Resplendent Being
Illumined being is not merely existing. It is living with a purpose; it is a joyous witness-bearing. God's man raises a song of perpetual praise to his Maker. His entire being harmonizes with his creator.
Mrs. Eddy says, "Human hope and faith should join in nature's grand harmony, and, if on minor key, make music in the heart." Miscellaneous Writings, p. 330 : Further on, speaking of mortals, she questions, "When downtrodden like the grass, did it make them humble, loving, obedient, full of good odor, and cause them to wait patiently on God for man's rich heritage,—'dominion over all the earth?" p. 331;
Dominion springs from divinity, the star of one's being, which, in the first faint gleams of divine Science, we glimpse but dimly. As spiritual understanding increases, we behold and claim more fully God's blessings of enrichment and enlightenment. We look more and more toward Principle, the source of all being, with its continuous unfoldment of fresh ideas and sublime qualities.
Our task is to utilize these divine qualities in daily experience. Keeping in thought the perfect model of God's being and of spiritual man, His image, we cease to be swayed, like a weathervane with each turn of the wind, by adverse material suggestions of the carnal mind speaking through people, including the family around us or directly to our own thought when alone. There need be no deterring of spiritual progress by reacting to error's pattern of false behavior. Our experience is to be beautified, not contaminated. We read in Hebrews that Moses, when he was about to set up the tabernacle, was told by God, "See ... that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount." Hebr. 8:5 ; Our pattern is God-likeness; our tabernacle resplendent being. It is built up in spiritual consciousness, the very heart of our existence.
A student of Christian Science found it helpful to make a list of the negative and positive thoughts regarding heart. Then she strove to replace a sad heart with a singing heart, a fearful heart with a loving one, a heavy heart with a light one, and a complaining heart with a grateful heart.
Upon awakening one morning the student thought, "Now, what must I do today?" Thereupon the question inserted itself, "What is God doing?" She began to think: "Why, He is being. God is the great I am, self-existent, the only Ego. He is constantly mindful of His own active, perfect being." Can we imagine the sun not sending forth its rays to brighten the universe? So God illumines His creation. And as we reflect that light, we bring it to bear on the darkness of clouded world beliefs and help dispel them with the great spiritual facts of being.
Genuine being has no beginning and no ending. It is the foreverness of ineffable delight as "when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." Job 38:7 ; God imparts affluence, not destitution; power, not weakness; certainty, not uncertainty; freedom, not bondage. As we bring our thinking into line with the great truths of God and man, we are bound to feel expanded and revitalized, awakened to being, ready for doing.
The book of Job has a substantial recipe for recognizing true being. Its chief interest for Christian Scientists lies in its portrayal of the human gradually but perceptibly yielding to the divine. There a good man is seen surrounded with material comforts and satisfaction, living a normal, virtuous life from day to day, just as many of us do. Then every imaginable kind of trouble befalls him. Popular theology proclaims: "This trouble is godsent. Accept it as inevitable and endure it like a martyr." Then follow various types of reasoning, all unconvincing explanations of sin and punishment. From a young man named Elihu comes a confused but somewhat more elevated concept of a creator, who does not inflict injustice upon His children.
But finally Job is told by God to array himself with majesty and excellency, with glory and beauty. He is forgiven for doubting God's marvelous goodness and wisdom. Job prays for his friends who have been so unjustly but ignorantly critical. The whole situation changes. He realizes a higher sense of being that restores his prosperity. He later goes beyond the usual Hebrew custom, leaving his three lovely daughters, as well as their brothers, an inheritance.
Proper defense ensures blessed, progressive unfoldment of being. Alertness to reject aggressive mental suggestion is mandatory.
The writer was once suffering from a painful condition, not disabling but extremely distressing. In a short talk with a practitioner it became very clear to her that she had been guilty of self-neglect instead of watchful self-care. She had spent much time helping others. Now she would have to defend her own selfhood better. She embraced this human selfhood in the love of God, and with the sword of Spirit she struck down the painful suggestion every time it tried to attach itself to her. She silently reassured herself of the Father's tender love and of His strong protecting care. Persistently continuing this procedure, she gained a complete victory by evening; and peace reigned within. She stood ready once more to radiate and share her joy with others along the way.
Our whole being should be in tune with the omnipresence, omnipotence, omniaction, and omniscience of God, good. The human expression of real being, of absolute holiness, is wholehearted service to God showing forth in wisdom, kindness, patience, unselfish love. Our being should represent harmony at all times, be unchanging and unchangeable in its joy and spiritual awareness, undisturbed by variations of material sense, reflecting the immortal, the divine, in its unbroken continuity. In the Bible we read, "Your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely." Lev. 26:5 ; Such is the uninterrupted harvest of being at one with God. It is innate contentment, being well pleased with the only true universe, being uniformly stable, steadfastly pure, joyously childlike, trustingly humble.
To really be is to be glorious, harmonious, forever sharing one's blessings with others through following the wonderful example of Christ Jesus. Mrs. Eddy affirms: "More than regal is the majesty of the meekness of the Christ-principle; and its might is the ever-flowing tides of truth that sweep the universe, create and govern it; and its radiant stores of knowledge are the mysteries of exhaustless being. Seek ye these till you make their treasures yours." The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 149 .
