The Need for Simplicity

DAVID FOWLER

Christ Jesus could perceive the thoughts of those around him, and he used this ability for the purpose of healing. Jesus knew the source of man's very being and intelligence to be God. People's wrong thoughts and motives stood out clearly to him because of his purity and Godlike simplicity.

Yet Jesus didn't arrive at his thought-discerning ability through psychoanalytical training or educational research. He simply was willing to rely on God to reveal in him his true spiritual selfhood, the Christ. And through his willingness—characterized by unselfed living—he helped others reduce their aims and desires to a right purpose.

As you and I begin to carve the fat off personal desires and ambitions, we too will discern the truth of man's existence inseparable from God. Then the error of thinking that man lives embodied in matter will rise visibly to the surface, ready for destruction. Then we will be willing and able to part with greed, which draws to it the cluttering thoughts of mere idle comfort in material things.

We need to make sure that simplifying does not become a goal in itself. We should get our priorities straight. Excessive mental weight falls of its own accord as our thought is propelled Spiritward. Our priority is to locate the uninhibited Christliness in our thinking right where we are. The words of Jesus become indispensable: "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein."^{Luke 18:17;}

It is interesting that animals often show signs of remarkable perception, and this faculty has been attributed to the simplicity with which they live and communicate.

We don't go backward to become childlike. Real childlikeness shuts out the stupefying amusements that entangle us in mortal thinking. Childlike simplicity inspired by divine Truth unclutters thought. It removes the distractions of mind-polluting commercialism and obscenities that are sometimes projected through billboards, TV and radio ads—anything that would weigh us down—and restores in us the purely spiritual sense of existence.

In many directions people seem to be craving a return to the "simple life." Thousands have migrated back to nature or have taken up gardening. Through our efforts to attain and impart the spirit of Christian Science we can help meet the world's need for childlike simplicity. The simple life, in its deepest reality, doesn't come from fresh air and the songs of birds but from God. The things of nature, however, symbolize it.

Mrs. Eddy writes: "Nature voices natural, spiritual law and divine Love, but human belief misinterprets nature. Arctic regions, sunny tropics, giant hills, winged winds, mighty billows, verdant vales, festive flowers, and glorious heavens,—all point to Mind, the spiritual intelligence they reflect. The floral apostles are hieroglyphs of Deity."^{Science and Health, p. 240;}

Mrs. Eddy invites us to acquaint ourselves with her discovery of divine Science, which reduces existence to its one and only component: God. "God is the sum total of the universe,"^{Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 105-106.} she writes. This true concept of being reveals one God and His infinite idea, man, reflecting the infinite source. And one Christ, forever the interpreter of man's relation to God.

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