Article May 13, 1933 Issue

Past, Present, and Future

ROBERT DICKINSON NORTON

ACCORDING to human belief, that which is called time is divided into three parts, namely, that which has gone before, that which is, and that which is to be. Humanity appears to be riding, as it were, on the crest of a wave which is the now, this now supposedly being the division between past and future. From the crest of this wave we are apt to be looking either backward or forward. The backward gaze may rest upon experiences of evil and good, joy and sorrow, sickness and health, while the forward gaze anxiously peers into unknown seas, visioning hazards to be encountered, fears, hopes, doubts, victories, and defeats.

Christian Science insists that overmuch looking in either of these directions does not tend to help us, either individually or collectively, in solving our problems. In riveting our mental gaze on past mistakes, we are fictitiously binding ourselves to them, when we would be free. In undue contemplation of what mortal thought terms the future, we are apt to lose the sense of present good, and thus continually postpone its realization. Mrs. Eddy has written (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 12), "We own no past, no future, we possess only now," and as we study this saying we begin to see that we are really concerned only with that which is rightly ours as heirs of God, good.

The belief of a sense of pain and false pleasure in the past should be allowed to sink below the mental horizon behind us as we go on our forward journey. In this regard Paul's rule of conduct, as narrated in his letter to the Christians of Philippi, will be found most useful. He wrote, "This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind,... I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Our attitude toward the past influences our present moment, and our habitual manner of dealing with the now will have its part in our attitude toward future conditions. Obviously, then, rightly to care for the future we must give adequate and proper heed to the present.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Free Christian Science Reading Rooms