Article October 1, 1949 Issue

THERE IS NO SEPARATION IN GOOD

ZEMMA REDDING DOBSON

A woman who had been greatly inspired by the message of a Christian Science lecture felt impelled to thank the lecturer. In the conversation she referred to her son who was in the armed services of his country and who was then stationed in a distant part of the United States. She said that since she had not heard from him for some time, it was possible that he was being moved. The lecturer's reply was, "Don't locate him."

Not fully realizing what he was telling her, she continued to discuss the possibility that her son was being sent to a foreign country. The lecturer this time very quietly, but emphatically, said something to this effect: "Don't locate him. Keep him in consciousness. That is where all the good you know of him is and where you really are. Then you will have no sense of separation." He continued to bring out that the understanding of man's inseparability from God faithfully held to would protect her son wherever he was, and it would also help to protect those with whom he was serving; while to locate him in materiality would, in belief, subject him to the dangers threatening the country where he might be stationed. A glimpse of the real meaning of that message flooded her consciousness, bringing unspeakable peace.

The drive back to her home, which was more than a hundred miles, was spent in contemplating those inspiring words as they applied to every human relationship. Then she also began to ponder the truth of this statement in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy (p. 14): "Entirely separate from the belief and dream of material living, is the Life divine, revealing spiritual understanding and the consciousness of man's dominion over the whole earth. This understanding casts out error and heals the sick, and with it you can speak 'as one having authority.' " She saw that none of the conflicting testimony of the material senses was true, and that man, Spirit's reflection, was not in the human, material picture, but existed as a spiritual and perfect idea, eternally held in harmonious relationship with his Maker. She saw, too, that every suggestion of loneliness, separation, and danger was an emanation of the supposition that man is material and lives in a material universe with countless other material persons, separate from God.

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