Article January 13, 1923 Issue

To-day

S. ELLA SHELHAMER

We can be conscious only one moment at a time; and in that moment we should think only good thoughts. Error would have us believe that some other time than the present is of more importance to us. It would have us believe that we cannot accomplish all the good we should like to-day, because of past limitations; and it argues that because we are not able to accomplish all we should like to-day, we shall necessarily be limited to-morrow. But all good, all that ever was or ever can be, exists now; and no past, however drear, has had the power to destroy one iota of good, nor has it the power to deprive us of it at the present moment. It seems difficult to hold steadfastly to the fact that to-day holds all of good for us,—all of Life, all of Love, and all of Truth,—and that to-morrow will be just another to-day when it comes; but this understanding can be gained, or the task would never be ours.

Cherishing thoughts of health, love, joy, peace, and plenty in the present, we are building an impervious screen against the dark forebodings of an approaching to-morrow. To believe that evil was once true opens the way to fear it to-day and dread it for to-morrow. How are we to progress in the way of good, if we continue to look back and point to some imaginary monument we have erected over the burial place of past sickness and sorrow? Error never had a place; so why try to mark the exact locality, by telling our friends just where, when, and how it happened? The truth is that nothing ever happened in reality but God's goodness, mercy, justice, and loving-kindness; and we can well afford to remember this and forget that which never was! We should be willing to let the fires die out after we have once come safely through the furnace of affliction. Troubled yesterdays are wholly excluded from the thought duly conscious of present blessing.

Children are often wiser in these matters than their elders, for the only past they are apt to recall is that of "good times." All error can ever ask of us is to be kept alive and active by keeping its memory green, in dwelling upon the past sorrows and sins of ourselves and others. If God is changeless good, and we are well and happy to-day, this is all that can ever be true of us. To be healed in Christian Science does not mean that we have been healed of real diseases, real sins and sorrows, but only of the false belief in them; and when we have once proved a belief to be false, it is unwise to be trapped into referring to it as a past fact. To express gratitude for healing at the right time and place is our blessed privilege, but the dark side of the experience should be touched upon as lightly as possible, both for our own sake and for that of others.

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