Editorial December 16, 1985 Issue

Christmas wherever we are

BARBARA-JEAN STINSON

Christmas can be a time of feeling at home wherever we are. Those words of the popular song "I'll Be Home for Christmas" don't have to tear at our heartstrings if we can't be with those we love during the holidays. In the truest sense, being home at any time of the year is so much more than residing at a particular place on earth; it's feeling comfortable with ourselves and what we're doing—and that comes from abiding in God, divine Love.

In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy gives us a deeply metaphysical idea to consider on the subject of abiding in God. She writes, "The senses of Spirit abide in Love, and they demonstrate Truth and Life."^{Science and Health, p. 274.} How easy it is, if we're away from home or separated from those we love, especially at Christmastime, to permit our thought to linger with what the physical senses are trying to tell us—that we're alone, lonely, unappreciated. Yet when we turn away from what we seem to perceive through those senses—through our eyes and ears—and judge by "the senses of Spirit," or our true spiritual sense, we'll discover that we do "abide in Love."

Spiritual sense is the very opposite of the so-called physical senses. Spiritual sense is the God-given ability we all have to discern God's ever-presence and His eternal love for each one of us. Christian Science reveals we have spiritual sense because we are each in truth created by God. And since God is Spirit, our true identity as man—God's likeness—is spiritual, not material. The only sense we can actually have must come from God, and it is good, telling us of the presence of Truth, Life, and Love. We might even say that spiritual sense is both our "heredity" and our inheritance. As the Bible tells us, Paul said, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ."^{Rom. 8:16,17.}

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