Editorial October 24, 1988 Issue

A simplicity that is wise

Allison W. Phinney, Jr.

It's probably a good idea to get beyond a superficial sense of what is new and what is old. We also need to be more discerning about what is sophisticated and what is simple.

In a time of incredibly complex medical machinery and techniques, for example, the practice of Christian Science healing through spiritual means might seem to some too simple in its approach. A compassionate heart might fear that nothing substantial is going on, that no action is being taken, if it isn't complicated and visible. (A harder heart might scorn spiritual things as having no practicality at all.)

If we're persuaded by the so-called modern knowledge that man is a complex, material machine made out of miles of tubes and nerves and veins, then love or faith or spiritual joy could seem essentially irrelevant. In fact, the more we're convinced that man is material, the more these qualities of heart and thought—even prayer itself—would seem to have dishearteningly little effect.

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