Article November 20, 1920 Issue

"My Father has my treasure"

NINA SEYMOUR KEAY

Fear of loss is so prevalent in the human consciousness that joy in the possession of any form of good is often almost swamped by the fear of losing it. This is very apparent, for instance, in human relationships, unless they are being rectified, to some extent, by the spiritual understanding of love. This fear of loss, shown in a mother's anxious care for her child, in fears for the health, happiness, or prosperity of those we love, shown, more selfishly, by jealousy and exacting "possessiveness," is simply the inevitable corollary to the belief that good is contained in matter. All material things being subject to discord and decay, it is obvious that if we love a material thing it is only a question of time until we shall be robbed of what we hold dear. With regard to affection, however, it is generally conceded that it is not a merely material quality, and so the laws of matter, so called, cannot destroy it. The trouble is, however, that human affection, however unselfed, is in bondage to fear as long as the belief exists that the object of affection is a material being; and only the teaching of Christian Science, in its interpretation of the Bible, can afford the proof that life is not contained in matter.

As creation is understood as spiritual unfoldment, and the divine Mind is recognized as the only creator, it becomes clear that all we can possess of anything is our mental concept, our knowledge of it, and that the reality, the right identity, of it, is forever safe in the one true consciousness. In Science and Health, beginning on page 555, we read: "Truth fosters the idea of Truth, and not the belief in illusion or error. That which is real, is sustained by Spirit." Therefore, as we attain to more spiritual thinking, we attain truer concepts of all God's creation, and these concepts are the real "treasure in heaven." When we realize that it is the tender, unselfed regard we have for our loved ones that constitues our treasure, we see that nothing can rob us except our own lowering of the standard. If we are content to let in the mists of false belief and to cloud our concepts by so doing, then we lose, temporarily, that which we love; but so long as we hold our own thought true, nothing can rob us of the joy of loving, even though the object of the love may seem out of reach, for the time.

On analysis, we admit that it is not the material thing we love, not the flesh and blood, but the good, the spiritual characteristics, and these are never in any danger, since they are the expression of Mind. In "No and Yes" (p. 26), our Leader says, "Man's real ego, or selfhood, is goodness," and, lower down on the same page: "God holds man in the eternal bonds of Science—in the immutable harmony of divine law. Man is a celestial; and in the spiritual universe he is forever individual and forever harmonious." Knowing, then, that the reality of everything is safe with God, we need but to continue to improve our own concepts, and as we do so we shall attain to the love which knows no fear, because it is the recognition of spiritual being. Then we can echo the thought expressed in a familiar hymn:—

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