Article October 10, 2016 Issue

The art of spiritual sculpture

Diane P. Dailey

Mary Baker Eddy makes many references in her writings to the arts, including music, painting, photography, pottery, and sculpture. As the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy relates the need for spiritualizing our thoughts and lives to a kind of mental sculpture, a carving-out of “grand and noble lives” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 248), based on spiritually correct views of God and man. Lives, in fact, that strive to pattern the Christ, the true idea of God, which Jesus represented as the best expression there has ever been of the real, genuine man of God’s creating.

Of Christ Jesus, Mrs. Eddy wrote: “What artist would question the skill of the masters in sculpture, music, or painting? Shall we depart from the example of the Master in Christian Science, Jesus of Nazareth,—than whom mankind hath no higher ideal? He who demonstrated his power over sin, disease, and death, is the master Metaphysician” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 270).

The teachings of Christian Science show us the kind of workmanship involved in being sculptors, in shaping our thoughts, our ideals, and our day-to-day living. How we live our lives. How we think. How we pray. How we heal. Lives that advance from mere human goodness, or being a really good person, into knowing and demonstrating our perfect, spiritual identity as revealed and realized through the activity of the ever-present Christ.

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