Health Is Wholeness
Health is wholeness—a whole body, a whole mind. Pondering the subject of health, one finds that a healthy outlook brings human experience into proportion. In daily affairs a healthy situation has no area that is weak, neglected, or missing. Healthy family living expresses fullness, harmony, and unified completeness, a manifestation of sound thinking and acting.
It is important, however, to understand spiritually why and how we are whole. "Christian Science destroys material beliefs through the understanding of Spirit, and the thoroughness of this work determines health." So writes Mrs. Eddy on page 186 of the textbook, Science and Health. The real man includes all good because he is the infinite idea of infinite, divine Principle, Love. Wholeness is the state of his being. Health is a spiritual quality of man that is his by reflection. Man is always complete.
When we intelligently acknowledge God as Mind, we find that there is no power able to interfere with our ability to discern clearly our divine source. We can express God actively and joyously because God is our Life. Our spiritual heritage is eternal.
Mankind have long been aware of the close connection between dispositional traits and human experience. The Bible contains examples of this relationship. For instance, in Proverbs we read (21:5 ): "The thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness; but of every one that is hasty only to want," and (16:21), "The wise in heart shall be called prudent: and the sweetness of the lips increaseth learning." Another illustration is from Jonah (2:8 ), "They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy." These quotations point to the ancient acceptance of the realization that the events of human experience are molded by individual thought.
However, material reasoning has caused many men to attribute sickly bodies to such things as bacteria, virus, constitutional weakness, or some accidental event. The Bible makes it abundantly clear that physical health is both natural and a result of a wholesome and consequently fearless mental atmosphere. Christ Jesus vividly demonstrated the spiritual law governing man's wholeness.
He asked the man lying at the pool of Bethesda, "Wilt thou be made whole?" (John 5:6 .) Then Jesus healed the man of his infirmity. First, he said to him, "Rise." Could this not mean that he was to rise out of the false sense of apathy and self-pity which argued that nothing could be done after all these years because circumstances were against him?
Next, Jesus said to him, "Take up thy bed." This may suggest that the wholeness of the healing included not only the ability to walk without aid but the physical strength to carry a bundle and the strength of character to assume responsibility for his possessions. Then Jesus commanded, "And walk."
The man did not progress very far before he had a brief encounter with the prevailing beliefs and limiting customs of the day. Later, when Jesus found him in the temple, the Master reaffirmed the wholeness of his health and admonished him to protect it by keeping his thought and actions uplifted.
A Christian Scientist who is a schoolteacher took a legally required physical examination which included a preliminary test for tuberculosis. The results were not satisfactory. There was evidence that she had tuberculosis. The doctor informed her that further tests would certainly be required.
Many of her relatives had passed on with this disease. Although none of them had been Scientists, and she had been one for years and had learned the nothingness of all evil, there was still apparently a fear of this disease in her thought, for its claims to reality began to exert a dismal influence upon her.
There was no doubt in her mind that Christian Science could and would eventually heal her. She had read and heard many testimonies of the healing of this disease. However, her home and financial picture was such that a recuperation period of even three to six months would cause considerable hardship.
The teacher called a Christian Science practitioner for help. She realized that regardless of how long an untoward condition has existed, or how slyly mortal mind would inject doubts, there is no scientific need for a delay in healing. It does not take time to change the false beliefs that result in erroneous conditions. A false concept is unreal. It is needless.
Treatment was continued, and the schoolteacher studied Christian Science earnestly in order to increase her awareness of her unity with divine Mind; to listen and yield to Mind's unerring direction. The steps which unfolded led her to return to the doctor about a week and a half later and ask for another preliminary test.
The doctor announced emphatically that the second test would indicate the same thing the first one had indicated. The results of this test, however, were entirely different. The teacher was given immediate clearance to resume her work with children.
Mrs. Eddy explains in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 355 ), "Error found out is two-thirds destroyed, and the last third pierces itself, for the remainder only stimulates and gives scope to higher demonstration." The higher demonstration in this case was the teacher's enlarged perception that human thinking must be lifted above the constricting circle of a sometimes frightened but always limited material belief—higher, even, than the elevation of an improved belief— and into the altitude of communion with spiritual facts and a better understanding of spiritual truths.
The spiritual understanding of man's original and permanent state of wholeness finds expression at the human level, bringing all the health and good one could wish. The ability to comprehend genuine wholeness is a reflection of divine wisdom. These words of Hymn No. 374 in the Christian Science Hymnal apply to everyone, everywhere: "Rejoice, for thou art whole."
Because he hath set his love upon
me, therefore will I deliver him: I
will set him on high, because he hath
known my name.—Psalm 91:14.
