Article September 7, 1968 Issue

A Friend Is Not a Leaning Post

JEANNE COLETTE COLLESTER

A friend is not a leaning post. Real friendships exist in an atmosphere imbued with unselfishness. In this atmosphere there is no possessiveness, no burdening. There is only a desire to support and bless others. Such unselfish friendships are consecrated to good and are the happy by-product of a desire to meet one's obligations to God.

Mrs. Eddy says: "Consecration to good does not lessen man's dependence on God, but heightens it. Neither does consecration diminish man's obligations to God, but shows the paramount necessity of meeting them." ^{Science and Health, p. 262;} In all things Christ Jesus met his obligations to God by placing the spiritual before the material. Consequently, for him the natural sequence in friendship included placing the divine before the human.

Once when Jesus visited Mary and Martha, both sisters were exhibiting to him a form of friendship. Martha was busy with household duties, apparently to make the Master's visit more comfortable, and Mary was busy listening to his Christly message. But Jesus evidently observed Martha's undue preoccupation with material things and her need to place the spiritual sense of goodness before the material sense of it. Hence his comment, "Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: but one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." ^{Luke 10:41, 42;}

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Breaking the Barriers of Old Age