Article March 19, 1927 Issue

Equipped to Receive

ARTHUR TIPTON STEWART

Since the advent of the radio and of radiocasting, informed persons have come to realize that whether they are asleep or awake, attending to the round of daily duties or indulging in some form of recreation, according to material sense the atmosphere in which they appear to live is filled with vibrations, some of which literally come from the ends of the earth. Adapted to the purposes of entertainment or of education, these are cognizable as strains of harmony or the spoken word. One may not hear them at the moment, indeed may never have heard them, but he does not on that account deny them. He knows that others are hearing or have heard them, and that he can do so, too, if and when he is prepared for it. He understands, moreover, that this preparation consists in equipping himself to receive, through certain material devices, and that upon the character and capacity of these latter depends the amount of his reception. If he receives little, he does not by reason of that fact fall into the error of believing that it is because there is little to be had: he recognizes that the lack is in his preparation and his capacity to receive. Furthermore, there are persons living in ignorance of these things, perhaps in some portion of the globe which civilization has not yet reached; but ignorance does not alter the fact that the manifestation is there also, simply awaiting the apprehension of it. It is recognized without question that millions of persons can enjoy one of these radiocast programs as readily as can one person, and that the enjoyment on the part of any one of such a multitude is in no wise diminished by reason of the fact that others are sharing in it too. There is no need to fear that there may not be enough to go around!

There is a certain analogy between these things and our sense of the presence of God and the beauty and goodness which are His manifestation. From childhood, perhaps, we have been taught that God, and consequently His manifestation or expression, are omnipresent, which means that they are everywhere about us; but while our lips may have uttered this truth, our understanding may not have supported it. It may not have mattered to us that to our own knowledge others have been receiving evidence of God's presence and power, and that their lives are filled with harmony and happiness because of it. We may have felt that He was not near to us, and that perhaps there was not enough of His bounty to care for all. These false beliefs, however, have not affected—could not possibly affect—the primal realities, namely, that God is, and that He is omnipresent. The difficulty simply has been that we have not received because we have not been equipped to do so, and that we shall receive in the degree that we establish the capacity to receive.

There the analogy ends, however; for the equipment we must establish and keep in proper condition has nothing in common with materiality. It consists of spiritual sense, which our revered Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, has defined in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 209), as "a conscious, constant capacity to understand God." We desire our capacity to understand God, and therefore to recognize the things which are His, to be both a conscious and a constant one. If it is not the former, it can be of no value to us; and unless it is the latter, we are without a stable dependence. In fact, the only actual need humanity has had, or ever will have, is to understand God, omnipresent and omnipotent good. Long centuries ago Job voiced this when he cried, "Oh that I knew where I might find him;" and that same desire has since been more or less consciously echoed by unnumbered hosts. Be it sickness, lack, or any other form of discord that may attempt to belie the divine nature, there is no human error which the right understanding of God will not dissipate. The reason is plainly this, that such an understanding naturally carries with it an understanding of God's creation, including man in His image and likeness, dispelling all the illusions out of which undesirable beliefs have sprung, and dissipating their imaginary power. Mrs. Eddy has admonished us (Science and Health, p. 304) that "it is ignorance and false belief, based on a material sense of things, which hide spiritual beauty and goodness."

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