Editorial February 2, 1987 Issue

"To be, or not to be ..."

Michael D. Rissler

Contemporary men and women, writers like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Jacobo Timerman, Maya Angelou, come to crossroads in their lives where a choice—often many choices on many occasions—must be made. Sometimes these are moral decisions wrought out on a world stage. At other times no one knows of the struggle but the person who must make the choice.

I note those three individuals—I could have listed others —because they're ones whose books I've read recently. While each person is quite different, they remind me that even under the most challenging circumstances, there are men and women who have prevailed against what might have seemed to be insurmountable obstacles.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, occasionally mentioned men and women whose lives stood out in this way. Of course, anyone who is familiar with her writings realizes that the place Christ Jesus occupied in her thought and life is unique and singular. She saw him as Saviour and the Son of God—as the very embodiment of what it is utterly to live as the child of God. Undoubtedly it was that deep love of Christ which enabled her to value and honor goodness, bravery, and upright character wherever they were to be found.

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