could not remain perpetually a mere spectator in life, and none of my other attempts seemed at all successful. So it was a great joy to find that Christian Science offers us among its many helpful gifts an opportunity to learn how to be in the midst of a conflict but not of it. It does this by showing us that there is never any conflict except the suppositional conflict in human consciousness between truth and error, or between the right idea and the false human concept. As we ourselves are neither the true nor the false concept, though we may manifest each in turn, it is clear that the conflict is a purely impersonal one, never between us as individuals, and with never a personal victory or a personal defeat. Indeed the true "we" is never really in it at all.

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