Article January 16, 1978 Issue

Healing: divine and spontaneous

HERBERT F. BIRTWISTLE

One morning, when I was ready to leave home for a city fifty miles away, the telephone rang. A friend needed help in Christian Science. He was suffering from severe pain, which had kept him awake during the night. I reminded this friend that he was actually spiritual, the image of God, infinite Mind, and that the suggestion of sickness or the belief that he was at the mercy of matter was false and could not possibly interfere with his well-being. I referred him to a passage in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Here the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, tells us, "Man is the expression of God's being."^{Science and Health, p. 470;}

With this and a promise to help, I left home to keep my appointment. As I drove along, I considered the fact that, despite the appearance of corporeality, man is spiritual. Corporeality is a finite and distorted view of man held by mortal mind. All that is substantial or actual about anyone is the spiritual qualities he individualizes as the reflection of Soul, and these qualities are God-given and eternal. Nothing else is really man, nor can anyone who has discerned the truth of man be unduly impressed by the suggestions of material error.

I applied these truths specifically in the case of my friend, and I saw that matter does not determine spiritual qualities. Physicality does not create or destroy integrity, for instance—or loyalty, love, and understanding. All that is truly substantial and lasting is spiritual and is reflected in the harmony of man's being as the eternal and complete manifestation of Mind. Mortal thinking, with its false fears and evil suggestions, finds no part in the divine picture.

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