Editorial May 5, 1980 Issue

The right approach to mistakes

GEOFFREY J. BARRATT

The man who never makes a mistake never makes anything, it's said. James frankly confessed, "In many things we offend all." James 3:2; No one seems to get through life without doing some wrong things. This can be somewhat reassuring, in that we don't feel uniquely muddle-headed. But it's normal to want to minimize our misjudgments.

We can approach the situation through scientific insight into God and man. Then we have a starting point for rectifying slips in the past and dealing better with today and tomorrow. God is infallible intelligence. His judgments are flawless. God and man, divine Love and our real self, coexist forever. Man, the unmarred reflection of Love, has done no wrong, thought no wrong. The main mistake we make, the reason we miss the target, is that we believe otherwise. And this mistake, this totally false sense of being, we can always correct—through accepting and living the Christ—no matter how messy the mortal imbroglio we may have fallen into.

To approach our mistakes with spiritual truth is not simply to wriggle out of some bad choices. And it's not a way of simply overlooking the results of those choices. Nor is it a retreat from responsibility for our actions, though it is a kind of retreat: a retreat from mortal belief to divine reality.

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Courage to heal
May 5, 1980
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