Article March 20, 1978 Issue

The joy of upgrading thought

BEVERLY MILGRAM BOWLES

"On the scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate it?" It can be almost anything discussed in our family: a movie, a new restaurant, a book, a play, a new shirt, even a party. The 1 to 10 rating system (1 being the best) has come to be a quick assessment of value, sometimes serious, sometimes humorous, but usually instructive.

This system is teaching me quite a lesson. Some months ago I realized that my life was not going smoothly. Worries and frustrations were occupying too much of my attention. A false sense of responsibility for the welfare of others close to me and self-condemnation for not being able to effect needed changes made me resentful, anxious, and discouraged.

Although, early in the day, I would try to ally myself with the spiritual facts given in the Lesson-Sermon,^{In the Christian Science Quarterly;} I found it increasingly difficult to focus steadily on the allness of God, good, and the nothingness of evil. Christian Science labels this apparent deflection of thought from God "animal magnetism" and explains it as false suggestion, aggressive in nature and mental in operation, which would disguise itself as our own thought. The way to exterminate such suggestions is to refuse absolutely to accept them as part of our own consciousness, our own Christlikeness. Mind, God, is the only source of right ideas. When we seem to be manipulated by inharmonious beliefs of any kind, we may not have persisted in denying power to these suggestions. We need to stop agreeing that they have life or mentality in and of themselves. They don't!

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