Article January 12, 1957 Issue

WHAT MAKES A HOME?

ALBERT E. LOMBARD, JR.

THOUGHTFUL people, desirous of improving living conditions, are breaking away from tradition to seek the answer to penetrating questions, such as: "What makes a home? What are its functions?" As a result, new architectural styles, new construction materials, and new appliances are being developed to provide greater efficiency, comfort, and convenience in the home. This progress is heartening, freeing mankind from many limitations. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy gives this scientific way of dealing with all questions (p. 123): "Divine Science, rising above physical theories, excludes matter, resolves things into thoughts, and replaces the objects of material sense with spiritual ideas." Let us, then, turn from the material concept of home to the spiritual one.

Since, as the Bible teaches, man lives in God and is His image and likeness, we perceive and understand man and his habitation as we perceive and understand God. Let us realize at once that God's infinite habitation is continuously unfolding as man's home. In Christian Science, God's nature and character are defined by the seven synonymous terms: Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and Love. While these are interchangeable, the understanding of each one adds to our understanding of God and, therefore, of man's home.

Mind, the home of the spiritual real man, imparts intelligence, alertness, wisdom, understanding, and spontaneity to all its inhabitants, God's ideas. Spirit, infinite in compass, gives to man's home expansiveness, holiness, unity, and infinity. Spiritual power, spiritual warmth, spiritual radiance, and spiritual light permeate the abode of Spirit's likeness.

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