J. Burwell Harrison, a lifelong Christian Scientist, is the president and resident trustee of Tenacre Foundation at Princeton, New Jersey, a care facility accredited by the Department of Care of The Mother Church. Tenacre ministers to Christian Scientists, offering a wide range of care and nursing services including the care of the elderly and the training of Christian Science practical and graduate nurses.

What's at the core of overcoming age?

Well, it's dealing with this whole belief of life in matter. I had a very interesting Sunday School class some weeks ago. When the Lesson-Sermon had the part by Mrs. Eddy about "Chronological data are no part of the vast forever," ^{Science and Health, p. 246;} I asked these kids—fourteen and fifteen years old—"Is there anything that you can't do now that you could do when you were a baby?"

One boy very quickly said, "Yes, I can't put my toe in my mouth."

A girl said, "I used to be able to do the split, but I can't now."

And I said, "Well, you thought that I was the only one that was getting old, didn't you?"

And this kind of startled them. I said, "Right when you were at the baby age, the world was pinning on you the suggestion that you were getting older. It claims you've been getting older and older right up to now. But there's something you can do about it."

Paul said, "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." ^{Gal. 5:16;} Mrs. Eddy says, "Sooner or later we shall learn that the fetters of man's finite capacity are forged by the illusion that he lives in body instead of in Soul, in matter instead of in Spirit." ^{Science and Health, p. 223;}

I suppose we're constantly taught that this physical body is man, and that like all matter it is wearing out.

Anyone who wants to counter this kind of education with Christian Science must face all the ways in which matter seems to be part of his experience. I even include the physical Tenacre, which consists of some thirty buildings and all the equipment that goes into them. I often refer to the statements in Deuteronomy—after Moses had led his people in the wilderness for forty years, not only were his health and faculties preserved, but neither the clothes nor the shoes of the people were "waxen old." (See Deut. 29:5 and 34:7.

In reality, is anything ever wearing out?

No. In Spirit there's no friction, no pull of gravity at work, nor any law of deterioration, and Spirit is the real substance of life. I pray to see that all things real are spiritual, neither young nor old. As for man, I must not claim any identity apart from the spiritual.

Even young people can begin to reverse the belief of age?

Yes, that is what I was trying to get my Sunday School class to realize.

Why do different people seem to age at different rates?

It's absolutely the way they think. Age is a state of consciousness, not years. The more we talked that Sunday, the more the class began to see it—that, very early, we have to begin to stop planting the seeds of thought that ultimate in old age.

During World War II, I went into the Army at age thirty-four and trained with boys of eighteen. Believe me, to stay in the middle range of achievement in competition like that I had to uproot some good-sized "plants" I had already allowed to grow in my thought concerning physical limitations of age.

My understanding of God and spiritual man grew because it was forced to grow. It gave me a better sense of my unlimited, ageless selfhood, and it is still a help to me today.

When I was offered the presidency of my Rotary Club for a second term, twenty years after serving the first time, I accepted it as a challenge similar to the Army experience—if I was unconsciously leveling off it would stimulate me, require me to apply Science to keep abreast of this fast-moving, quick-thinking group. And it did sharpen me up—it was a good experience.

I believe that's one way to keep from fulfilling "the lust of the flesh"—succumbing to the human laws about age. We can, right now, claim the dominion and capacity which are ours as children of God. Limitation is self-imposed.

People your age often say, "I don't do this or that anymore."

They don't need to. We can resist the feeling that years can take something from us. We can also resist the feeling that years can make us eligible for special privileges.

What about exercise? Is it necessary for the older person?

It's individual. I for one enjoy it. But I think we have to be careful not to take exercise for medicinal purposes.

Exercising your abilities instead of your muscles?

Yes, that's a nice way to put it. Keep it on the basis of expressing vigor and life.

Do you see any reason why people should expect things to go wrong with their bodies because the earth has gone around the sun seventy or eighty times since they were born?

Some doctors are calling that a "time neurosis." No. Not if we gain a perfect sense of body, if we have a usable concept of man as the image and likeness of God—not physique but an individual spiritual consciousness—

—made up of qualities, not muscles?

Yes, I just take this physical body along mentally at this point, I don't—

—let it take you along?

Right. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes, "When you say, 'Man's body is material, I say with Paul: Be 'willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.'" ^{p. 216;}

She also teaches that "Life is, always has been, and ever will be independent of matter; for Life is God, and man is the idea of God, not formed materially but spiritually, and not subject to decay and dust." ^{p. 200 .} Man exists at the eternal noon of perfection, and there's no building up to that point and no sliding downhill after that. We have to hold to that divine fact.

Some older people have such a sharp memory while others seem to forget things.

Well, this is not just a problem of age. But if we really know we are the reflection of the one Mind, certainly no facts we need to know can disappear. When can Mind stop functioning? When can Mind stop imparting to its individual expression every thought, every idea that it needs? Of course we can't afford to entertain the belief that we can lose anything. If you can lose anything, why wouldn't you lose your memory? Overcoming the chronic belief of life in matter calls for consistency. Christ Jesus didn't apply the truth just when the shoe pinched.

But an elderly person sometimes fears he might lose his usefulness.

Yes. He may think things are passing him by because he doesn't have quite the same load of responsibilities that he once had and so thinks his reason for existing is gone.

But our world does not have to fall apart. We are needed. We are always able to do spiritual work. Too many are accustomed to paying a Christian Science practitioner to do their work for them while they stay on the firing line. Too often we expect our Christian Science nurses to pick up the pieces. Instead, we should learn to practice scientific prayer along the way, and our practitioners should demand it of us. Then we will never ever really retire. We have only one job to do, and it's to be about our Father's business. And there's no age limit to that, and no special place to do it in, and you don't need physical ability.

Can now be a time of accomplishment for the elderly?

Why not?

What can they accomplish?

They can help heal the world as Christian Science practitioners. There's no limit to the potentialities. Mrs. Eddy established The Christian Science Monitor at eighty-seven with the intent to bless all mankind. And there are people over sixty who take college degrees.

How do you feel about the callous treatment elderly people sometimes receive from those who should be caring tenderly for them?

We must do much better on this point. It's distressing to the older person when he feels he's forgotten, his wisdom and experience ignored, his need for good shelter, companionship, overlooked.

But our compassion should go to our fellowmen in any difficulty. I don't, myself, distinguish between someone who's needy at forty-five and someone who is needy at eighty-five, if they come into my experience as needy people.

It is only from the acme of Christianity that one can understand Christian Science. You can't understand Science except out of the great heart of everything the word Christianity means.