Article February 17, 2014 Issue

Invest in what's important

Myriam Betouche

Low cost. Even in languages other than English, those two words seem to be just about everywhere. Low-cost travel, services, goods ... so often it feels as if everything is approached in this manner. At first glimpse, that’s a fine mind-set—after all, who doesn’t want to pay less?

But this mentality also has some hidden aspects that can be detrimental to one’s own well-being and to humanity’s collective welfare. In the business world, there’s the danger of “cutting the branch where one is sitting” via cost-killing strategies that ultimately hurt investments. Few would argue with the concept that a “low-cost” approach can be detrimental when taken to extremes. How much better, instead, to have a virtuous circle of blossoming, a recognition of what investments produce the most good and enable individuals and economic activity to grow! It’s certainly worth considering the concepts of value and significance from a spiritual perspective.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, wrote about value in her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, under the marginal heading “Assistance in brotherhood”: “God gives the lesser idea of Himself for a link to the greater, and in return, the higher always protects the lower. The rich in spirit help the poor in one grand brotherhood, all having the same Principle, or Father; and blessed is that man who seeth his brother's need and supplieth it, seeking his own in another's good. Love giveth to the least spiritual idea might, immortality, and goodness, which shine through all as the blossom shines through the bud” (p. 518). When we look to God as the source of our well-being, and focus on supplying the needs of others where we can, we begin to understand that spiritual qualities such as honesty, integrity, and selflessness truly form the basis of our supply; they point the way to economic solutions that bless everyone.

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