Article June 18, 2012 Issue

You can come home

Lois Herr

“Consumed with guilt.” Sometimes that’s more than just a literary turn of phrase. Guilt seems to be so sticky, so able to adhere to one’s thinking with all the destructiveness of a parasite. It’s that nasty habit of thought, munching on the regrets of the past and ignorantly eating up present possibilities with its paralyzing condemnations. Of course, we always want to learn from missteps we may have made in the past, and repent of them. But sometimes regret can balloon into an absorbing feeling of self-condemnation.

Nothing is more valuable to progress at every level, individually and collectively, than to know oneself as uncondemned, as God’s precious child with a “goodly heritage” (Psalms 16:6). Or, said another way, to courageously, vigorously acknowledge that you are the very outcome of a good God.

Day by day to come to this clean, “at one with God” perspective is the springboard for rich, creative, rewarding living. Mary Baker Eddy put it this way: “Self-renunciation of all that constitutes a so-called material man, and the acknowledgment and achievement of his spiritual identity as the child of God, is Science that opens the very flood-gates of heaven; whence good flows into every avenue of being, cleansing mortals of all uncleanness, destroying all suffering, and demonstrating the true image and likeness. There is no other way under heaven whereby we can be saved, and man be clothed with might, majesty, and immortality” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 185).

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Prayer–not guilt–heals