Article June 12, 1995 Issue

No "wooden nickels"

Barton G. Grabow

"Don't take any wooden nickels!" That was a lighthearted word of caution around the turn of the century given by small-town friends to those heading for the big city. Wooden tokens were sometimes made to resemble real coins.

Because of the photocopying technology we have today, the detection of counterfeit money is a greater challenge. Naturally, the more alert we are, the less likely we will be fooled by imitations—both when it comes to currency and to the far more important matter of discerning man's real selfhood, or identity.

When we accept as true the belief that man is a sick or sinful mortal—or even a healthy mortal—we're accepting "a wooden nickel." This is because, as we learn from the Bible, man is God's likeness (see Gen. 1:26). The fact is that man is an immortal, spiritual idea, the perfect expression of the one, perfect Father-Mother God. "Mortals are the counterfeits of immortals. ... God is the Principle of man, and man is the idea of God. Hence man is not mortal nor material," writes Mary Baker Eddy in Science and Health (p. 476). And on the previous page she explains, "The likeness of Spirit cannot be so unlike Spirit."