Article February 17, 1951 Issue

TRUE READINESS

RICHARD H. CHASE

One Wednesday evening, after spending a busy day, a Christian Scientist arrived at his branch Church of Christ, Scientist, in plenty of time for the meeting. While walking to a seat, he found himself thinking, Now I'll have thirty-five minutes to rest and prepare for the evening service.

Although this thought seemed natural and good, he quickly recognized it as a subtle suggestion that man is material and imperfect and must go through a time-consuming human process to become refreshed and ready to bless the church meeting. "Christian Science is absolute," declares Mary Baker Eddy (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 242); "it is neither behind the point of perfection nor advancing towards it; it is at this point and must be practised therefrom. Unless you fully perceive that you are the child of God, hence perfect, you have no Principle to demonstrate and no rule for its demonstration."

God is tireless Being, resting in action, unwearied by His infinite activities. Because man is God's image and likeness and reflects His perfection, he too does not tire or struggle with fatigue. Rather does he express God's eternal freshness, buoyancy, health, and strength. It is natural for man to be vigorous, decisive, intelligent, effective, and alert. A realization of these truths instantly freed the Christian Scientist from his feeling of weariness and his burden of false responsibility. Liberation from unreadiness to realize needed truths comes when one denies and casts out the false material conception of man as existing in a material world apart from God; when he humbly recognizes his divine sonship and the allness and oneness of divine Mind and the perfection of its infinite creation.

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