The teapot and the right stuff

The teapot was completely black. So black you’d never know it was made of silver. I’d tried cleaning it up a couple of times over the years, but the polish hadn’t worked. It was too far gone, I thought. 

But recently, during a cleaning spree in the garage, I discovered it in a battered box where I’d stashed it for the last ten years. I had a brief urge to clean it again but remembered how useless my polish had been. “Try this stuff instead,” my husband said, handing me a bottle of industrial boat polish. Bingo. This was the right stuff. With a few swipes, I had my teapot back—lovely, polished, useful, and gleaming in the morning sun. 

“Isn’t that just the way of grace in human lives?” I thought afterward. What was once lost and tarnished gets found, cared for, and restored. The right application of grace and Truth lifts off the tarnish and restores our usefulness, beauty, and purpose. We see that our real spiritual being was never touched. 

The right stuff is totally and unequivocally about reflecting divine Love.

The reforming power of grace and Truth is seen so clearly in the life of Christ Jesus. The account in John 8:1–11 is particularly beautiful. While Jesus is teaching in the temple, a group of scribes and Pharisees bring to him a woman “taken in adultery.” Citing the Mosaic law that declares those who commit adultery should be stoned, the men, anxious for a reason to condemn Jesus, ask him what he thinks—does he agree with the law? But Jesus doesn’t get all militant about defending her. He doesn’t shout, plead, or carry a sign about what a stupid law this is or try to interfere with it. Instead he goes right to the root of the issue by applying “the right stuff.”

Jesus bends down to write on the ground. While there are different interpretations of what Jesus’ actions mean, I see him bending down, turning away from the angry crowd, and mentally acknowledging the woman’s goodness—her wholly spiritual identity, quite apart from personality or human circumstances. Then he offers this astonishing and pointed rebuke to those who were accusing her: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” 

Imagine the scene: agitated, murderous accusers, poised to commit an act of incredible violence, confronted with the pure humility of one compassionate man. He speaks up boldly, and the message silently touches each individual’s thought. One by one every person, “being convicted by their own conscience,” walks away. Now there is no one left but Jesus and the woman. He asks her to consider where everyone else went and to notice that no one has condemned her. And then he speaks these most tender, reassuring words and counsel: “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” 

Now I’ve read this story many times, and I’ve always taken the “go, and sin no more” part to mean he was giving her a stern warning. But reading it again recently, I saw another meaning to that directive. I saw that Jesus’ words can also be understood as a joyful declaration, that the Master was telling the woman: “Go forth, be joyful! Be completely free of your mistaken sense of identity, as you are meant to be!” It was a warning and a blessing. This prophet and healer, who so clearly represented the Christ, Truth, and was inseparable from it, was acknowledging her inherent freedom from sinful, harmful behavior. It seems inevitable that she would very naturally respond. 

Why? Because Jesus saw her. He truly saw her as whole, safe, loved, pure, governed by one Love, one Mind, not bashed about by a sinful sense, trauma, poor self-esteem, anxiety, fear, a false sense of identity, socioeconomic status, or judgment. He recognized her true individuality as pure, lovely, graceful, useful, and gleaming in the light of Truth. He completely loved her. And it disarmed the violent thoughts of the men surrounding her and set her on a path of reformation and healing. How amazingly natural. 

Love demands complete surrender to all that is good and right.

There’s a lot more to this account I’ve been pondering. For instance, the part about the stoning. The conventional, legal response to this woman’s moral offense was for her to be stoned. “Wow,” I’ve thought to myself, “I would never do that. What a barbaric custom.” But isn’t it true that any time we hurl thoughts of self-righteous judgment at another person, we’re in effect participating in a stoning? Sadly, I’ve done this more often than I’m willing to admit. At times I’ve harbored my own silent sense of self-justification. I’ve unwittingly thrown voiced and unvoiced condemnations at someone struggling with some sin, or what modern language sometimes names addiction, for instance. These are nothing less than thought-stones; rocks of conventional religiosity, aimed to kill and destroy.

What if, instead of that tarnish remover my husband gave me to use on my black teapot, I had decided to hurl rocks at it? Of course that would be patently absurd. We can’t heal anything or anyone by hurling self-righteous judgments at our friends, family members, or so-called enemies, at politicians, or at ourselves—no matter how bad it looks. No matter how egregious, no matter what the “crime” is, who committed it, or who seems to be hurt by it, a thought-stoning has no more place than a physical stoning. Rocks of self-righteousness or hate can’t fix the problem. It’s infinitely better to choose “the right stuff.”

Thought-stones are not always made of anger or judgment, either; they can also be made of misplaced human pity or take shape as a limited, human sense of what should be done under certain circumstances. Hurling a heavy “I’ll-take-this-one-on-by-myself” rock at the problem, as tempting as it feels sometimes, doesn’t work. It makes it worse. It’s not a human reaction, a human intervention, or a human interference, however kindly motivated, that heals. 

The right stuff is totally and unequivocally about reflecting divine Love. Infinite, blazing with Spirit, purifying, comforting Love. Divine Love, reflected in our thoughts and actions, goes to the root of the problem, and holds every—and I mean every—individual in perfect harmony. This Love is a wholly restorative Love. Love demands complete surrender to all that is good and right. Love simply and thoroughly removes any and all materialistic tarnish defacing the real thing; the thing that is already safe and pure—man’s holy, spiritual selfhood. Love restores our true purpose and identity when we’ve lost sight of it.

Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of this magazine, not only applied the “right stuff”—the understanding and expression of the one God, the divine Love she learned about from reading and studying the Bible—but she also wrote about it, taught others about it, and healed by it. She practiced that same genuine Christ-healing that Jesus practiced when he forgave the adulterous woman. Her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures is an all-important text for students who want to understand more about how to mentally and spiritually lift the tarnish from human life through divine Love, whether it shows up as illness, broken relationships, addiction problems, or any other mistaken identity issue. 

Active, tough-on-the-tarnish, mild-on-the-silver (and gold), cleansing, bracing, tender, magnificent Love. This is what heals and restores the luster of Spirit to human life and leaves each of us gleaming in the morning sun.