Editorial October 25, 1969 Issue

No Dearth of Ideas

Alan A. Aylwin

Does your work demand new ideas? Are you perhaps engaged in developing original methods and procedures in the burgeoning technology of our time? Or are you a writer in search of new material and fresher means of expression? If your work fits into these or similar categories, there are times when you may have found yourself at a standstill through a sudden dearth of inspiration. And then, if there is a deadline to meet, panic has set in, and you have groped blindly for some glimmer of light.

When faced with such crises, the earnest student of Christian Science will not get into a mental flap. He knows this will only accentuate the problem. It will confuse and darken his thought and prevent him from quietly and humbly listening for the ideas that God, divine Mind, is always revealing to His creation. The student knows that the real, spiritual man is never separate from infinite Spirit. He has learned that this Spirit, or Mind, is the divine Ego that individualizes itself in the distinct, spiritual identities of all men and imparts to each a never-ending flow of right ideas. He can tap this infinite source of inspiration as he affirms and realizes his unity with Mind and blends with it in quality through Christian living.

Our attempts to lay hold of original concepts founder when we think of ourselves as personal innovators or inventors. Our store of new ideas becomes limited and runs dry when we imagine it is accumulated in a brain-centered mind that occasionally serves us well but quite often lets us down. Mrs. Eddy warns, "Every concept which seems to begin with the brain begins falsely." And she adds, "Divine Mind is the only cause or Principle of existence."^{Science and Health, p. 262;} This Mind, then, is the source of real thought, and because of this we can be sure that the idea we need must always be present in thought. In other words, the "I" of our being is God Himself, and when we are humble enough to surrender a personal sense of mind and acknowledge our total dependence on the divine Mind, we are on our way to a confident sense that inspiration and originality are always at hand.