My wife and I were helping a friend move. While I was carrying one end of a heavy wooden chest full of linens and walking backward, my legs made contact with a trailer hitch attached to the truck we were loading, and I began to fall. I shoved the chest onto the truck’s tailgate to avoid letting it fall on top of me, but this propelled me backward, and my legs flew out from under me.

Days before, during time taken for spiritual study, I had pondered the question “What does it mean to be spiritual?” Numerous times that week I had returned to this question and the joyous answers I had found. Consistent with the teaching of Christian Science that we are the children of God, Spirit, and therefore are spiritual, not material, I rejected a view of myself as a material body and accepted instead this wholly spiritual nature as the reality of my being. 

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy we find this assertion by God: “I am Spirit. Man, whose senses are spiritual, is my likeness. He reflects the infinite understanding, for I am Infinity. The beauty of holiness, the perfection of being, imperishable glory,—all are Mine, for I am God” (pp. 252–253). This likeness of God includes enduring spiritual constituents, such as structure, strength, grace, intelligence, cognition, vision, movement, love, and beauty.