Article June 29, 1918 Issue

Listeners

LILIAN BARLOW

He is a wise man who has learned the importance of listening with ears attuned to the harmonies of the divine Mind, and such a one only can claim to have ears that hear, or to have learned his new name in Christian Science. The right listener is the right doer; for right acting is but the result of listening obediently to the still, small voice that is ever expressing itself through divine ideas. These, when entertained, protect us from the whispered falsities of mortal mind, which would, if it were possible, crush out all expression of infinite Mind and thereby annihilate mortal man.

The careless listener is but the cat's paw of evil, for he willingly lends his mental ears to two voices,—to that which is erroneous and to that which is true,—thereby establishing a house divided against itself, a house built upon the ever shifting sands of false sense, which calls evil good and good evil. Such a one may desire to do right; and surely these desires, if sincere, are prayers which will eventually make a Christian metaphysician of him, but not until there is a humble willingness to be established upon the sure foundation of oneness with God. The chief requirement here is that transparency of thought which realizes its sonship with the loving Father-Mother God. This leads to an unshaken conviction that all sincere seekers after Truth may in turn likewise reach the same realization, thus establishing an unbroken circle of right thinking, and ceasing to be channels whereby mental malpractice may perpetuate itself. Steps firmly taken in this direction would destroy that sense of self which builds on another's defeat, whose importance is so exaggerated that it lives in an atmosphere of egotistical self-exaltation, confident that everything and everybody is at fault but himself. Unless one does claim sonship with God, he may be swept along by every gust of evil gossip, criticizing individuals and organizations alike, listening to that which would, if generally believed in, undermine individual character and constructive activities.

When consciously examining ourselves to ascertain our practice, are we not immediately confronted with these seemingly justifiable excuses, that we are seeing evil only to unsee it, and that it is necessary to uncover error? True, for Mrs. Eddy so teaches; but do we also remember her admonition to have "a charity broad enough to cover the whole world's evil," as we read on page 224 of "Miscellaneous Writings"? How necessary, then, that we ask ourselves if we are always holding to this admonition, and faithfully keeping watch lest "the little foxes" that enter in at unguarded moments and "spoil the vines" may tempt us to perpetuate their work by passing from individual to individual those seemingly insignificant suggestions which construct in thought a false concept of some one or some activity. It is much easier to see the truth rather than the lie for those we love, but how often do we unguardedly let pass wrong feelings and attitudes toward one in whom we have no interest? When called upon to unsee the lie for the latter, we find our work made doubly hard by such unfaithful watch.

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