Editorial September 26, 1994 Issue

The way to excellence

Barbara M. Vining

It's a good feeling to master a skill—to bake a top-notch apple pie, to get a carburetor running smoothly, or (if you are a young child) to tie your own shoelaces. Everyone can excel at something worthwhile. To succeed at one skill builds confidence in your ability to make progress in other areas of life, some of which can seem mighty challenging at times.

The desire to excel is often inspired by example. In observing another's success in a worthy endeavor, new light can begin to dawn in our own thought—"If he can do it, perhaps I can learn to do it, too." And much is said these days of the need for strong role models to inspire young people to set high goals for themselves and to persist in making the necessary efforts to reach them. A good example is helpful to everyone.

Humanity has never had a better example of high achievement in its midst than that of Christ Jesus. In the book of Revelation, St. John represents Jesus as saying, "I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star" (22:16). Because Jesus was the Son of God, we might conclude that what he accomplished is out of our reach—something we cannot learn to do. But Jesus' motive was never to outshine his fellow beings. Jesus did what he did, not to show his superiority over us, but to show us God's supremacy, and to illustrate for us what we are each capable of doing through obedience to God—through conformance to His spiritual laws, the divine Science of being.

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