Editorial July 25, 1977 Issue

Retirement? What's That?

Naomi Price

After fifty outstandingly successful years in a particular profession a man stepped down from a top position into what other people thought would be semiretirement. Some time later he was asked to become a member of a panel to discuss before a large audience the problems of retirement and what Christian Science can do to help solve them. It was a worthwhile program and its organizers believed this man, a lifelong Christian Scientist, would have much to contribute. But—he was too busy. His calendar showed he was going to be away on a special assignment, and after further thought everyone involved had to admit that he knew from personal experience so little of the problems commonly associated with retirement that it would hardly be appropriate for him to be involved in a discussion about them. In fact, he had never thought of himself as retired, or even semiretired, and he certainly was neither.

To some people retirement from one occupation is merely the necessary prelude to getting involved in another. This is the way it will be to many more people in the world as the infinite capacities and possibilities of man are more generally recognized and claimed. The man God made is the expression of inexhaustible, infinite, divine Life and intelligence. Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis."^{ Science and Health, p. 258;} Even a glimmer of this spiritual fact accepted into human thought opens the way for new interests and activities to develop for mankind. Prospects for the future brighten. Instead of looking forward to decline, depression, and increasing dependence on others, one can see promise of even greater activity, a more expansive view of life and identity, and a more satisfying experience of usefulness and fulfillment than ever before.

But people on the whole have hardly even glimpsed the immensity of the possibilities for development that God provides for them. Christian Science shows the qualities and capacities of true manhood and womanhood to be infinite and maintains that they continue to develop eternally. It explains how everyone can enjoy these spiritual gifts by claiming them as their own. They are the inheritance of all the children of God. They are ours now and always because we reflect God. Mrs. Eddy writes: "Man is the offspring and idea of the Supreme Being, whose law is perfect and infinite. In obedience to this law, man is forever unfolding the endless beatitudes of Being; for he is the image and likeness of infinite Life, Truth, and Love."^{ Miscellaneous Writings, p. 82;}