Editorial January 19, 2015 Issue

‘To individualize infinite power’

Lyle Young

In her main work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy includes a chapter (“Atonement and Eucharist”) in which she comments at length on the sacrifice, triumph, and example of Jesus. Opposite the marginal note “Heaven’s sentinel” she wrote of him: “Forsaken by all whom he had blessed, this faithful sentinel of God at the highest post of power, charged with the grandest trust of heaven, was ready to be transformed by the renewing of the infinite Spirit” (p. 49).

Although not one of us will ever have the same awesome mission that Jesus had as the perfect expression of the Christ, Truth, to be Christian we do need to follow him in demonstrating our own Christlike nature. That is in itself an awesome mission.

Happily, each of us enjoys a position of great power. No, this isn’t a political position nor one of abundant material wealth. Rather, God has uniquely appointed each of us as doorkeeper to our own consciousness. And that indeed is a powerful position, vital to the world’s progress. Why? Because all discord, from a spat with a friend to an illness to a seemingly intractable geopolitical situation, can only exist by ourselves and others letting that discord into consciousness. As discord is consistently barred entrance to our thought, it necessarily disappears from our experience and from our lives.

Send a comment to the editors

This is the end of the issue. Ready to explore further?

Online features Audio