From the Editors April 29, 2013 ISSUE

There will be movement

The Editors

In this issue of the Sentinel, you’ve been reading about all sorts of inspired insights and experiences. Isn’t it fascinating how spiritual growth, in one way or another, was a key element to each step of a person’s progress? As encouraging as other people’s experiences are, what is your path of spiritual growth? To admit that you’re actually completely spiritual and good, well, isn’t that a bit bold? Mary Baker Eddy was aware of this, so she encouraged people to “emerge gently from matter into Spirit” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 485 ) and “… emerge gently into Life everlasting” (Message to The Mother Church for 1901, p. 10 ).

To emerge gently into Spirit and Life everlasting is such an appealing aim when you stop to think about it. To consent to it means that you just can’t sit still; there will be movement. The movement takes place in thought—in the way you perceive yourself, including your origin. While the world sees you (and you may often see yourself this way also) as a limited, even weak, mortal who had a beginning entirely in matter, God beholds you as His precise and brilliant spiritual expression. The perfection of God, the ability of God, the abundance of God, is presented in you, just as the thought of a composer is reflected in the melodies in a symphony. The true idea of God is you—you are an ideal creation!

Your love for and knowledge of God increases as this ideal model of yourself is welcomed in with a humble heart. Watch how your love for God and your true identity moves you forward and how, spontaneously, you step ahead in your spiritual growth. God and everything God does increases in your thought. Fear and ignorance decrease and evaporate. “Thou shalt increase my greatness, and comfort me on every side,” says the Bible (Psalms 71:21 ).

Watch how your love for God and your true identity moves you forward.

When birds take off as one whole flock, there is a general, common consent to fly. Sometimes, though, a bird in a flock will take off on his or her own. In a way, that kind of independent thinking is necessary for emerging out of a belief in material birth and death. Many in our worldwide “flock” of people settle for the notion of life in matter, and that is why, gently, without fanfare, we must take wing on our own and rise above matter into Spirit.

Genuine spiritual growth is not mortality being made better; it’s mortality’s misty views clearing to allow the nature of God to appear in you. It’s beautiful how, with spiritual sense, you can look through images of lack or suffering and discern that, in fact, all that is present is everlasting Spirit and its manifestation.

So, let’s fly a bit today. A higher view always goes hand in hand with spiritual growth. Are you a product of a material process? Or of a spiritual creation? With your conception in Spirit, you are the outcome of nothing less than God. Your personal, gentle emergence is made evident in your joy and gratitude for the opportunity to recognize God, instead of matter and physicality, as your entire Life.

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