Article September 21, 1968 Issue

How New Are You?

ARLINE WALKER EVANS

A little girl acknowledged an introduction to someone with the eager query, "Oh, how new are you?"

What changes could be wrought in our human experience if we would think of ourselves and others as new, rather than old! The word "old" often refers to wearing out, waning, weakening, declining, the losing of strength, and the passing of a period of usefulness. "New," on the other hand, means that which is refreshed, restored, redeemed, reestablished, corrected, and healed. To be made new is to be newborn, returned to the original state, or made whole.

In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, admonishes, "Never record ages."^{Science and Health, p. 246;} However, legal procedure frequently demands it, and in many other areas of the human scene we are required to think of age for the purposes of classification. When we are prompted to think of ourselves as of a certain age, let us not leave in our thought a sense of disturbance or dismay about it but correct our thinking with scientific truths that can rescue us from the limitations associated with any age group. Let us find out how new we are rather than how old it appears we are.