Article July 9, 1984 Issue

Start growing spiritually now

JANET GIBB

What is spiritual growth, and how do we attain it? We all see around us much evidence of what we call natural, human growth. A little baby is born, and perhaps it receives the name of Henry. Everyone who looks at him says, "Isn't Henry the sweetest little thing!" Then later on you hear people complaining, "Henry is so rough and boisterous." Still later he is considered to be a handsome, dashing sort of person; then a married, steady individual; and eventually you hear, "Poor old Henry; he has aged so much lately."

Now, I ask, which was Henry? The baby, the boy, the young man, the husband? Or was it perhaps poor old Henry? It is clear that none of these stages of human growth was the real man, the spiritual and perfect man God has created. Mrs. Eddy tells us in Science and Health, "If we were to derive all our conceptions of man from what is seen between the cradle and the grave, happiness and goodness would have no abiding-place in man, and the worms would rob him of the flesh ...."^{Science and Health, p. 244.}

Man, the expression of God, is incorporeal and ageless. He is not young or old—not subject to states and stages of material growth and development. Real growth is spiritual unfoldment and not a material process.

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