Article August 6, 1955 Issue

WHY AM I HERE?

CELIA R. RINGHAM

As a young girl the writer once said to her mother, "Why am I here, when I never wanted to be born?" Shocked at such an utterance, her parent told her that she was very wicked and that God would punish her if she repeated such words. Still this question persisted in thought; and years later, when ill-health seemed to be the rule rather than the exception, she put this same query to friends. They advised her to have more faith in God, because in their estimation this question could only be answered after death.

But this "Why am I here?" was fully and logically answered, and moreover health was restored, when the writer took up the study of Christian Science. She quickly learned that it was ignorance of God and man's relationship to Him which had prompted her query, and that this ignorance was the cause of all earth's discords, including her ill-health. Further persistent study of Christian Science showed her that she had also been clinging to the false religious belief of an earth here, a heaven hereafter, and the boundary crossing line, death.

Gradually the words of the master Christian (Luke 17:21), "Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you," took on a new meaning. The understanding that God is everywhere and that man is inseparable from Him as reflection eliminates the false sense of a localized "here" and "there."

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