Article January 23, 1978 Issue

Relief from tensions of modern life

ALAN A. AYLWIN

The realization that we actually live in the spiritual substance, or love, of an infinite God—that we are His children, His spiritual ideas—has a refreshing, healing effect obtainable in no other way. Quiet, humble communion with divine Love harmonizes and revitalizes our whole being. We glimpse something of our actual oneness, or unity, with the divine Mind. We see more clearly that God constitutes our very being, controls every aspect of our experience; and the grateful acknowledgment of these facts keeps us well and happy. It empowers us to perform duties with confidence and ability.

The earnest student of Christian Science soon finds that real rest and refreshment is a state of spiritual knowing rather than of physical inaction. He finds the biblical injunction "Be still, and know that I am God"^{Ps. 46:10;} the perfect remedy for weariness and tension. Although these seem to be physical sensations, they are really negative states of thought impinging on the body. They fade away in the quiet, confident realization that God, infinite Mind, is All—the I AM of man and the universe.

Real refreshment has nothing to do with apathy, inertia, or indolence. In the Christian Science textbook the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, states crisply, "God rests in action."^{Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 519;} This divine action is God's knowledge of Himself and His universe, and spiritual man—the real selfhood of us all—reflects this restful activity. Holding in thought this true concept of God and man is, then, both one's true activity and his true refreshment. This is the Christ, the "bread of life"^{John 6:48;} referred to by Jesus. This bread nourishes us in the degree that we partake of it. It releases us from the wearying beliefs of tension and pressure that modern life would attempt to foist upon us.