Article January 12, 1998 Issue

You said what?

Checked your thinking lately? Watch out for the 3 C's.

By Clark Gary Rogers

Have You Checked, really checked out your conversation lately—not just your spoken one but your "thinking" one? I have to do that regularly. And to me, it's far more important than checking the oil in my car or my long-distance phone bill, because it affects my spiritual growth and health. Sometimes I am surprised and even embarrassed at what I have let come into both my silent and my outward conversations. I've had to guard against the 3 C's—criticism, cynicism, and complaint.

Recently, while going through a personal crisis, I reread Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy. I really read it, pondered it, prayed about it, made a concerted effort to put its loving precepts into practice.

To my amazement, one of the first things I found drastically changing was my conversation. During breakfast with a loved one, with whom I usually indulged in criticism and sardonic comments, I realized not one word of unkindness had been said by either of us about anyone, not even ourselves. How refreshing it was to stop labeling people as something other than God's likeness! That's what we're doing when we make disparaging remarks about others, because each of us is in truth the idea of God.

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