Article June 12, 1954 Issue

CONSECRATE, NOT CONCENTRATE

[Of Special Interest to Young People]

ELSIE STAHL ODERWALD

A Dictionary definition of "consecrate" is "to set apart or devote to the service or worship of God," whereas that of "concentrate" is "to bring all one's powers, faculties, or activities to bear upon one course of action or thought." Consecration has to do with spiritual activity, while concentration involves a human process of thinking. There is persistent publicity about the so-called charms and benefits of the liquor, smoking, and other insidious habits. There are appeals to be alert to all the symptoms of disease and the much publicized horrors of the atomic age. The result is that sometimes it seems easy to concentrate on these evils and almost difficult to think of health, sound morals, intelligence, and abundance except as a passing wish.

A Christian Scientist consecrates thought and action to good, and this does not involve concentration. It consists of utilizing the presence of the one power, even God. This utilization of God's presence and power involves the acknowledgment that man, as His reflection, is the expression of intelligence, health—all good—and excludes any possibility of dependence upon or submission to the physical senses. Mary Baker Eddy saw this very clearly and gave us the following admonition (Pulpit and Press, p. 3): "Know, then, that you possess sovereign power to think and act rightly, and that nothing can dispossess you of this heritage and trespass on Love. If you maintain this position, who or what can cause you to sin or suffer?"

Consecration, therefore, includes no struggle between opposing forces, for the acknowledgment and demonstration of but one power destroys all opposition. Thus anything unlike God—all discord and inharmony—is eliminated from consciousness and simultaneously removed from experience.

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