Article January 25, 1988 Issue

On Love and progress

Most of us feel jogged out of complacency when we check to see whether we are reaching the goals we've set. But real progress comes when we measure our success in terms of our expression of Love.

Robert Edwin Marquand, Jr.

Progress is always progress in relation to something. To those learning about God, that something is Love. God is Love. And Love is to the spiritual seeker the absolute standard against which to measure all things, a constant—similar to what the speed of light is to the physicist.

Yet love is so much more than an abstract measure; it is a beacon, a transforming presence, the one spiritual intelligence. Indeed, Love is our creator—our Father and Mother. And when understood, Love determines our true expression toward all creatures, especially our fellowman. In fact, one might say that not only do we progress in the degree that we love, but we are Christians only to the degree that we love. Without love, Christianity would fall apart.

Without love there can be no healing progress in Christian Science. How could there be if all healing power comes from God—the infinite, only Love? Examining the nature of progress, Mrs. Eddy observes, "Progress is the maturing conception of divine Love; it demonstrates the scientific, sinless life of man and mortal's painless departure from matter to Spirit, not through death, but through the true idea of Life,—and Life not in matter but in Mind."^{The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 181.}