Article November 6, 1978 Issue

Inversion or reality?

PERSIS E. ZUBER

Have you ever stood on a clear, windstill day at the edge of a lake and marveled at what is mirrored from the other side? Each object, each detail faithfully represented—upside down! If we had no other evidence and our total view were limited to the images in the water, we might accept the inversions as real. But once we see the whole view, we can smile at the deception.

So it is with the material, enigmatic view of man and the universe. From the very limited standpoint of human understanding, life may sometimes seem to be one vast sea of misery, disease, and hopelessness, with only occasional instances of happiness, health, longevity. Yet the Bible states with authority that God, in His infinite allness, created only good and was satisfied with His work. Two very different portrayals! Which of the two we believe determines to a great extent what we are experiencing.

The Founder of the Christian Science movement, Mary Baker Eddy, made a stunning discovery: that the mortal span, happy or otherwise, is not ultimate reality but an inverted picture compiled from the allegations of the senses. It is mirage—error in thought resulting in error in experience. But Mrs. Eddy doesn't stop there. Stripping away the material picture, she shows us man's real identity as the faithful expression of God, Spirit— eternal, upright, spiritual. The following passage by Mrs. Eddy summarizes these truths. Called "the scientific statement of being," it is read each Sunday in every Christian Science church and Sunday School: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual."^{Science and Health, p. 468;}

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