Article October 13, 1980 Issue

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Changing our base

JOHN HAY SCOTT

Recently I was challenged to revise basic assumptions I had held about mathematics. Like someone in pre-Galileo times, I had assumed that the world of "base ten" was the fixed point and that the sun of numeration revolved round it. Not so, my "new mathematics" family pointed out, explaining that the world of computers works from quite a different base.

Christian Scientists are similarly challenged to realize that they must work from the base of Spirit, not matter, if they wish to follow Christ Jesus' way of living. Unless we are willing to challenge material conceptions, we may find ourselves fabricating decisions, predictions, and judgments on the unreliable framework of matter. Jesus said, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."^{John 4:24;} By recognizing Spirit as the groundwork of our being we can act rather than react, and live in obedience to God. Accepting spirituality as our real nature and identifying with the source of our existence, we discern the qualities derived from Spirit. We find that tiredness and lassitude, for instance, cannot sap the energy man expresses as God's likeness.

Jesus' parable of the prodigal son illustrates the effect of changing one's outlook. The younger of two sons asked for his share of their inheritance and spent it all on material pleasures. Finally, he was poverty-stricken and overwhelmed by the emptiness of such existence. The first sign of his changed attitude is significant: "And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!" The transition is natural and pointed: "when he came to himself," back to his real self in an awakening that was to restore him to his spiritual—and undiminished—heritage. The elder son was reassured that his resources were also unlimited when his father said, "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine."^{Luke 15:17, 31;}

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