Article July 30, 1955 Issue

BASIC TRAINING

[Of Special Interest to Young People]

ARVA M. KNOWLES

The world conditions today often seem especially frustrating to youth. Young people complain that their education, careers, and home plans are interrupted because of war and threats of war. Many young men and women volunteer or are called into the service of their country. Much is heard of military basic training. Some speak of it in awe, others with resentment or fear, and still others approach this experience with confidence, expecting to put their best into it and to get the most possible satisfaction from it.

Among those who are likely to approach this experience without resentment are the students of Christian Science who have already had basic training in the Christian Science Sunday School in an understanding of the realities of life and man's relation to Life, God. They have gained in some measure a practical and demonstrable understanding of the omnipotence and omnipresence of the all-loving Father-Mother, God. Thus when they enter military service, they find this spiritual understanding of inestimable value. For instance, though it is necessary for them to submit to "physicals," vaccinations, and "shots," these young men and women have the opportunity to prove that the real man is not subject to the so-called laws of matter; that matter has no intelligence to claim sensation; that since God, good, is All-in-all, matter is unreal, powerless, nothing.

When in the course of their training; men are required to hike and to drill to a point which—to them— at times may seem almost beyond human endurance, students of Christian Science should endeavor to realize that strength is not dependent on muscles or physical structure, but is ever reflected by man as God's image. Man is always at one with his source, omnipotence, which manifests infinite energy and buoyancy. The Scientist must take a radical stand for Truth. Timidity or conservatism in claiming his vitality and freedom will hinder his progress. He must control his body through spiritual understanding and radical reliance on God, divine Spirit. The Bible assures us (Isa. 40:31), "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

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