Article December 28, 1981 Issue

"I" trouble?

ELVEY WILLIAM ALFRED BARTON

You wonder what it is? Well, maybe you will agree that it assumes man to be mortal, and that there are many mortal "I's." You know: "I want this, I want more, I have lost my health, I am sick, I lack this and that, I am lonely, I am unemployed, and so on. I am never finished wanting something or other." The old merry-go-round of mortal mind activity may show us how much the word "I" is being improperly used.

For example, it is not necessary to be unemployed. There is a job waiting for everyone. A three-hundred-and-sixty-five-days-of-the-year job. It will satisfy all our other "I wants." A full-time occupation, it is the most rewarding work one could engage in. You say, "What is this job? It sounds like a steady, ongoing sort." I might add that it is a job you won't get fired from.

It is the job of correct self-identification. But it starts with getting to know God, the great I am, as the Bible records Him. With this acquaintanceship, we begin to realize that we are the individualized expression, or reflection, of this one and only I am. When attempting to separate or split off millions of little I's from the one and only "I," which is God, Mind, we suffer the ills of the flesh. We must constantly identify our true selves and others as the individual expression of the one "I." Such identification gives us plenty of work to do. Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, makes it plain: "Be of good cheer; the warfare with one's self is grand; it gives one plenty of employment, and the divine Principle worketh with you,—and obedience crowns persistent effort with everlasting victory."^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 118.}