Article January 1, 1979 Issue

Making use of the past

FRANCES M. GIBSON

Whether our past has been fruitful or frustrating, we can make it servant instead of master by spiritualizing our perception of it. We can prove the unreality of a material concept of our history and begin living with greater dominion.

Our actual identity has always been incorporeal, ideal, the reflection of God. We have never really known a fleshly existence. The physical sense of life is a dream. Its only record is in supposititious mortal consciousness. This mentality can and should be rejected as unreal, untrue, because God alone is Mind.

The Bible asserts, "God requireth that which is past."^{Eccl. 3:15;} We need to recognize God as All-in-all in our thought of the past as well as of the present. The discernment of God's totality erases the memory of former hurts. The Psalmist sang of God: "One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts. ... They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness, and shall sing of thy righteousness."^{Ps. 145:4, 7;}