Article March 29, 1975 Issue

Humility—A Lifting Up to Healing

JUDITH H. HEDRICK

Humility is sometimes mistakenly viewed as weakness of character or lack of individuality. To some it may have the connotation of humiliation. The picture is one of an individual burdened by an acutely negative sense of self, instead of one freed from a material, limited sense of identity and lifted up into a higher consciousness of the true source of all life and identity—God.

In Christian Science humility is the key not to a negative sense of self but to the comprehension of true being, the immortal identity of man as God's divine idea. It means putting off the old mortal self-consciousness of man as a material, sensual being subject to sickness, sin, and death, and attaining the consciousness of man as the image, the reflection, of God's eternal being. As the image of God, man can experience only what God knows; therefore our true being is the spiritual, immortal reflection of divine Life. Can God, Life, who is all-knowing, all-powerful, omnipresent perfection, include anything unlike goodness, harmony, and love?

One needs to forgo pride in a personal sense of identity based on the evidence of the physical senses and gain an understanding of the power and glory of God reflected as the only true self of man. Mrs. Eddy says in her Miscellaneous Writings, "Humility is the stepping-stone to a higher recognition of Deity." And further: "Meekness heightens immortal attributes only by removing the dust that dims them. Goodness reveals another scene and another self seemingly rolled up in shades, but brought to light by the evolutions of advancing thought, whereby we discern the power of Truth and Love to heal the sick."^{ Mis., pp. 1-2;}

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