Article June 19, 2017 Issue

Guarding our thoughts

Dilys Bell

I recently had an email from a friend who mentioned how much she enjoyed spending a day with her little granddaughter, but also how tired she was afterward and that she needed two days to recover. This set me thinking about the power of thought and how much our thoughts control our experience.

I learned in the Christian Science Sunday School to put emphasis on spiritual thought. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, often writes about the importance of protecting your thought. One of the first statements I learned as a child was this: “Stand porter at the door of thought. Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily results, you will control yourself harmoniously.… Exclude from mortal mind the offending errors; then the body cannot suffer from them” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 392).

Christian Science is based on the Bible, and on the account of creation as stated in the first chapter of Genesis, where God created man in His image and likeness. Science and Health defines God as “the great I AM; the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal; Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love; all substance; intelligence” (p. 587). Because man as God’s likeness reflects God’s qualities, it follows that man is spiritual and not material (see “the scientific statement of being” on page 468 of Science and Health).