CHRISTMAS AT HOME

Robert Ellis Key

When Christmas calls us home to the family fireside, it is well to remind ourselves of a higher concept of home and the joys of spiritual reunion. Christian Scientists understand home to be heaven, where God's ideas are held together in a bond of happy brotherhood. Where we feel the warmth of spiritual affection, the vigor of spiritual life, and the joy of spiritual achievement—this is home! When once we gain the spiritual meaning of home, the convivial Christmas is eclipsed, and the Christ reigns and governs our home circle as well as our Christmas cheer.

Christmas at home, seen in its spiritual significance, takes on new meaning. Mary Baker Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 58), "Home is the dearest spot on earth, and it should be the centre, though not the boundary, of the affections." She also once said: "Home is not a place but a power. We find home when we arrive at the full understanding of God" (Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy by Irving C. Tomlinson, p. 156).

Real home is not a locality, but a state of spiritual consciousness. It is in Mind never in matter. Its builder and maker is God. Home is where God, our heavenly Parent, presides over all man's affairs, and since God is omnipresent, home must be everywhere. Because our true home is in Spirit, it is bright and pure, well ordered and complete. Man cannot be removed from his home in Spirit. We are truly at home when we are conscious of the power of Truth and Love. And when at home in Spirit we realize that we are children of God and members of one universal family.

Home is the happiest place on earth because it reflects the joys of heaven. We are never far from home when we draw near to heaven. As one finds a place within the focal distance of Spirit, the sunlight of Truth and Love illumines his home and pours its warmth and radiance upon all. Home is where we find the Christ and are touched by its healing influence. Thinking further of home, let us provide it with a threshing floor, where truth is separated from error—where the wheat is garnered and the tares are burned. Our home should have a spiritual storehouse, in which the precious fruits of experience are stored and from which we can draw our supplies whenever needed.

There is no night in our home, no darkness, doubt, fear, or beclouded understanding. God provides man's home, not on lease but as freehold. We own our home because it is the consciousness which we have by right of sonship with our Father-Mother God, from whom we inherit every good gift. The Apostle James declares (1:17), "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."

From our true home in spiritual consciousness we continually look out upon new and wider fields. Indeed, the view is not bounded by horizons; the view is infinite. When we are at home in Spirit we can heal discord because we live and move and have being in the one infinite God. We are at home in Spirit when motives and actions are spiritual, and when we are "absent from the body, and . . . present with the Lord."

Against all forms of animal magnetism the doors of our home should be bolted and barred. "My defence is of God, which saveth the upright in heart" (Ps. 7:10). Happy is the home for him who realizes that his real home is the consciousness of good, a place of refuge, and a city of defense.

Heaven is our home—both yours and mine—for do we not all possess this true consciousness of harmony? Real consciousness is full of interest, culture, purity, intelligence, and strength. Let us remember that home is not a place, but a power. It is where spiritual ideas bring inspiration, and where all is lovely and of good report. Christian Scientists are at home to all who desire good, especially to those who wish to know more of God and His Christ.

Jesus, quoting Isaiah, said (Mark 11:17), "Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer?" In our family we once took this saying of our Master's literally. We cleared out of our home everything that did not in some measure praise God or bear witness to good: a decrepit clock that refused to go, some broken crockery, odds and ends that did nothing but accumulate dust, and so on. The transformation was striking. It reminded us of our need to cleanse our mentality of unprofitable thinking, to see that our thoughts and actions continually praised the creator, God.

Let us clear out of consciousness all useless and unclean thoughts and things. Let everything in our home, our thinking, be there because it praises God in some particular. No sad pictures should hang upon the walls of memory. We should watch over our home with meticulous care and keep it spotless, filled with love, loyalty, gratitude, and song. If we spend Christmas at home in this way, we shall really know the meaning of that joyous greeting, "Happy Christmas."

Robert Ellis Key

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CREATIVE ABILITY

December 19, 1953

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