Article July 31, 1943 Issue

Home

DORIS P. WOODS

In the ninetieth Psalm, Moses declared that the dwelling place of man throughout all generations is in the Lord. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 465) Mary Baker Eddy defines God as follows: "God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love." We read in the Scriptures that man is the image and likeness of God; therefore man's real selfhood must be spiritual. Thus one is at home when he is conscious of God's presence and of his real selfhood. His real home is the consciousness or realization of his unity with Mind, Spirit, Love. His needs are spiritual, and the demands made upon him are spiritual demands. These demands call for the expression of more gratitude, more love, more compassion. Perhaps the greatest demand might be designated as love, because love expressed meets one's every need. The sincere desire to be loving, retained and lived, brings only good into one's experience. True love is not admiration for persons and things; it is the recognition of the good for which persons and things are but symbols, and the ability to hold steadfastly to this recognition at all times and under all circumstances.

Where the omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience of infinite Love are realized, there is home. Home is in God's power and presence, not in a locality. It is indestructible. It is not subject to floods, tornadoes, or the ravages of war. It is an impenetrable fortress. In the proportion that the true concept of home becomes a part of consciousness does the material habitation or symbol express more of the divine in beauty, dignity, orderliness, comfort, prosperity, and joy. The fear of separation, lack, and disease becomes increasingly less, and one gradually comes into the realization that nothing can enter his home "that defileth ... or maketh a lie." In this home or spiritualized consciousness, inconsideration is replaced by consideration, jealousy by trust, self-will by God's will, and self-righteousness by self-abnegation. Thus the true sense of home becomes to us an actuality.

Now someone may be thinking, This sounds very comforting, and I know that it must be true; but how does one account for the discord, confusion, and lack which seem to be so much in evidence today? This query may be answered by asking oneself two questions: If God is Spirit and man is His image and likeness, can man be material and subject to discord, confusion, and lack? Can the spiritual and infinite know or recognize the material and finite? The answer is in the negative.

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