Showers of goodness
Come mid-July, summer downpours dwindle to almost nothing at all in our sparsely populated mountain community. But when they do break loose overhead, when they drench us—as one did not long before this went to press—the risk of a forest fire becomes wonderfully less. Perhaps that symbolizes the good now. Of course, some portion of the downpour gradually works its way into underground aquifers. Another portion may even seep its way to the far end of the valley, and, given enough rainy days, replenish the lake there. Perhaps that symbolizes the good ahead.
Think of good as the outcome of a thousand different material factors—good investments, good connections, good luck—and your life may seem pretty good. Or not. Limited resources, burned through today, may leave little fuel to expend tomorrow. Hoarding for tomorrow might erode the promise of today. But see goodness as flooding out from an inexhaustible spiritual source, and the good in your life multiplies. The true goodness of now doesn’t appear at the expense of the true goodness ahead. And the true goodness ahead never really steals away the goodness of now. The one forwards the other. Neither time nor space is a barrier to good and its impact. They don’t distance good from you, don’t wall you off from the goodness of God that is at hand to bless you, renew you, and maintain you. This goodness is the inevitable effect of an inevitably good God.
Another point in the full nature of good: Good isn’t just effect. Good is also cause, the one and only divine cause, the one infinite power, the one supreme presence, the sole source of action. God is good. Good is God. That’s right. When a person turns in prayer to the good that is God, the good that is cause, troubles begin to sort out, and to recede. Good effects, whether in a person’s finances, relationships, or health, grow more apparent. Healing begins. In the Glossary of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered the Science of the Christ, gives metaphysical definitions to Bible-based terms. She defined good as: “God; Spirit; omnipotence; omniscience; omnipresence; omni-action” (p. 587 ).
The goodness that is now in your life, and the goodness that is ahead in your life, are proofs that the heavenly Father, divine good, loves you and cares for you. They are proofs that the one cause or source of divine law will never stop guiding you or nourishing you.
Consider the young man in the Bible who was apparently so hungry for spiritual nourishment that he came running to Christ Jesus. He said to him on arrival, “Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?” Jesus replied, “Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God” (Matthew 19:16, 17 ; see Mark, chap. 10). Jesus then tenderly shifted the attention from himself personally to God, good, the cause behind all true law. He referred the young man to the Ten Commandments. These laws, conceived by God Himself, are the preserver of good now, the protector of good ahead, and the sustainer of each individual yearning to see good take hold in everyday life. Then things can change for the better in fields as varied as economics, politics, and the fight against aging.
Good in the economy
Most observers rate the United States economy as still muddling along at a lackluster pace. How to get it growing more robustly? Views tend to fall into two categories. Stimulus or austerity. Stimulate the economy by government investment. Or, slash spending wherever you can. An army of experts stands on each side of this divide. But prayer—the mental affirmation of God’s goodness and abundance—does not really hinge on this or that human opinion gaining the upper hand. Effective, transforming prayer takes hold whenever a person abandons opinions and selfish agendas for the inspiration coming from divine good. Thought that is locked onto self-interest is not likely to trigger a mental atmosphere conducive to overall problem-solving. But thought brimming over with a sense of God’s law that “thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:39 ) can’t help but heal. The mental atmosphere lifts for everyone. Selfishness or greed becomes less of a factor in fixing the economy. Love becomes more of a factor. Experts in charge, even if they know nothing of prayer, find themselves freer to do what promotes goodness for everyone. Happily, this doesn’t promote selfishness for anyone.
The good now in the economy doesn’t get written off as feeble. It gets cherished for its promise. The good ahead in the economy doesn’t get dismissed as too remote or too slight. Underpinned by the divine law of neighborly love, the good ahead increases.
Good in the political arena
Try this. Set aside your political leaning, left, right, or center. Don’t think of prayer as a means to promote a political agenda. Recall there is such a thing as divine law, and in keeping with that law, God is always in control.
If someone’s first priority is to fasten blame on someone else, the good of now is likely to seem postponed. But if the first priority is to see the divine law of good restoring reason and sanity to the dialogue—then, there is promise. Goodness springs from divine good. Goodness does not spring from its opposite.
The power of divine good just can’t be kept from raining down like a fresh summer shower.
Over the past few decades, each major political party in the US has at one time or another engineered the prolonging of bad for one party in the hope that it will bring something good for the other party. To put it differently: Make economic troubles drag on. Fault the other party for it. Insist that this evil will somehow generate good.
The truth? Evil has no power. Good is supreme. The prayers of even one person, when grounded on the changeless nature of supreme good, can transform the mental environment for many. Surprisingly, the fixed and changeless nature of good, established in thought as the reality, does not make people more rigid, but more flexible and adaptable. More cooperative.
Science and Health speaks of “the immutable law of God, good.” The passage in its entirety says, “The true Logos is demonstrably Christian Science, the natural law of harmony which overcomes discord,—not because this Science is supernatural or preternatural, nor because it is an infraction of divine law, but because it is the immutable law of God, good” (p. 134 ).
This immutable law—like the law that keeps a sailor’s compass reliably on North—serves as a steadying influence. No, this does not mean everyone will reach the same conclusions, but at least they will have fixed and shared reference points. Healthy dialogue again becomes possible.
Good health at any age
One of the most memorable prayer-based healings I’ve ever participated in involved a woman whose life spilled over with goodness. She was then in her mid-90s and had been blind in one eye for 20 years. We prayed the Lord’s Prayer together over what was, as I recall, a few days. She was completely healed. At this point she is no longer around, but she was going strong past 100.
As we got better acquainted, she told me of other healings she’d had. Eventually, she wrote some of them down and the Sentinel published them. “My first healing was of scarlet fever,” she wrote. “This proved to be such a quick healing that the official quarantine seals on our home were removed . . . No other member of the family became ill. . . .
“I had one healing in the early years . . . . While I was a guest of friends in a mountain cabin, I had a painful case of poison oak that spread quickly over my entire body. . . . I had my copy of Science and Health, and I read and prayed to God . . . . I was quickly healed . . . .
“[On another occasion,] while I was undergoing a required physical examination, I was told by the doctor that I had breast cancer. I called a Christian Science practitioner, who said he would give me prayerful help. . . . I began praying earnestly. . . . Before long the condition was fully healed and has remained so.”
Blindness healed. Breast cancer healed. Scarlet fever healed. Poison oak healed. In their own quiet way, those healings point, not to a really good person who somehow “earned” them, but to the goodness of God, which inevitably finds expression.
God’s goodness now, and God’s goodness ahead, get to show up in your life and mine in the most practical ways. The power of divine good just can’t be kept from raining down like a fresh summer shower.
The Bible says, “Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it” (Malachi 3:10 ).
