Getting below the surface

Some years ago, I was serving as a Christian Science Minister for the Armed Services for the submarine base in South Florida. One day I went to sea in a sub captained by a friend of mine. When we were on the surface, the ship was bouncing around a good bit because of the waves, but after the sub went beneath the surface, all was perfectly calm. I was impressed by the difference between the turbulence above the surface and the calm below it.

I recalled an account in the Bible, where Jesus was asleep in a boat when a storm blew up on the lake. The boat was floundering and his disciples were afraid they would drown. They woke Jesus, but he wasn't afraid. He was quiet and told the wind and waves, "Peace, be still" (Mark 4:39 ). And the storm stopped.

This not only saved his disciples and their boat, but it brought safety to a group of small boats that were following them. Jesus was in the same physical place as his disciples—in a storm and in apparent danger—but he was in a completely different mental place. He knew that he and everyone lived in God, or infinite Mind.

The parallel of turbulence and calm with both the submarine and the disciples' boat reminded me of something Mary Baker Eddy said about Jesus in her book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. She wrote: "He plunged beneath the material surface of things, and found the spiritual cause" (313:24-26 ).

Jesus' deep consciousness of spiritual reality brought with it a completely different view of people and their condition in life. Since God, our true Father, is ever-present Spirit, it follows that Spirit's creation, man, is spiritual—created from the same substance as Spirit. Jesus was never riveted to the surface appearance of things—whether to a sick body, limited possessions, moral deviation or natural disasters. He plunged beneath the turbulent appearance to the reality of God's allness, goodness and His only-ness—as truly the one and only God. Jesus perceived a spiritual creation and its spiritual cause where others only saw a material creation and a physical cause.

God is all-intelligent Mind, so His image is an idea in that Mind. And divine Mind—all-powerful and ever-present—is the only cause. This Mind brings about only good, and it operates according to spiritual, not material laws. Mary Baker Eddy named these spiritual laws “Christian Science.”

For Jesus, plunging beneath the outward appearance of things meant exercising the law of spiritual causation to change chaos into order. In his ministry, chaos might mean someone with a withered hand that needed to be returned to wholeness, or the chaos in a household where a loved daughter had died and needed to be restored to life.

Divine law goes beneath the chaotic surface of human events to reveal and maintain order and harmony. Materialistic thinking, the turbulent surface, yields to the knowledge of God as the supreme power, as ever-present and ever-available. In daily affairs, the effect of divine law can be compared to the effect of the law of mathematics on numbers, or the law of harmony on discord in music. In the face of discord, the application of spiritual law brings order and naturalness to daily life. It's actually the purpose of spiritual law, called the Holy Ghost, or divine Science, to order, regulate and harmonize every right activity. It's also the purpose of that same law to unsettle, uproot and remove whatever is unnatural or harmful.

Christian Science teaches that every spiritual fact, understood, has a practical effect on our life and affairs. The surface shallowness of unsettled mortal existence yields to the deep calm of spiritual reality.

This was made practical in the following experience: A friend of mine asked for Christian Science treatment when he came down with Lyme disease from a tick bite one summer. His muscles and nervous system were deeply affected. There was pain and his ability to function physically was reduced.

Jesus told us to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. So I had to move to the standpoint of spiritual causation and see that my friend's true being was spiritual, caused and created by Spirit. His true being could no more be invaded by poison than light could be invaded by darkness. In my prayers, I had to plunge beneath the surface—beneath the supposed cause of disease in the form of ticks and poison, followed by deteriorating muscular action and fear. To focus on a biological being, invaded by the poison of a biological insect, would be to start from the wrong basis with the wrong parameters. God's creation isn't formed from material conditions but from Spirit, and we are the image of Spirit.

In prayer, I affirmed that he wasn't moved by muscles but by the one causative Mind, God. Nerves didn't govern him, but the intelligent divine Mind, God, did control his every function.

I recalled that where the disciples saw danger, storm and chaos, Jesus saw safety, freedom and spiritual law. Prayer and spiritual discernment enabled me to see through suffering and disease to God's pure expression made in His own likeness.

The only antidote applied in my friend’s case was scientific prayer, or Christian Science treatment, and it was effective. He rapidly regained the use of his limbs, the pain abated and he was restored to normalcy. It became clear to me that if matter is the reality of being, then material processes can be harmful or helpful, choreographed by conditions beyond one's control. But accepting the reality of God's spiritual creation, governed by divine law, brings order, harmony and health to every human process. Jesus referred to this law when he prayed: "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven" (Matt. 6:10 ).

The same law that was applied to neutralize Lyme disease can be applied to avert and correct chaos of any nature, including the fear of a transcontinental bird flu virus.

In some ways, my friend’s healing has a parallel with the disciples’ floundering boat and the calm that came upon them as a result of Jesus’ prayer. It is summed up in this observation by Mrs. Eddy: "To the burdened and weary, Jesus saith: 'Come unto me.' O glorious hope! there remaineth a rest for the righteous, a rest in Christ, a peace in Love. The thought of it stills complaint; the heaving surf of life's troubled sea foams itself away, and underneath is a deep-settled calm."

The calming presence of the Christ:

Science and Health
495:14-20
588:7-8
King James Bible
Luke 8:41-55
Matt. 12:10-13