A shaky ladder. A shaky income, or understanding. A suspicion that our "ship" (whatever it may be) might soon go down. There are few of us who don't sometimes find ourselves in situations where we need a stronger sense of support. We like to feel that our aspirations are supported by our friends, that our husband or wife backs up what we are attempting to do in life.

A special and unique comprehension of what support really is can be pulled together and proved through the Science of Christ. This spiritual truth of support is the heart of the matter: divine Principle—the only origin of the cosmos—accompanies, coincides and coexists with, all that truly exists. In the reality of being there are no unsupported ideas, none blowing about at random, like feathers. Nothing real and good is unsustained or can collapse. "All real being represents God, and is in Him," Mary Baker Eddy asserts. "In this Science of being, man can no more relapse or collapse from perfection, than his divine Principle, or Father, can fall out of Himself into something below infinitude." ^{No and Yes, p. 26;}

We individualize this divine law and see it under-gird our own life when we grow in understanding of God as divine Principle. And even in doing this we are buttressed by divine Principle itself, expressed through the activity of the Christ in our thought. Whenever our reasoning starts with God, Principle, and His all-power, we feel the divine strength. But without a sense of what support really is we tread insecurely on the flimsy scaffolding of mortal belief. Perceptive study of the Bible together with Mrs. Eddy's writings gives us a solid certainty of God's power, His support—His constituting—of man and the universe. "The divine Mind supports the sublimity, magnitude, and infinitude of spiritual creation," ^{Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 511;} states our Leader, Mrs. Eddy.

Prayer based on the omnipresence of God is authorized, quickened, empowered by the Christ. It is unswayed by any gusts of mortal fear; immortal Life holds up our spiritual, mental liveliness; our acceptance of the truth is backed up by divine Truth. On the other hand, any individual resistance to, or rejection of, scientific truth is quite unsupported. It should be seen metaphysically and impersonally—not as our resistance, but as mortal thought's attempt to undermine our consciousness of immortal Mind.

Proving man's support by God requires spirituality. If a broad stripe of materialism shadows our mentality, we won't see clearly the allness of God, which is the very basis of demonstrating divine support. Animal magnetism is that which originates and supports claims of error and which would sink us in the quicksand of materialistic living. It can seem to do so only if we, in turn, support it by letting our thought become materialized.

Christian Scientists, when asking practitioners for their support in healing, are asking, in effect, for the practitioner to join them in realizing that God supports man, and in knowing that discord has nothing to support it. Christian Science practitioners are people who have proved their deeply rooted conviction of divine support in healing themselves and many others. A practitioner is someone who is awake to the way material methods seem to work—described by Mrs. Eddy as follows: "The universal belief in physics weighs against the high and mighty truths of Christian metaphysics. This erroneous general belief, which sustains medicine and produces all medical results, works against Christian Science; and the percentage of power on the side of this Science must mightily outweigh the power of popular belief in order to heal a single case of disease." ^{ibid., p. 155;} A Christian Science practitioner is someone who has proved that "erroneous general belief" is not an actual force or power but false consciousness masquerading as a claimant to force and power. Knowing this fact—coupled with the Christly living of it—is what overbalances and overwhelms the arguments of disease.

The right understanding of support is practical across the whole span of our lives. For example, it can lead our support of the government—or, perhaps, of a political party we particularly respect—to be more informed, insightful, and intelligent. If we are involved in a business (assuming it is on an ethical, service-giving footing), we can realize that behind it is the supporting power of divine Truth itself. (Yet "behind" is a material, spatial term, whereas—absolutely speaking—Truth is self-supporting because Truth is All. Nothing, then, can resist or dilute divine Truth's support.)

The fact that Christ Jesus was supported when he stepped on the water indicates the depth and strength of his understanding that man, included in Spirit, is supported by Spirit. What Spirit knows, Spirit supports. What Spirit doesn't know—sin, alienation, pain, fragility, mortality—is unsupported and unreal, and provably so. "To suppose that God constitutes laws of inharmony is a mistake; discords have no support from nature or divine law, however much is said to the contrary," ^{ibid., p. 183;} Mrs. Eddy said and demonstrated in her own healing work.

We can think of God as speaking this to man, His image, and therefore to our true self: "Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him." ^{Isa. 42:1.} Each of us can prove to an expanding degree that Spirit upholds us and that evil has nothing supporting it or continuing it. Spirit is All. And supporting itself, it supports its expression, man and the universe.

GEOFFREY J. BARRATT