Editorial April 21, 1945 Issue

Willingness

Margaret Morrison

"Thy will be done." This prayer of Christ Jesus is the open door into heaven, man's true state of being. Willingness of heart and mind is a quality to be prayerfully cultivated if one would enter through that door, out of mortal dream into immortal reality. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, says on pages 323 and 324 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures": "Willingness to become as a little child and to leave the old for the new, renders thought receptive of the advanced idea. Gladness to leave the false landmarks and joy to see them disappear,—this disposition helps to precipitate the ultimate harmony."

Just how willing are we to put off the old in order to put on the new? Do we not sometimes struggle to put on the new over the old, or transform the old into the new? False theological and physiological teaching would have us cling steadfastly to the old man, love him, punish him, heal him, and in some way save him, that he may be brought into the kingdom of heaven. These false teachings are not always recognized or easily put off. Ofttimes one believes and says he is willing, oh, so willing, to put off the old man, but closer examination of thought will reveal that he is still clinging steadfastly to this old man, demanding that he be healed, made happy and prosperous. One is willing indeed to put off the ills and limitations of the human mind by way of having them healed, but to see them as nothing, to give up that mind itself and its seeming identification as one's selfhood, is another matter. Ignorant of the fullness and completeness of the new, true man, one fears to give up the old lest he be left up in the air without identity or foundation for living. He cannot yet see that by putting off old concepts for new ideas he comes into the fullness of Life and its identified expression, man.

Sometimes in the practice of Christian Science there comes to the practitioner what seems to be a person weighed down with personal history, personal responsibilities, personal fears, hopes, desires, disappointments, ambitions, and ills. This person desires to be made a well person, with ills removed, personal hopes and desires achieved, so he may continue as a person fulfilling in harmony, health, and usefulness what is called his span of human life. Here there must be a willingness on the part of both practitioner and patient to resist the temptation to deal with persons as persons, with limitations and imperfections, in an effort to heal them. These must be seen as false mental concepts, utterly unreal. In their place must be recognized the presence of Mind declaring its perfect ideas, immutably governed by and the reflection of divine Love. Thus one not only is healed of the ills of the flesh, but puts on the new man and begins to experience the eternal and immutable harmony of true being. He lays hold on immortal life. In "Unity of Good" (p. 9) Mrs. Eddy says: "What is the cardinal point of the difference in my metaphysical system? This: that by knowing the unreality of disease, sin, and death, you demonstrate the allness of God."

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