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What makes you who you are?
It turns out that newborns conceived in a time of famine are more likely to be girls than boys—or so it is reported. Think back to China’s “Great Leap Forward.” Between 1959 and 1961 the famine there killed 30 million people. Before this time period, male births were on the rise. About a year into starvation conditions, trends shifted dramatically, and more girls were born in China (see Helen Fields, Science Now, March 27, 2012).
Take another example from another window of time. During the holy month of Ramadan, Muslims fast during daylight hours. Studies have shown that Muslim infants conceived during this month are more likely to be female. Just why this is so remains largely a mystery, although researchers have attempted to connect gender ratios with nutritional maternal conditions. These things stir thought, but do not satisfactorily answer the question, what makes you male or female? In addition, people ask, what is the decider, not only of your gender, but also of a thousand different details that constitute your character? Things like social proclivities, athletic abilities, scholarly inclinations, as well as likes and dislikes. In other words, what makes you, you?
We at the Sentinel believe there’s an often overlooked but spiritually invaluable approach to finding one’s genuine nature and what designs it. This approach employs a spiritual perspective. This spiritual perspective helps us glimpse what makes us who we truly are. Try looking past things like food availability, hereditary issues, even the human circumstances of a child’s upbringing. In truth, the heavenly Parent both draws the blueprint and does the building. These spiritual facts can’t help but come into clearer focus on the human scene. Sometime we will learn that, whether we think of ourselves as men or women, we are, in fact, conceived, defined, and crafted by the divine Creator. The book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Sentinel founder, Mary Baker Eddy, puts it this way, “Sometime we shall learn how Spirit, the great architect, has created men and women in Science” (p. 68).
Enjoy 1 free Sentinel article or audio program each month, including content from 1898 to today.
July 23, 2012 &
July 30, 2012
double issue
View Issue
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Letters
Steven Price, Blanche Saul, Candace Gibson
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Rejoicing together
Kim Shippey, Senior Staff Editor
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Borderless community
Walter Rodgers
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How big is good?
Nancy Mullen
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A rising tide lifts all boats
Jeff Ward-Bailey
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My first interfaith experience
Bonnie Mitchinson
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Embracing communities worldwide
Kim Shippey, Senior Staff Editor
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Climate change: What I could do
Elizabeth Graser-Lindsey
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Delight in international giving
Peter Dry
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Praying for a school community
Suzanne Smedley
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The grizzly bear delusion
Glenn Williams
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Salvation
Brian Kissock
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Unlimited resources
Heather Howland Kany
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Planted in a new path
Dorothy H. Thomson
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Love's leading
Tad Blake-Weber
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Seeking the way
Linda Gridley Lane
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The answer
Barbara Whitewater
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Solutions
Charlotte Bushnell
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Marjorie and the Dream
Phyllis W. Zeno
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Focused thought
Richard Albins
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God made you perfect
Megan Meehan
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What are you going to be when you grow up?
Leide Lessa
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Sign me up!
Bob Minnocci
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I shared with my professor
Bruce Matouka
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Your questions about church
Answers offered by Tim Myers and Michelle Nanouche
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'A spiritual model of life'
William Otieno
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The 'more excellent way'
Christa Kreutz
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Finding our God-given freedom
Ann Edwards
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A healing standard
Mark Sappenfield
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A summer of 'radical acts'
Jeff Ward-Bailey
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Lots of Laughs
Madora Kibbe
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Protected during a fall
Norma P. Cooper with contributions from Elizabeth Gibbons
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Chest pains overcome
B. James Jokerst
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Spinal meningitis healed
Charles O'Gorman
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Spine fracture healed
Brooks Rakos
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What makes you who you are?
The Editors