Don't Let the Calendar Get You

In reality there is never a moment when the real man is aged, lonely, or useless, for he is the complete, changeless expression of God. God is tireless, joyous, ever-active Life.

This may seem pretty far-out when we look around us and see on every hand evidence of age, decay, and age-related incapacity and unhappiness. But Christian Science insists that this evidence is suspect, indeed totally false. It teaches that persons and things, as the physical senses perceive them, are not God-created but are counterfeits of the real man and the real universe. They are phases of a hypnotic dream that seems to make all things appear material and subject to disease, decay, and final annihilation.

In other words, people of senior years need not succumb to the limitations that popular belief would fasten upon them. The Bible states forthrightly, "Thine age shall be clearer than the noonday; thou shalt shine forth, thou shalt be as the morning." ^{Job 11:17 ;}

Christian Science reveals a spiritual source of joy, strength, and renewal that can be tapped by anyone regardless of age. It shows this source to be God Himself, divine Love, the one infinite I am or Life, that creates, sustains, and animates the real identities of all men. As these metaphysical facts are progressively understood and persistently claimed, a sense of unity with God grows in thought. Then we feel our oneness with divine Life and partake of its buoyancy and strength. The book of Isaiah promises, "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." ^{Isa. 40:31 ;}

The capacities and abilities that God, divine Mind, imparts to man can never be lost. The real man is not a deteriorating matter body but a divine idea eternally individualizing the intelligence of Mind. So whether he appears humanly to be twenty-five or seventy-five, the real identity of man abides in changeless perfection in the one Ego, or divine consciousness, and manifests its freshness, alertness, and resourcefulness. Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health, "Life and its faculties are not measured by calendars." ^{Science and Health, p. 246 ;} And further on she continues, "Except for the error of measuring and limiting all that is good and beautiful, man would enjoy more than threescore years and ten and still maintain his vigor, freshness, and promise."

Perhaps for someone the period of so-called retirement is a difficult experience. The valedictory presentation has been made, the stimulating associations and challenges are past and gone, and one is at home feeling useless and alone, wondering what to do with himself.

This should present no problem to one who has learned that his real reason for living hasn't terminated with his job. He knows that he exists to express God, and this necessity will go on forever. So what appears superficially as the end of everything actually can be the beginning of something far greater and more satisfying, a period of study and spiritual growth possibly leading to a wider usefulness than anything previously attained. Whatever our age or occupation, we should remember that Christ Jesus' words are relevant in our experience: "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." ^{John 18:37 ;}

Sometimes it is said of those who are up in years that they tend to live in the past because to them the best times in their lives were "back there" and the present seems pretty empty. But the present is just what we make it. And the student of Christian Science is in a happy position to apply his knowledge of Truth in the now and make it relevant and fruitful. Limitations of ability, failing faculties, physical incapacity, can be thrown off in a sense of spiritual adventuring, in testing and proving one's understanding of real being.

Mrs. Eddy writes: "There is an old age of the heart, and a youth that never grows old; a Love that is a boy, and a Psyche who is ever a girl." ^{Miscellaneous Writings, Pref., pp. ix, x .} But then she adds, "The fleeting freshness of youth, however, is not the evergreen of Soul; the coloring glory of perpetual bloom; the spiritual glow and grandeur of a consecrated life wherein dwelleth peace, sacred and sincere in trial or in triumph."

In her latter years Mrs. Eddy was a living example of "the evergreen of Soul." With spiritual energy and zest she carried on her monumental task. Through following her teachings and example, we too can find some of the same spiritual inspiration that fed and sustained her.