THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA beach near my hotel was deserted that early weekday morning. I had a short time before the day's appointments to drink in the Pacific beauty and press my feet into the wet sand as I walked the surf's edge. Fifteen minutes later, when I turned to go back, my footprints had already vanished. It was the message I needed that day.

In my work as a practitioner of Christian Science healing, I regularly pray with people who struggle with imprints of bad memories and guilt. Often they fear they will never lose them. I'd been invited to talk later that day with women at an alcohol and drug recovery center on the subject of finding forgiveness and a new start. Some of them had been in and out of jail several times for crimes related to long-standing habits. That unmarked beach was a renewed promise to me that we ourselves are not the power that sweeps away unwanted thought-patterns from consciousness. A higher power—the infinite power of God, who is good—acts on us. All we need to do is keep walking close to the ocean, so to speak, close to the truth that no form of suffering can resist the healing action of God's love.

It's been my privilege to see people move beyond painful pasts to new views of themselves and to more productive lives. Just the day before, I had spoken with a woman who left alcoholism and other destructive behavior behind through a deeper reliance on God and an understanding of her own and others' original goodness as God's spiritual likeness. She has gained much joy and better self-esteem. When I asked her what had been important in her healing, she answered without hesitation that the crucial first step was being honest with herself. She had previously resisted facing the fears and willfulness that drove her to drink. But she had seen that she had to get out of the self-deception that alcohol was doing something good for her.

The more I thought about her emphasis on honesty, the more it resonated with my own experiences. It's often hard to admit mistakes even to yourself. Then when you do, it's common to spend a lot of time anguishing, wishing you could rewind the tape and do a conversation or action over again. Most of us probably have scenes we'd like to delete from our life scripts entirely. And yet, it's obvious to me that when I have faced mistakes honestly, apologized, and made amends as far as possible, I've felt relief. Still, I've found it often takes more than this to sweep the beach of bad memories.

The Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, wrote about three stages of mental development, which have been helpful signposts for me in praying for myself and others who want a clean slate. She describes these stages as:

• "a proper sense of sin"

• "repentance"

• "the understanding of good."

It seems to me that honesty with oneself might equate to the first stage of development, about which Mrs. Eddy writes, "... the proper knowledge of evil and its subtle workings wherein evil seems as real as good, is indispensable ..." (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, pp. 107–108).

The women at the recovery center related to this concept right away. Several of them acknowledge that drugs and alcohol don't give the freedom or escape they promise, even though people deceive themselves into believing that they do. This is also true with behavior that isn't as obviously harmful as substance abuse or stealing. For instance, when someone feels guilty or wronged, there can be a tendency to go over and over one's own or others' faults. It's important to wake up to the fact that mentally clinging to sin or sorrow as part of anyone's nature isn't any more beneficial than drowning in liquor. It doesn't help clarify the situation, assuage guilt, alleviate pain, or satisfy anger. A friend of mine had a sudden awakening on this subject when she told someone her sad tale about a failed relationship. The person listened and then commented that the story was, after all, only thoughts. The astounding implication is that it's always possible to think different thoughts.

And repentance, that second stage of mental regeneration, means changing one's thoughts or mind. This change can feel almost impossible at times. But it will come, by persistently turning to God's thoughts, which the Bible describes as "thoughts of peace, and not of evil" (Jer. 29:11). The sad story can't dominate us, because God's good thoughts are always present and infinitely more powerful than human ones. God is the true source of consciousness. The effort to hold to God's thoughts of creation as perfect, spiritual, and innocent, rather than to those of guilt or despair, moves us near an ocean of goodness that irresistibly washes away any and all unwanted imprints.

Christian Science teaching is specific on the point that the only possible way to destroy evil is through understanding that God is infinite good. This third stage of mental development recognizes God as All and every creature as the manifestation of the one perfection. It leaves no room for fearing evil as a reality or believing it has power. Mary Baker Eddy found the proof of this point in Jesus' life and teaching: "Our Master, in his definition of Satan as a liar from the beginning, attested the absolute powerlessness—yea, nothingness—of evil: since a lie, being without foundation in fact, is merely a falsity; spiritually, literally, it is nothing" (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 108).

When awful events are in our face, it takes steadfast commitment to a higher reality to accept that evil in whatever form is a lie. At the recovery center that day, my heart went out to one woman, soon to give birth, whose husband had been murdered several months earlier. We spoke about God as Father and how this child could never be deprived of God's fatherly support, guidance, and love. She smiled at this comfort, but later when the discussion turned to how God sees everyone as only good, she protested that she could never believe that: How could a murderer be good? Why should you forgive someone who does something so evil?

I told her I understood how she felt. But I also said honestly that the only way I've been able to go forward with hope in life is to confront evil as the liar Jesus said it was. He didn't let anger at evil, or horror of it, interfere with the good he could do each day. He fought and overcame evil with the most effective weapon there is—the knowledge that good is the only reality. Perhaps each of us can follow his example to some degree by beginning to think of past evil in our lives or in the lives of others as a deception that's as unrelated to God's reality as a crazy dream is when we wake up.

Years ago I went to meet a friend and arrived to find a horrible crime scene. She had been murdered. After I had answered questions for the police, I went home shaken. I kept imagining terrible things. I fought these thoughts as best I could by repeating truths I had learned in Christian Science: that God was good and supreme right then; that the only reality was divine Spirit and its spiritual creation; that each individual has an indestructible life in God; that no one can be separated for one moment from God's love. It took a while, but gradually these ideas of Truth—another name for God—displaced the impressions of evil. God's thoughts are more powerful than human ones.

Today as I recall this experience, I find that the bad mental pictures and feelings accompanying them do not feel as real to me as the conviction that my friend lives in God, knows she is loved, and is conscious of the beauty and joy of God's kingdom.

Anyone who turns to Truth can trust that God's thoughts of peace do wipe out thoughts of evil and their negative effect. Jesus said, "Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you" (John 15:3). Now we are clean. The healing Christ—God's truth with us here and now—will keep speaking the truth as the ocean will keep washing the shore, until everyone knows that perfect/spiritual good has always been the only reality. |css