"Mental swaddling-clothes"
All who believe in freedom, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," — and who does not? — can but rejoice when a way is shown them by which they may escape from time-honored customs that have grown "stale, flat, and unprofitable;" and this way is made plain through the teachings of Christian Science.
The "mental swaddling-clothes" (Science and Health, p. 255) which bind us are of various kinds, and what might easily bind one does not necessarily bind another; but bondage in one form or another is here. We cannot judge for or condemn another, because it matters not at all what may be the texture of the bandages that restrict, retard, and obscure, each must be loosened and cast aside before the one it encircles can be freed.
Mankind are certainly wrapped in swaddling-clothes, well-nigh smothered by the anxieties, fears, and false beliefs impressed upon them by their so-called progenitors. Nevertheless the "seed is in itself," and that seed is the indestructible spiritual identity which must needs develop and expand, sooner or later, regardless of or in spite of any circumstances, conditions, or environment. God's will is done, and the God-idea eternally is, and only awaits recognition. As one becomes dissatisfied with the conventions of materiality, a restless longing and consequent reaching out for something better is born, and he begins to stretch and ultimately break the bands that would suppress the ideal. Thus it gradually comes to its native freedom and spiritual dominion.
As we learn through the teachings of Christian Science that Mind is All, we are roused to the fact that it is only through right thinking that one gains a legitimate mastery over every form of evil. "A thinking man," Carlyle writes, "is the worst enemy the prince of darkness can have." "Let there be light" is still the divine mandate. Let us then be willing to lay aside the mental bands of conventionality, habit, injustice, self-love, self-seeking, and the like; in fact, endeavor whole-heartedly to bring "every thought to the obedience of Christ." He alone is the true and perfect idea, having absolute dominion forever and ever, since he is in the Father and the Father in him. All errors exist in mortal thought, and it is there, therefore, that they must be destroyed. It is thought that is to be liberated and set free, till good is found to be the only reality and belief in the power and reality of evil exists no more.
When this is done, even in a small degree, we begin to find the perfect idea, "full of grace and truth," — the "only begotten of the Father." Though one gain but a tiny glimpse perhaps of what the darkness may have so long obscured, but which, thanks be to God, can never be destroyed, one begins joyously and wonderingly to expand into a larger life, — a truer, freer sense of the meanings of existence as spiritual, as the conscious, continuous expression of good only. How eagerly we long at times to burst through all the swaddling clothes at once ; to "lay aside every weight" all in one and the same minute, and be done forever with all thought and remembrance of darkness and bondage. No wonder that this craving asserts itself, for it is but a vital recognition of man's birthright, and each child of the one Father will finally come into his full inheritance, into the glory and peace and fulness of joy to which he has been temporarily blinded.
For all of us this process is slower than we like, because it has taken much time to swathe ourselves about so carefully, and there are many layers to be cast aside. Then too there may be some few bands that we are loath to part with; we may have found them comfortable, learned to depend upon them, and it may require diligent effort and enlightened understanding before we come to know that, as Jesus said, "there is none good but one, that is, God." We have to learn, too, that our only dependence is on divine Mind, through which alone we can distinguish the true from the false. The belief in mortal selfhood is usually the tightest of all our bonds, the fond belief that we are actually something; while in fact, as we read in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 1), "humility is the stepping-stone to a higher recognition of Deity. The mounting sense gathers fresh forms and strange fire from the ashes of dissolving self, and drops the world. Meekness heightens immortal attributes only by removing the dust that dims them."
One can rejoice that he has even begun to unwind the bands that are about him, to let go the thoughts that have restricted his mentality, to deny the darkness and declare that he will arise and shine, for the God-created light is come, and is come to stay, despite any seeming shadows. God is ever on his side, in fact all about him, the center and circumference of all that exists, for God Himself is light, and man is inseparable from Him. Gradually loosening, through divine help, all the mental clamps that have held us tight and fast, we come into greater freedom of thought, speech, and action, until at last, made fully willing by wearying experiences, we lay our "earthly all on the altar of divine Science" (Science and Health, p. 55) and truly walk with God. Then we want no other mind, or will, or life, because we are trusting fully in Him who knows the way we take; that it is a good way, whatever the human thought about it.
Each individual life is in itself a revelation of God, and all mortal darkness is dispelled through the triumphant coming of the light wherein God is revealed as the only creator and man as His eternal reflection and expression. Then, every remembrance of swaddling-clothes entirely forgotten, the full-grown man, God's man, stands forth, having "the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." Truly, "every man that hath this hope in him" may be strengthened and encouraged!
