Article May 10, 1947 Issue

"Be natural!"

[Of Special Interest to Young People]

JEANNE STEELY LAITNER

Being natural, or being one's self, is often pointed out to young people as one of the secrets of an attractive personality and as one of the fundamentals of attaining popularity and leadership. From a human standpoint, however, how can one determine what is his natural self? Have we not all had the experience, for instance, of acting one Way in the presence of our relatives, another way in the presence of a teacher, and still another in the presence of our contemporaries? Then, too, anindividual may feel free and unaffected on the hockey field, but shy and ill at ease at a party.

In short, human reasoning and will power are inadequate to teach an individual how freely and un-self-consciously to express naturalness and poise at all times. Only by being one's true self, as revealed in Christian Science, can this demand be fully answered. And from this Science one can learn what constitutes true charm and genuine poise, and how to express these beautiful qualities. It reveals the means of expressing love that is without hatred, favoritism, or social ambition; intelligence that is without bigotry or self-righteousness; charm that is without artificiality; beauty that is without self-consciousness or conceit; humility that is strong instead of weak, and joy that is abundantly present always, no matter what the human situation.

"Hold in yourselves the true sense of harmony," writes Mary Baker Eddy in her Message to The Mother Church for 1900 (p. 11), "and this sense will harmonize, unify, and unself you." And this true sense of harmony which enables an individual to be un-selfed, that is, freed from mortal limitations of shyness, awkwardness, fear, and self-consciousness, is the realization of what man really is. A study of the first chapter of Genesis shows that man is made in the image and likeness of God, and that "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good" (Gen. 1:31). This fundamental truth of man's perfection as the perfect expression of God has, in reality, never been reversed or annulled. God, the creator, remains perfect, and man, His reflection, remains perfect and expresses the abundant, immortal qualities of his Father-Mother God.

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