Editorial September 12, 1994 Issue

Universal health care—a spiritual approach

Mary Metzner Trammell

Left to its own devices, the human mind can be pretty self centered. It can resist caring for, or about, anybody else. It can mock caretakers like the gentle and reverent shepherd Abel, in the Biblical book of Genesis. It may even say, in the words of Abel's murderous brother Cain—"Am I my brother's keeper?"

There's an entirely different view of caretaking, though, in the very first chapter of Genesis, which speaks of the goodness of all creation and how all of God's ideas relate to one another. Mrs. Eddy describes this caretaking in her commentary on Genesis. "The rich in spirit help the poor in one grand brotherhood, all having the same Principle, or Father;" she writes, "and blessed is that man who seeth his brother's need and supplieth it, seeking his own in another's good" (Science and Health, p. 518).

The Old Testament tells the story of many early Israelites who, in greater or smaller ways, represent this kind of compassionate and God-impelled caregiving. Noah, for instance —through listening to God—preserves his family and numerous other creatures from perishing in a flood that wipes out the rest of civilization.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Testimony of Healing

Many years ago a Christian Science Sentinel magazine was...