Article October 3, 1925 Issue

Loneliness not Real

DORA ELVERTON SHAW

How many lonely lives one appears to see in this world; and yet there is no need and no reason for any. Certainly the Christian Scientist can help to do away with this entirely unreal condition. God created man complete: it is therefore not possible to conceive of the infinite One creating man capable of being lonely.

We are told that God created man "in his own image." Is it logical to think of God as being lonely? Is He not complete in Himself? In Genesis we read, "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." And in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 515) Mrs. Eddy explains this text by saying: "The eternal Elohim includes the forever universe. The name Elohim is in the plural, but this plurality of Spirit does not imply more than one God, nor does it imply three persons in one. It relates to the oneness, the tri-unity of Life, Truth, and Love. 'Let them have dominion.' Man is the family name for all ideas,—the sons and daughters of God. All that God imparts moves in accord with Him, reflecting goodness and power."

Let the lonely one bring himself into unity with the truth of creation as stated above, and put out of consciousness the sense of himself as an isolated, solitary person with a material body who has to go through life alone. Let him see himself as idea, the child of God, reflecting Life, Truth, and Love, having dominion over all, moving in accord with God by reflecting goodness and power, as Mrs. Eddy's wonderful explanation indicates. At the moment of dwelling on these truths about one's self, is it possible for a thought of loneliness to come in? One cannot entertain two opposite states of thought at the same time; so to overcome loneliness, one must hold fast to the truth about one's real self. Why allow the "lie" to have sway when it brings such inharmony, such a sense of incompleteness? One has only to change one's thinking in order to see the truth, and a wonderful sense of companionship is brought about—not, perhaps, with another so-called mortal, but with spiritual ideas, spiritual thoughts. Mrs. Eddy continues her exegesis of the verse from Genesis on page 516. She writes there: "God fashions all things, after His own likeness. ... Love, redolent with unselfishness, bathes all in beauty and light," ending it thus: "Man and woman as coexistent and eternal with God forever reflect, in glorified quality, the infinite Father-Mother God."

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