Article February 17, 2003 Issue

Time for a checkup?

By Harriet Barry Schupp

Our local TV news often has medical segments that urge viewers to have regular physical checkups. These TV spots make me think about the relationship between checkups and my own health.

For many years I have been on a journey to learn more about myself as a spiritual being. From studying the Bible and Science and Health, I have learned that God is everlasting Love and unending Life. As God's reflection, I can see myself—and everyone—as having these same lively, loving qualities. In fact, I have a little book in which I have written a list of many Godlike qualities, such as vitality, strength, joy, and unselfishness. Part of my regular checkup is to remind myself that these good qualities make up my very nature—my true identity—which is spiritual.

For me, regular checkups take place in my thinking. And because there is much in the world, and even in my mirror, that regularly argues that I'm material in nature—and that matter is sometimes good, but sometimes needs fixing—I've found that regular checkups are, indeed, required. And the checkups I'm talking about are really prayers—humble reliance on God and willingness to see more of "the things of the Spirit," as the Bible says (I Cor. 2:14). And this consistent habit of prayer shifts my thought about myself and the way I see the world to a more spiritual basis.

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