Yielding personality to our spiritual identity

A recent editorial focused on how seeing past the personality of others is key to the practice of Christian Science (see Tony Lobl, “The freedom to not ‘cling to personality,’ ” Sentinel, June 28, 2021). In many ways, this editorial is a part two, this time exploring the importance of rising above the argument of personality in ourselves.

Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, stressed the need to see beyond personality to our spiritual identity. The ability to do this is explained with a touch of humor in her short autobiographical work, Retrospection and Introspection. In a chapter called “Personality,” she concludes, “My own corporeal personality afflicteth me not wittingly; for I desire never to think of it, and it cannot think of me” (p. 74).

Personality is a material sense of our individuality. It’s a nature that includes good and bad characteristics, and moods that can swing from ecstatic to heartbroken. It can include mentally lauding ourselves for things that are undeserving of praise and loathing ourselves despite being worthy. Or the two might even intertwine.