Article December 31, 2012 Issue

The high goal: obliterating death

Abraham McLaughlin

Sometimes life-changing truths are right there in front of us, hiding in plain sight.

One that dawned on me recently is this: There’s amazing power in ridding ourselves of the belief in death—of understanding that, as spiritual beings created by an all-good God, we are really living eternal lives. 

It all started to hit me as I read a single paragraph in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science. She writes: “The discoverer of Christian Science finds the path less difficult when she has the high goal always before her thoughts, than when she counts her footsteps in endeavoring to reach it. When the destination is desirable, expectation speeds our progress. … If the belief in death were obliterated, and the understanding obtained that there is no death, this would be a ‘tree of life,’ known by its fruits” (p. 426). I’d never noticed before the connection Mrs. Eddy makes between “the high goal” of life and the need to obliterate “the belief in death.” Isn’t she implying that one of our top goals in life should be to understand there is no death?

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Moment-to-moment progress