Alone with God

LEWIS REX MILLER

A physician recently wrote, in a letter published in a widely read American magazine, "I am not sure that loneliness does not cause more pain and suffering all told than some of the conditions which we doctors work so hard to relieve by the various products of scientific research."

He went on to express regret that more of what he described as "scientific thought" had not been directed towards the alleviation of loneliness.

The fact is that much truly scientific thought has been and is being successfully, efficaciously, directed to this end. The sense of loneliness and separation is daily being eliminated from the experience of many individuals through the ministrations of Christian Science, and supplanted by the comforting consciousness of the presence and availability of the one loving, all-sufficient God.

Through the knowledge that God is infinite Spirit, pervading all space and therefore ever present, men, women, and children of all ages and conditions are being freed from the belief that they can ever be alone or lack the blessed companionship of the most satisfying of all companions. They are learning not to depend for entertainment or happiness upon human devices, and are gaining a beautiful awareness of the priceless privilege of being alone with God.

Of this privilege the great Way-shower, Christ Jesus, often availed himself. On more than one occasion he absented himself from the crowds that thronged him, and went apart by himself to pray. The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, found this a wise procedure and a refreshing experience. She writes in a letter on prayer (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 133), "Three times a day, I retire to seek the divine blessing on the sick and sorrowing, with my face toward the Jerusalem of Love and Truth, in silent prayer to the Father which 'seeth in secret,' and with childlike confidence that He will reward 'openly.'"

It is worthy of note that Mrs. Eddy's prayers in these moments of aloneness with God were devoted not to asking favors for herself, but to seeking "the divine blessing on the sick and sorrowing." It would be impossible for anyone to have a sense of personal loneliness or lack of companionship while wholeheartedly engaged in such a work. The removal of thought from oneself and loving consideration for others are sure antidotes for any unpleasant personal feeling of isolation or remoteness.

Time spent alone with God is often productive of great good. Looking back over our experience, many of us can recollect times when a few days, or weeks, or even years spent in comparative seclusion have resulted in much progress. The extent of this progress is often in direct proportion to our willingness to avail ourselves of the spiritual companionship which is always at hand through communion with God. It is for us to choose whether we shall be miserably alone, from the human point of view, or happily alone with God.

To attribute pain and suffering to loneliness, as did the physician quoted above, does not make these conditions any more easy to bear. It does, however, transfer the belief of pain in matter to the realm of wrong or sickly thinking, where it may be readily healed by an alert apprehension of the allness of divine Mind.

To ascribe to loneliness the power to cause pain or suffering is to give power to an illusion. Loneliness has no place in divine Mind, because Mind is infinite. Moreover, Mind is the only cause; and since loneliness has no place in Mind, it cannot partake of the nature of cause or produce an illusive effect of physical suffering.

The derivation of the word "alone" is "all + one" (all plus one). In this simple analysis of the word is a wealth of meaning. It is clear that anyone who feels himself to be alone is thinking of himself as "plus one," that is, as one apart from or in addition to all. Yet God is All, and nothing can be added to or exist apart from God. It is, then, only the false sense of separation or something apart from the divine All which brings a feeling of loneliness. To him who recognizes his own place in the divine Allness, no sense of lonely aloofness can come.

"Loneliness" is one of the definitions which Mrs. Eddy gives for "wilderness" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 597). Yet it was in the wilderness that Jesus gloriously overcame temptation. And Mrs. Eddy further defines "wilderness" as "spontaneity of thought and idea; the vestibule in which a material sense of things disappears, and spiritual sense unfolds the great facts of existence."

Jacob, it is related, "was left alone" on the occasion when he wrestled with error overcame a material sense of things through increased spiritual understanding. To many an earnest student of Christian Science, an opportunity to be alone with God has brought not loneliness, but sweet assurance of the fatherhood and motherhood of God.

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