Editorial March 19, 1979 Issue

Sympathy that heals

Geoffrey J. Barratt

That God is omnipresent good and man unfailingly perfect and diseaseless is the launching point of Christian Science healing. Man, who expresses God's power, is never a sufferer but is always evidencing the unchanging love and government of God. Human beings, however, fall ill and suffer other kinds of trouble.

What attitude should we have to someone who is not well or who is deeply upset about some other circumstance in his life? We may feel that if we are trying to recognize what man really is—according to the criteria in the first paragraph—then a natural consequence will be to talk and act as though everything is really well with that individual.

We may have the best intentions in doing so. And if our vision of true being is deep, clear, consistent, our spiritual understanding will have a potent healing effect. Mary Baker Eddy stressed, in the words of one of her students, that to heal quickly "we should go to a patient with the feeling that he is well and we want to show him that he is well." We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, Second Series (Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1950), p. 23;

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March 19, 1979
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