Editorial December 2, 2019 Issue

Resisting more subtle encroachments on our freedom

Tony Lobl

A conversation I had with a Hong Kong-born cab driver a couple of years ago sheds light on the recent months of protests in the former British colony. My driver had left Hong Kong, distressed at a steady encroachment on the liberties the island’s population had enjoyed. He feared that was leading to an inevitable ascendency of China’s authoritarian one-party rule down the road.

The alertness of Hong Kong citizens to rally against more subtle encroachments on their freedom rather than wait for a major loss of liberty points to the need we all have to stay alert to what the Bible calls “the little foxes, that spoil the vines” (Song of Solomon 2:15). To me, this phrase symbolizes the idea that the things we need to watch out for in our lives don’t always appear glaringly obvious. I think of the vines as the consciousness of God’s reality and goodness that’s inherent in us all. And I think of those little foxes as the drip, drip, drip of material thinking—such as lethargic, irritable, anxious, resentful, or sensual thoughts—that seems to encroach on us and spoil that true, spiritual awareness.

Ultimately, though, this encroachment is only a “seeming.” These would-be encroachers have no legitimate place in our thoughts because our true mentality is the manifestation of divine Mind, God, the true source of our thoughts. This spiritual idea of our Mind-sourced mentality is the Christ, which empowered Jesus to protest against and overthrow the material thinking that found expression in sick bodies and sinful hearts. Standing for the truth of everyone’s reflection of God’s unchanging harmony and indestructible joy, Jesus challenged the opposite, oppressive thinking that led to discordant experiences and burdened hearts. He defeated these conditions on the basis of what Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, called “a higher platform of human rights” built by God “on diviner claims” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 226).

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