An important point was being made. That much was clear to me and the rest of our Christian Science Sunday School class. Of course, most of our thoughts were concerned with high school or college. But I loved our teacher, and if she said it was important not to bury our sense of infinitude, then I accepted it.

She often referred to that statement in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures where Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes, "We bury the sense of infinitude, when we admit that, although God is infinite, evil has a place in this infinity, for evil can have no place, where all space is filled with God." ^{Science and Health, p. 469.}

Frankly, at the time, I didn't know what this statement meant. It only began to dawn on me in later years that here is a powerful, effective truth. Just what is "the sense of infinitude"? How do we get it? How do we maintain it—keep it alive?

You might say it is a sense of God, a sense of spiritual good, a sense of what's worthwhile and lasting. To discover and then cultivate this sense may require looking deep into our thinking. Maybe we've been accepting surface views of life, of ourselves, and of those around us. Did Christ Jesus do this? No, everything the Bible relates of his words and works points in the opposite direction. Christian Science explains that he looked for and saw man's true identity—perfect, unlimited, the likeness of God, subject to no material or physical laws. He accepted only the divine view, the Christly view, of his fellowman as revealed through his deep understanding of God, the Father of man.

Maybe part of the challenge is that we aren't accustomed to thinking in terms of infinity. Dictionaries supply many definitions of infinite such as unlimited, perfect, immeasurably great, and subject to no external determination. My Sunday School teacher, seeing that our class needed to gain a better understanding of the concept, once told us to think of a circle whose circumference was everywhere. Science and Health says, "God is at once the centre and circumference of being." ^{Ibid., pp. 203–204.}

There's no "outside" to the infinite. So what does it mean to think—and live—from the standpoint of the infinite? For one thing, it means to love more through seeing our true being as the expression of unlimited, all-inclusive divine Love. Then we're less tempted to let personal likes or preferences influence us. When thought is centered on people and criticizing what they say and do, that wonderful sense of infinitude is buried for the moment. But it stays alive as we let God, boundless Love, inform us what is true of ourselves and others. We can put this sense of infinite Love into practice in bumper-to-bumper traffic on a homeward commute or in the checkout line at the supermarket.

We can reason from the standpoint of the infinite in thinking about our daily supply, our families, our neighbors, our church, our country, our world. It's tempting to think of supply in terms of jobs and paychecks, or money funds and retirement accounts. These must be handled wisely and viewed rightly, but the important question is this: In which direction is our thought going— toward the infinite and unlimited or the fearful and restricted?

I recall one of a continuing number of lessons in this area. Our daughter was in junior high school, and she wasn't very happy. Nothing was terribly wrong, but her friendships and general accomplishments were rather limited. One day my wife proposed that we look into private schooling for her. This seemed ridiculous to me. My salary was not large, and we were barely meeting the monthly bills. I felt we couldn't even consider such a plan. My wife did not press it, but mentioned the idea once or twice. You might say I had my sense of supply buried in matter and simply couldn't see how we could afford the additional expense. In fact, I refused to talk about it. So the school situation continued to be unsatisfactory. Finally my wife spoke to me again and said I could at least open my thought to the idea. That woke me up a little, and I agreed to write to the school for information and an application.

Even this partial resurrection of my sense of infinitude had remarkable results. Once my thought was open, funds flowed in from a variety of sources. My daughter's schooling was paid for without any extra saving.

How often we bury our sense of infinitude, and usually with an array of good human reasons to back up our conclusions. Those figures on my salary checks and the charges on the monthly bills seemed very intimidating. But actually this was a smoke screen put up by limited human concepts, by mortal mind calling itself my thinking. The whole picture changed when I refused to remain buried in these beliefs and opened my thought in a greater measure to God's governing power. This required deeper prayer and a more earnest effort to live in accord with the praying we were doing. But we saw the blessing, and our daughter went on to some enriching experiences.

It's helpful to check ourselves from time to time and see if we are accepting an infinite, Godlike sense in all areas—home relationships, business responsibilities, views of world events, and especially in how we are thinking of ourselves. Maybe past experiences or the environment around us during growing-up years resulted in a certain viewpoint. Maybe we have accepted the belief that we fit into a particular personality type. Sometimes you hear, "That's just the way I am." Or, "We always did things that way at home." Or even the statement "From that time on, I never felt the same."

In just such ways excuses come into thought, and many seem perfectly justified. But Christian Science teaches us that we will never discover the beauty and grandeur of our true being by such thinking. To accept or indulge excuses only buries our redeeming and regenerating sense of infinitude. But to let our lives be revitalized by the contemplation and Christian practice of infinite good, infinite Truth, opens the way to joy and freedom.

We need the Christ, the divine idea ever available to mankind. No matter what the binding, limiting suggestions may be on our bodies or in our lives, we can rejoice that infinity is. We can know that evil can find no home, no foothold in this infinity. Certainly anything unlike God, good, has nothing to support it, nothing to sustain it, nothing to validate it, and no ability to attach itself to God's creation. Recognizing this, we find our sense of infinitude can never be buried, but is kept alive to bless and heal ourselves and others.