Slackness Analyzed

William D. McCrackan

God's children are minutemen, armed with righteous armor, using no excuses to disobey God. Each child of God may have different duties and different ways of following the voice within, but mental alertness, keenness of vision, clearness of hearing, are all there to respond to the call. There can be no inertia of thought for the one who is in tune with the voice of the high calling. Though the spiritual call comes from the mountain top it resounds through the valley, and those who are making the upward ascent catch the tone and carry it in their heart, singing of God's glory.

Mental slackness comes from disobedience to God. Strikes of the human will, without one iota of spiritual force, are the very essence of hate. There are many mental forms of slackness that stand ready to strike like so many sleeping serpents ready to coil and sting when stirred. Let there be a mental clean-up at this hour of the world's need for metaphysicians, so that the world may be saved from going down into the thralldom of greedy disaster. The power to save the world can only come from God, and man understanding this will be given the right ideas, the strength and endurance to carry on God's work. Wiping out mental slackness will destroy evil strikes and help man to obey God and enjoy the light of heaven.

When the tide reaches a stage of sluggishness between the ebb and flow, slack water is said to have set in. When a sailing vessel is slow in coming about into the wind, it is said to be slack in stays. When a human being lacks promptness in responding to the country's call, he is to-day called a slacker. The condition of mind which is slackness is limp and listless, it slows down when briskness is required, it shirks activity, it is negligent when care and promptness should be exercised, feeble when strength is essential. Slackness retards and is remiss. It makes for poor work and procrastination.

Metaphysically considered, slackness is the wayward brother of neutrality. When the unrepentant neutral is forced to awake from the dream of death, he resorts to slackness to retard if possible the plain issue between Principle and evil. Only genuine repentance can make him willing to abandon the old and joyfully put his hand to the plow which tears up the hard ground of human obduracy. But if the unrepentant slacker is forced further into activity, while he remains unconvinced, then a strange rebellion is apt to seize him. He is tempted to become a mental striker, and to lapse into an ugly, balking mood which invites physical retaliation.

Christian Science knows no limitation in its healing work. It cures slackness and forestalls the strike habit, as surely as it heals sickness and sin, by an understanding of God as the divine, irresistible Mind, the lawful controller of men and nations. The notion of minds many and of lazy mortality as able to retard God's government or nullify His decrees could only be entertained by one who believed in the power of mental manipulation to offset the law of God. Mrs. Eddy has clearly set forth the cure for slackness and striking when she states incontrovertibly on page 283 of Science and Health, "Mind is the source of all movement, and there is no inertia to retard or check its perpetual and harmonious action." Whence this "inertia"? Humanity is naturally averse to change. When the selfish peace-at-any-price theory lulled a great nation to sleep with the dictum that the world war was European, it touched a common human failing. "Am I my brother's keeper?" asked the sluggard, and straightway became a slacker. But when the world war refused to remain localized and the call came for immediate action, another human failing was uncovered,—the obstructionist made his appearance.

An unscrupulous enemy psychology does not seek to invent human failings but to use them as it finds them. What shall be the spiritual barrier against the mental suggester? God, who is Mind, frustrates and forestalls the wicked purpose, the dark plot, the sudden world-wide rumor of evil wish which is father to the thought, the induced confusion of a Babel of tongues and plans, the destructive criticism, the suppression of inspiration, and the side-tracking of the timely warning. The exercise of gentle, loving compassion, reflecting God as Mother, complements the Scriptural teaching of God as Father and thus brings complete salvation. The war activities, which are resented by the slacker, have uncovered the need for unity of thought in all walks of life, for real unity destroys the false. Mental laziness has been laid bare and the need of the hour has forced an adjustment, a wholesome wakefulness to the work of saving humanity. The life, health, and morale of the army of the Lord is largely dependent upon the mental support of the righteous thinkers. Mental slackness and mental striking operate as mental obstruction, whether in church, state, or shipyard. Spiritual responsibility cannot be shifted from one human to another, salvation is not vicarious. We read on page 187 of Science and Health: "There is no involuntary action. The divine Mind includes all action and volition, and man in Science is governed by this Mind."

A little moth may destroy a coat. A little mental strike against God's spiritual government may eat up one's garment of righteousness. Away with sluggishness, shirking, resentment, and hate! Let the full tide of divine power flow into human hearts and flow out again into the channels of a right thinking world! Let the majestic ship sail on with Principle at the helm supported by the waters of healing. God calls; let all obey with gratitude and grace!

William D. McCrackan.

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