Article December 12, 2005 Issue

FILLING OUR PLACE

BY JAMAE WOLFRAM VAN ECK

Does each and every individual have a place? And must that place be filled—either here or hereafter? Mary Baker Eddy must have thought so. She wrote in her autobiography: "No person can compass or fulfil the individual mission of Jesus of Nazareth. No person can take the place of the author of Science and Health, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. Each individual must fill his own niche in time and eternity" (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 70).

I've often pondered these words—especially since I've lived in many places, filled many roles, engaged in many diverse activities over the years. And I know from wide experience that many struggle with uncertainty and deep unhappiness over this question of their right place. So many of us are not content with simply living through the sequence of a material history—especially when the events of that history seem random or unrelated, perhaps meaningless, and certainly not in accord with our own plan or desire.

A history of the Christian Science movement published in 1952 by Norman Beasley states that "it was long Mary Baker Eddy's conviction that God gives to everyone a place, and requires of the individual that he fill this place" (The Cross and the Crown, p. 342). He then quotes from a short unsigned essay titled "Our Place" published in the December 1883 issue of The Christian Science Journal. It reads, in part: "I believe that God has given to everyone a place, and in this harmonious creation there is no void,—nothing left out, nothing lacking,—so we may as well try to breathe without air, or think without mind, as to think we can rotate out of the divine order of being, or take any place other than our own.... We never see the stars vieing [sic] for each other's places, nor the sun and the moon at variance; nor have we seen a Paul take a Peter's place, or John the place of our Master, or vice versa. Each fills its own, her own, his own place, whether they have knowledge of it or not; and I, for one, would be content in the sweet consciousness that I have a place with Thee, eternal Love; and however grand or great, humble or small, I am of Thy creation; therefore Thine."