Article December 3, 1979 Issue

Prayer in sports

Kenneth Warren Eggert

Much more emphasis is being placed today on the importance of mental attitudes and conditioning in achieving athletic success. A tennis champion talks about being "properly psyched up" to win. Or a coach may blame a losing season on the lack of the team's desire to win and the costly "mental errors" that caused defeat.

What can Christian Science contribute to an athlete? In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy explains clearly the mental nature of muscular action and development. She writes: "Mortals develop their own bodies or make them sick, according as they influence them through mortal mind. ... The feats of the gymnast prove that latent mental fears are subdued by him. The devotion of thought to an honest achievement makes the achievement possible." She also indicates, however, that God, the divine Mind that governs man, is the ultimate source of strength and control. In an earlier paragraph we read: "Muscles are not self-acting. If mind does not move them, they are motionless. Hence the great fact that Mind alone enlarges and empowers man through its mandate,—by reason of its demand for and supply of power."^{Science and Health, p. 199;}

Man is not a mere mortal struggling to master laws of physics, limitations of height, weight, and time—though this often seems the case—but is the perfect expression of infinite Spirit, supreme good. The student of the Christ Science soon learns that man's true nature is unlimited and perfect, spiritual. The only man God originates is active and strong. His entire being and action are unerringly harmonious, precisely reflecting the rhythm of Spirit, the power and control of immortal Principle. This characterizes the man of God—the true you and me.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Testimony of Healing

The words "Christian Science" first came to my...