Article April 28, 1956 Issue

"MAN'S REFUGE IS IN SPIRITUALITY"

RUTH M. BARING-GOULD

Paul said (Rom. 8:6), "To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." This verse contains a stern warning of the destructive effect on health and happiness of materiality, passion, or lust; and of the deadening, darkening sense which hatred brings. But here is also the promise that turning to God, or directing thought toward spiritual things, brings life and harmony.

This verse in Romans points clearly to the fact, made plain also in the teachings of Christian Science, that our experience is largely determined by our thinking. We are well aware that hatred or criticism would stop our progress and blind us to spiritual things. Paul learned this from experience. He also knew how immediate can be the change from darkness to light when we change our outlook.

We cannot turn two ways at once. Worldliness and spirituality do not mix. Let us not try to listen to mortal mind with one ear, so to speak, and expect to hear the voice of Truth with the other. If in our home or our business we seem to be confronted with a difficult person or a difficult situation, the remedy is to lift our thought to God, not to resort to mortal mind or mortal opinions. Lifting thought, or "having the mind set on spiritual things" (as a dictionary definition of "spiritual-minded" reads in part), is not mere wishful thinking or a head-in-the-clouds attitude, nor is it ignoring a problem. Mary Baker Eddy writes in "Unity of Good" (p. 57), "Man's refuge is in spirituality, 'under the shadow of the Almighty.'"

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