Article November 18, 1944 Issue

Thanksgiving

HAROLD EDWARDS SUTTON

The season of Thanksgiving may bring to the minds of some, harvest thanksgiving festivals of earlier days, when churches were decorated with fruit and flowers, the air was laden with the fragrance of blossoms, the scent of apples and pears, and the finest of the earth's produce was displayed as a thank offering to God for another harvest safely garnered.

If today we pay less attention to the outward sign, the material observances of Thanksgiving, it is not through any lack of gratitude, but because, as Christian Scientists, we have learned to pay more heed to its spiritual significance. In the light of the teachings of Christian Science, gratitude is more than an expression of thanks for blessings received. Thanksgiving to God, the creator of all good, reaches farther than individual experience, for we learn that as sons and daughters of God we are surrounded on every hand with the amplitude of all that God has created. Joy and praise go forth in humble acknowledgment of the bounteous and unlimited store of spiritual blessings with which mankind has been endowed. Recognizing that "Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal," as our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, declares on page 468 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," we dispense with the outward sign and bring the fruit and flowers of spiritual ideas in praise and honor of the creator of all that is real and eternal.

There is no limitation of spiritual ideas, though some may more quickly perceive them than others. Man's true source of supply is Mind, Truth, Life, Love, Principle. What would be thought of an individual who asserted, "I have only sufficient truth left until Saturday; after that I shall have to resort to untruths until I can replenish my supply"? Clearly, such an attitude would be ridiculous. Supplies of truth are unlimited, available to all, and everyone perceives that fact. Yet, in many respects, men fail to avail themselves of the spiritual supplies which are the very source of health, happiness, and security. And this neglect is largely due to the fact that individuals are slow to recognize the supremacy and reality of Spirit, and slower still to act accordingly. Recognition of the actuality and power of Spirit, God, makes spiritual ideas available and brings into consciousness the kingdom of God. Our beloved Leader writes (ibid., p. 576): "This kingdom of God 'is within you,'—is within reach of man's consciousness here, and the spiritual idea reveals it. In divine Science, man possesses this recognition of harmony consciously in proportion to his understanding of God."

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