Forever is now

DAVID SCOTT

Do you realize that the word "now" is valid only as we accept eternity now and refute the concept of time completely? Limitless time is a common definition of eternity, but nothing is further from the truth. Mrs. Eddy writes in the Christian Science textbook: "Eternity, not time, expresses the thought of Life, and time is no part of eternity. One ceases in proportion as the other is recognized."^{Science and Health, p. 468;}

The commonly held human view of time is that it's a progression, expressed in terms of past, present, and future. "Now" is the theoretical instant between the past and the future. Human consciousness, therefore, lives in limbo, in a perpetual "between" state, largely concerned with past sorrows and joys and future hopes and fears. But the fact is, time is no more than an attempt by finite, human thought to describe in its own terms the infinite—an impossible task.

Let's explore some of the implications of consciously living in eternity now. If one accepts the fact that eternity is not time running on endlessly, what is it? The eternal now, in which creation—spiritual, instant, perfect, complete—is ever going on. And what grace, glory, happiness, such realization confers! God's perfect creation did not take place several million or billion years ago in a time world but is even now unfolding, forever unfolding in the eternal now. This one and only creation, forever complete, includes no past and no future—only the ever-new now of the eternal God. As Mrs. Eddy declares, "We own no past, no future, we possess only now."^{The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 12 ;} And even a glimpse of this mighty reality blesses.