Article January 21, 1985 Issue

Letters from God

MAXINE SHORE

Some years ago when my mother passed on, I wrestled with a sense of irreparable loss. She had always been there when I needed her—someone to turn to for advice and encouragement, for understanding and uncondemning forgiveness when I willfully took a wrong turn. A bulwark for our little family, she was a fine example of courage and compassion lightened with humor and the appreciation of beauty.

Not only this, but her caring touch had constantly reached out to others, so that our home was truly what Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, describes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "Home is the dearest spot on earth, and it should be the centre, though not the boundary, of the affections."^{Science and Health, p. 58.} Mother set a high standard of devotion to God and man.

But now, it seemed, she was gone, and I had no parent to rely upon, for my father had passed on when I was a child. Yet comfort was at hand. Shortly after I was informed of her passing, I picked up Science and Health and opened it at random. My eye fell upon a single sentence, which stood out as if illuminated: "The individuality of man is no less tangible because it is spiritual and because his life is not at the mercy of matter."^{Ibid., p. 317.} It was as if a comforting arm had been placed around my shoulders, and I glimpsed the fact that the disappearance or appearance of vulnerable, unpredictable, illusive matter has nothing at all to do with the continuity of identity. Therefore it followed that this dear one was all right, always had been, always would be! Her individual life, actually an expression of the one eternal Life, God, was "no less tangible" and was not, never had been, nor ever would be, at the mercy of corporeality.