Editorial April 7, 1980 Issue

Grappling with new thoughts

GEOFFREY J. BARRATT

Beliefs. Opinions. Speculations. Predictions. These swirl around (even batter, we may often feel) the average citizen in a modern society with its intense network of communications. Sometimes it is tempting just to switch off, metaphorically as well as literally, for some peace. And we occasionally need to. But we definitely should not consistently avoid grappling with the thoughts and views that are important to the spiritual and moral health of our family, community, and nation.

To be spiritually and intellectually active takes effort. But the more we make the effort, the better we become at appreciating the significance—positive or negative—of new thoughts, then accepting or rejecting them. The Christian Scientist cannot sidestep the demand to be mentally energetic. The Scientist, more than others, accepts the primacy of thoughts—good thoughts—in initiating right action, in maintaining health, in healing.

Christian Science itself came about through effort—among other things the effort of its Discoverer to grapple with new thoughts and perceptions. This individual, Mary Baker Eddy, writes in the Preface of her most important work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "A book introduces new thoughts, but it cannot make them speedily understood. It is the task of the sturdy pioneer to hew the tall oak and to cut the rough granite."^{Science and Health, p. vii;} The reader of Science and Health, the recipient of the new thoughts, has to work energetically, too. He or she finds that the hitherto obscure passage or concept is not to be slid over but worked at, mined for its deepest spiritual meaning and application.