Article October 4, 1975 Issue

No Vacuums

CAROL EARLE CHAPIN

In God's universe vacuums are unknown. God, Spirit, being infinite and all-inclusive, fills infinity and encompasses His creation within His all-embracing love. Man is included in this omnipresence. Only as we accept the erroneous suggestion that we are mortals in a material universe can we seem to be plagued by the equally erroneous suggestions of emptiness—missing health, waning life, inadequate intelligence, absent good, lost love.

To ensure the presence of good in our lives, we have work to do. Paradoxically, much of this work is a process of elimination. To illustrate: if you have a glass of water with dirt in it and you want to have good, pure water, there are two ways of having it. You can empty the glass, wash it, and refill it. Or you can run a steady stream of pure water into the glass until every bit of the silt is brought to the surface and washed away. Both methods are needed in the practive of Christian Science, although the latter, perhaps, would be analogous to the highest way of ridding thought of material elements.

As we grasp the truths of God and man and constantly feed them to consciousness, this purifying stream of ideas will bring a recognition of error as error and will act to dislodge erroneous beliefs. Then we'll find ourselves more continuously receiving right thoughts from God, divine Mind. Mrs. Eddy writes: "The way to extract error from mortal mind is to pour in truth through flood-tides of Love. Christian perfection is won on no other basis." ^{Science and Health, p. 201;}