According to statistics, there are more things going wrong with people in my age-group than in any other. So what can we do as the years go by to feel safe, to feel we're being good stewards of our health, maintaining it properly? Does the expectation of unchanging health right through our retirement years seem naive, simply too good to be true?

Not when we acknowledge as demonstrable fact the concept that Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, sets forth in her book Rudimental Divine Science. "Health," she says, "is the consciousness of the unreality of pain and disease; or, rather, the absolute consciousness of harmony and of nothing else" (p. 11).

Recently I've become more mindful than ever of the urgent necessity of making the daily—in fact, hourly—commitment to maintaining harmony and nothing else in thought, never allowing discordant thoughts of any kind to contaminate my thinking. I'm doing this through a deep, heartfelt yearning to live more closely to God, to yield to the spirituality of my true being—to be what God made me to be. God, Spirit, didn't create man as a young image, or a middle-aged image, or an old image. But in His own image (see Gen. 1:27). Hence the real being of you and me and everyone is not fleshly body that inexorably deteriorates into old age. It is a spiritual and ageless idea.

This innate spirituality of man is the basis on which we can decide to maintain consistently in thought a state of spiritual harmony—that peaceful, Christly consciousness which Jesus exemplified. When we do so, I've discovered, we're covered by the best health maintenance program there is.

While our modern word harmony is not used in the Bible, its synonym peace is. And in one of my favorite passages Christ Jesus, shortly before he was crucified, reassured his disciples, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you" (John 14:27). When we accept this gift of Christly harmony as intrinsic to our being, and bring it to bear on all the facets of our daily lives, we can feel safe from the beliefs of deteriorating health.

Last year when my husband passed away, I pulled up stakes and moved all the way across the United States to live on a ranch with my two sons and eight-year-old granddaughter. This, I had felt, would be the perfect opportunity for me to make a difference in the lives of my loved ones.

But what a lot to learn! I had thought I was already loving and patient and compassionate. Yet I soon found that what I used to be isn't enough now. I have to do better. And sometimes I feel overwhelmed and put upon by how much better I have to do!

When that happens I suddenly feel old—afflicted with one thing after another that hurts and wears me out. My harmony-maintenance has broken down—that is, I've lost sight of the changeless, spiritual purity and harmony of my being. So I get right back to being grateful for the opportunity I have in this new adventure to heal unsuspected sins in myself, those "little foxes, that spoil the vines" (S. of Sol. 2:15). I work every day to keep my thought purer than ever, free of self-will and human outlining, to learn—and practice—larger loving. And I'm revitalized and healed.

In an article entitled "Pond and Purpose," Mrs. Eddy deals at some length with the vital importance of purifying thought. "By purifying human thought," she writes in part, "this state of mind permeates with increased harmony all the minutiæ of human affairs. It brings with it wonderful foresight, wisdom, and power; it unselfs the mortal purpose, gives steadiness to resolve, and success to endeavor. Through the accession of spirituality, God, the divine Principle of Christian Science, literally governs the aims, ambition, and acts of the Scientist. The divine ruling gives prudence and energy; it banishes forever all envy, rivalry, evil thinking, evil speaking and acting; and mortal mind, thus purged, obtains peace and power outside of itself" (Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 204–205).

In my new adventure working with much-beloved but disparate temperaments, I frequently turn to this passage to make sure that my "aims, ambition, and acts" are spiritually motivated, and that my purpose stays unselfed. I find it very encouraging to remind myself that while we aren't in the business of changing other people, we can do plenty about changing ourselves. Whenever we feel that we're targets of discord, if we turn humbly to God for healing, we'll often discover that there's something we're accepting in our own thought that has either provoked the problem or made it a reality—that has given it a hook to hang on, so to speak. Then when we purify our thought—expressing greater love, understanding, and compassion—the discord that seemed aimed at us no longer has anything to attach itself to, and falls away. And the actual unreality of discord or ungodlike thoughts is proved.

Occasionally, though, the very need to watch our every aim and motive, and to be careful never to react with anger or hurt feelings regardless of the provocation, can build up into what may feel like a burden. But Christ Jesus tells us just what to do then. "Take my yoke upon you," he says, "and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matt. 11:29, 30).

Imagine, I tell myself, with all the Master had to deal with, he called his yoke easy and his burden light! What do I have to complain about! So I'm learning a little more each day about how to rise above mortal discords by never admitting that evil is real, either in myself or others, and by quietly doing the best I can to embody the Christ-spirit. As Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "Our proportionate admission of the claims of good or of evil determines the harmony of our existence,—our health, our longevity, and our Christianity" (p. 167). And it works! The purer my thought is, and the more Christly joy and harmony I keep in my consciousness, the healthier I feel. No aches, no weariness, just the zest and glory of living each new day.

You can experience this too, even if you're struggling with something much more challenging than aches and fatigue. Mental harmony-maintenance is an important part of spiritual healing. when we consistently strive to emulate the Christ in everything we do, filling up each day with the harmony of thought that heals, we're not only expressing agelessness but also demonstrating true health maintenance. Besides that, it's a joyous way to live!