The clarion call of Truth is one of action. In startling contrast to the torpor and stagnancy of mortal mind is Isaiah's rousing cry, "Awake, awake." Twice in the fifty-first chapter of Isaiah occurs this call, and the third and final time (Isa. 52:1) it rings: "Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city." And the prophet continues (Isa. 52:2,9), "Shake thyself from the dust;... loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. ... Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem: for the Lord hath comforted his people."

In what contrast is this vibrant call to be spiritually up and doing to the oft-accepted human attitude of waiting! Yet the words waking and waiting concur in their Anglo-Saxon derivation in including the thought of watching, a sense which is keenly alive, devoid of inaction, apathy, idleness, or procrastination.

Watching denotes spiritual activity, attention, vigilance, alertness. No wandering in the bypaths of material sense, no self-pity or grief, no mesmerism of discouragement, no futility of despair darkens the thought that is eagerly watching. Watching and loving go hand in hand.

In an article of utmost importance to the student of Christian Science, entitled "Watching versus Watching Out," which begins on page 232 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," Mary Baker Eddy points out the right and the wrong method of watching. Again on pages 128 and 129 of the same book she admonishes: "Watch, and pray daily that evil suggestions, in whatever guise, take no root in your thought nor bear fruit. Ofttimes examine yourselves, and see if there be found anywhere a deterrent of Truth and Love, and 'hold fast that which is good.'" Neither weariness, exhaustion, nor fear attends true watching. In olden times many a city had its watchtower erected and manned for the purpose of discerning the approach of an enemy. Yet think of the starlit nights, the glorious dawns, the wide horizons that were viewed therefrom! Truly the student of Christian Science who is watching discerns and comprehends the verity of being.

The Bible has many inspiring and comforting references to waiting. Likewise throughout our Leader's writings are frequent admonitions to wait. Yet not one of them implies dormancy, stagnancy, or idleness. In our common parlance one meaning of "wait" is to serve. He who serves is on active duty; he is neither absent-minded, absent from his post, nor inattentive. Vigilance and love attend true waiting. The first two verses of a much-loved poem by Mrs. Eddy read (Poems, p. 12):

It is significant that in another verse
a line which originally read,

was revised by its author and now reads,

Neither resignation nor rebellion attends the thought that is actively waiting. Rather is that waiting a serving of God, whereby every thought which does not originate in divine Mind is cast out and consciousness wakefully reflects the pure transparency of Soul.

Joy and peace and active rest attend true waiting. Love withholds no good. Delay has no place in the kingdom of heaven; inaction finds no expression in the omniaction of good. Good is God; therefore the hoped-for good of tomorrow is the present good of today. Mind waits not for its fruition. It undergoes no process. Unrest and apprehension exist not in Love. Time and uncertainty belong not to Mind. Life and Mind are never in suspense. Divine Mind experiences and expresses now and here the immediacy and fullness of its own joyous completeness.

"Awake, awake," cries the prophet. Quickened with the vibrancy of Mind, hallowed by the constancy of Love, and strong in the certainty of Truth, consciousness responds, I am awake, expressing in undimmed glory the grandeur of being.

In words aglow with promise the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, declares (pp. 218, 219), "When we wake to the truth of being, all disease, pain, weakness, weariness, sorrow, sin, death, will be unknown, and the mortal dream will forever cease." In the truth of being there has never existed a mind that slumbered or a man that needed awakening. No morbid secretion of mesmeric belief emits its stupefying poison to deaden the conscious activity of Life. No dream sense exists in Spirit. The senses of man, the image and likeness of God, are wholly spiritual. The awakening to this spiritual fact heals alike the errors of insomnia and somnolence.

The one Ego, the one Mind, one Life, which is your Life and Mind, forever conscious of its own completeness, is alert, intact, harmonious, perfect, free. Thus in the conscious illumination of the truth of being rings out from every heart the joyous response, I am awake!

L. Ivimy Gwalter