Article May 5, 1934 Issue

The Ever Present Now

JAMES W. COHEN STUART

On a certain occasion a student of Christian Science was very eagerly anticipating the arrival of the holidays. Such an anticipation he knew to be natural and right according to human requirements. But on deeper contemplation he found that this eagerness was accompanied by such a longing for the holidays to arrive that it amounted to a lack of happiness in the present. In other words, he was allowing his thought to dwell on the belief that it would take a certain period of time before happiness could be realized. His thought was vividly awakened out of this problem of looking into the future for happiness when he remembered the words read at the close of each Christian Science Sunday service, "Now are we the sons of God." A clear realization of the nowness of all true happiness, all satisfaction, all good, came to him. How can we, as the sons of God, ever experience the harmony, the peace, the joy, which are the divine characteristics of that sonship, if it is not to be known now?

We have not to wait until tomorrow to apply the truth that two times two makes four; neither have we to go to some other place to make that truth more useful. Right where we are we have all that is necessary to work out every mathematical problem; but we have to begin the work and apply the rules. This application serves to illustrate the solving of our problems in our daily life.

Here and now we can experience all that is necessary to make us happy, courageous, healthy, and joyful. Mary Baker Eddy, with her spiritual intuition and understanding, writes on page 8 of her book entitled "Unity of Good," "What you see, hear, feel, is a mode of consciousness, and can have no other reality than the sense you entertain of it." Then what conditions, surroundings, and circumstances mean to us depends upon the thoughts we entertain of them.

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Magnifying Good
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