"WHERE ART THOU?"
A Great deal of time is spent by mankind in idle and unprofitable thinking. Some thoughts are probably passing through one's mind all of the time. They may possibly be harmless human thoughts, but often they are not. They may be critical or unloving thoughts or those tinted by regrets over past experiences or by fear of the future. Perhaps less frequently than should be the case are they thoughts based upon the eternal, all-perfect, and ever-present facts of spiritual being—the only true being—which Christian Science reveals.
When one considers the extent to which it generally is conceded that thought influences one's life for good or ill, is it not important that he should strive to keep his thinking acceptable in God's sight? To keep one's thinking in relation with highest good does not mean attempting to hide from error. To recognize constantly man's inseparable relationship with the highest good is the most effective way of destroying error and, in fact, the only way. Error is a belief only. When one knows the truth, the erroneous belief has no chance of survival. One does not merely ignore error; he knows the truth, and the truth makes free from whatever the error appears to be.
Students: Get
JSH-Online for
$5/mo
Every recent & archive issue
Podcasts & article audio
Mary Baker Eddy bios & audio
Every recent & archive issue
Podcasts & article audio
Mary Baker Eddy bios & audio
According to the book of Genesis, a voice spoke to Adam while he was in the garden of Eden and asked him (3:9), "Where art thou?" In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy comments on this scene. She says that the voice of Truth, which is heard above the noise, the darkness, and the confusion of error, still sends forth the same call. She, however, interprets Truth's question impersonally as asking (pp. 307, 308): "'Consciousness, where art thou? Art thou dwelling in the belief that mind is in matter, and that evil is mind, or art thou in the living faith that there is and can be but one God, and keeping His commandment?"'
As one thinks in this impersonal way, his consciousness becomes so spiritualized that error of any kind cannot find lodgment there. If the error seems already to have gotten in, the spiritualized state of consciousness begins to starve it out. When one stops feeding error by believing in its power and place, it falls away into the very darkness of its nothingness.
In this process, nothing is done to the error. Error is not an entity to which something should be done or can be done. It is a false claim. Uncover the emptiness of the claim, accept the spiritual fact, and the error is no more. Nothing has been done to the error, but the way for ever-present Truth to shine forth is left unobstructed. Truth has always been shining forth, and ever will be; but human consciousness may seem to shut it out if spiritual sense does not penetrate the fogginess of sense testimony.
One has gone a great way in the realization of his freedom as the perfect child of God when he has begun to accept the fact that only good is real or true. This surely is the way the worker approved of God would think when, as Paul says in his second letter to Timothy, he is "rightly dividing the word of truth" (2:15). The worker approved of God thinks Godlike thoughts. He accepts the facts of spiritual sense and rejects the false testimony of material sense. He stands porter at the door of his mental home (see Science and Health, p. 392) and holds to the truth of all being until it is demonstrated in his human experience, which it surely will be, as a reward for his faithfulness and steadfastness.
The fact is so well known that there is scarcely need for saying that faithfulness and steadfastness to Truth include the letting go of all that defiles man or lies about his true selfhood. Speaking of this relinquishment, Mrs. Eddy says (Science and Health, p. 251), "This process of higher spiritual understanding improves mankind until error disappears, and nothing is left which deserves to perish or to be punished."
It is one of the very important aspects of Christian Science that reformation and healing are closely related. Christian Science provides infinitely more than freedom from physical pain. It assuredly provides that freedom; but more important still, it displaces wrong and sinful thinking, leaving us better men and women, better workers, neighbors, citizens, better Christians.
In his incomparable Sermon on the Mount, the Master gives as one of the Beatitudes (Matt. 5:8), "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." It is in purity that God is revealed to us. It is in purity that man's true being as God's reflection is revealed. Are not then the words, "Where art thou?" of great significance and importance to each one of us?
