Article April 23, 1990 Issue

Isn't there more to me than this?

No matter how often the question "Who am I?" is asked, it always needs an answer.

Thomas Richard Mitchinson

During adolescence the question "Who am I?" persistently puzzled me. I was talented in some areas but limited by inabilities in others. I could have been defined as "average." Was that all I was? Was I defined and limited by physical and personal characteristics, talents, and inabilities? I emphatically thought, "There's got to be more to me than this!"

As a pupil in the Christian Science Sunday School, I had, of course, been familiar with the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health. But now it seemed as if Mrs. Eddy had written a particular passage in that book just for me. On page 475 she asks a question I'd been asking myself: "What is man?" Her answer may astonish you.

She starts by saying: "Man is not matter; he is not made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material elements. The Scriptures inform us that man is made in the image and likeness of God. ... Man is idea, the image, of Love; he is not physique."

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