Article March 27, 2017 Issue

Gravity or spiritual ascension?

Sylvia Messner

When I came across a T-shirt with a picture of Einstein and the caption “Don’t let gravity get you down,” I thought that the pun was not only clever and humorous, but that it also bore a powerful metaphysical message.

Through many forms of media, we are constantly hearing news that would tend to pull thought downward into discouragement, even hopelessness. At times, we might feel like victims of this mental gravity and unable to overcome it. The message on that shirt, though, is a helpful reminder to me that we can overcome it. Each one of us has the God-given ability and divine right to mentally challenge and rise above any downward pull of mortal thinking, no matter how aggressive or persistent.

But we cannot successfully do this through human will—by simply trying to stay positive or keeping a smile on our face. We read in Scripture, “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you” (James 4:8), and in the Christian Science textbook, “Mortals must gravitate Godward, their affections and aims grow spiritual,—they must near the broader interpretations of being, and gain some proper sense of the infinite,—in order that sin and mortality may be put off” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 265).