Article February 5, 1977 Issue

"...thou shalt be as the morning"

MARIANNE GILLMAN THOMAS

Some time ago a promise from Job haunted me for days. Over and over the thought repeated itself,"...thou shalt be as the morning." ^{Job 11:17;} At last I began to really listen for its deeper message.

At the time, I lived on the twelfth floor of an apartment building, and my bedroom window faced east, opening on an enormous Colorado sky. One morning, with this scriptural promise dinning away in my thought, I watched the blackness yield to gray, then to shades of pink and blue. Quietly as the dawn itself a new idea registered, and I saw what seems to me the secret of the morning's freshness: the unceasing, effortless process of yielding—darkness yielding to the brighter light. The result of this yielding was newness and breathtaking beauty.

In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes, "The sun is a metaphorical representation of Soul outside the body, giving existence and intelligence to the universe." ^{Science and Health, p.510;} I could now see the freshness of the morning as a metaphor for human consciousness, expressing freshness and beauty as it yields to the light and might of Soul— that brighter light outside the body, which gives "existence and intelligence" to each child of God.