Article November 11, 1967 Issue

Home—"not a place but a power"

JACQUELINE L. KRANZ

Home is not four walls and their furnishings. We cannot understand the real meaning of home if we cling to its outward manifestation. Take away love, and a home does not mean home at all, regardless of how elaborate or beautiful the place may be. The home one loves is the home in which the qualities of love, hospitality, consideration, and integrity are lived. Such a home is a mighty power for good. It blesses not only those within its walls, but every place that its influence touches. In his book Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy Irving C. Tomlinson recalls Mrs. Eddy's words, "Home is not a place but a power."^{Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy, p. 156:}

It is important to grasp that home is a power, not a place, when war or school or business experience or the loss of a loved one separates us from what we have called our home. None of the home qualities we cherish are resident in a material house. Being expressions of God, they must be ever present, ever powerful to make our present experience homelike.

This was proved in the experience of a young Christian Scientist who had left home to go to a large university. All the places offered to her to live in were unattractive, far from campus, lonely. Finally she turned from these false pictures of home to think of the all-embracing power of divine Love which, if she would let it, would sweep out of her consciousness all that was unlike itself. Christian Science had taught her that this divine Principle expresses itself in loveliness, completeness, and satisfaction. As this became clear to her, a room was made available where joy and friends and happiness awaited her.

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