Article May 25, 1981 Issue

Remove the mask

DOROTHY M. BRIDGES

At Halloween some years ago, I took snapshots of several children in their costumes. Later I took the pictures to their mothers, who were not for a moment mystified by the masks, because they already knew the identities behind them.

Sometimes our real identities may be hidden behind a "mask" of material thinking. In the children's case, there were not two beings in one; unquestionably the costumes portrayed a false identity. Similarly, anything that would make us appear mortal is no part of true being, for whatever is real is forever good, perfect, and immortal. Yet often when we see someone wearing a "mask" of disease, hate, fear, lack, deformity, we may be tempted to believe this is the real man.

Such false identities stem from the belief that life and intelligence are in matter, opposed to God, Spirit, Mind. But this belief isn't a real state of existence; it's a misconception. Only what reflects God is actual. Mrs. Eddy writes in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health, "It is ignorance and false belief, based on a material sense of things, which hide spiritual beauty and goodness."^{Science and Health, p. 304.}