Most of us give a fair amount of thought to how to care for the body, and we frequently see theories advertising how best to do this—theories that often change. Certain theories seem to be useful for a while, then other theories gain credence.

I remember as a child there was a definite theory about food, and those who didn’t adhere to the seeming physiological “rule” had problems. Later, that fear faded away, as did the instances of problems, and I’ve never heard it talked about since. 

A friend of mine from another country once expressed concern over the consequences of eating a certain type of dessert following a certain type of food for the main course. I had never heard of such a concern and had—along with most North Americans, I’m sure—frequently enjoyed such a combination with no ill effects whatsoever.

Christ Jesus didn’t seem to go along with such fears. Pointing to the spiritual fact that our true being is not in matter, he said: “Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?” (Matthew 6:25).

The Apostle Paul, as well, saw that our life isn’t really in matter. He wrote to the Corinthians: “We are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord ” (II Corinthians 5:6–8). Paul saw that in being absent from the body—in turning away from a material sense of who and what he was—he found his true identity in his oneness with Spirit, an understanding which naturally instills confidence.

When the body is sick or injured, it seems to clamor for attention. But this is when Paul’s counsel to prayerfully look away from the body and to look instead to “the Lord”—to the true idea of Spirit, God—becomes especially helpful. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, saw great importance in Paul’s statement. She writes: “When you say, ‘Man’s body is material,’ I say with Paul: Be ‘willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.’ Give up your material belief of mind in matter, and have but one Mind, even God; for this Mind forms its own likeness” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, pp. 216–217).

Mind forms its own likeness, and that likeness is what we really are, not a material body but the manifestation of Mind. 

Mind forms its own likeness, and that likeness is what we really are, not a material body but the manifestation of Mind. Divine Mind expresses its own nature, being, and action in us, all of which are harmonious and perfect. As the image and likeness of Mind, we’re governed by divine intelligence, which produces every effect and regulates all action. There is no other intelligence governing us, because we have no individuality apart from Mind. We have no other substance than Spirit, because we are the expression of Spirit. Harmony, then, is the forever law, fact, and condition of our being.

The understanding of who and what we really are, cultivated through daily prayer for ourselves, helps maintain bodily harmony and is also the way we treat, in Christian Science, problems of sickness or disease that might arise.

Bodily symptoms can seem frightening sometimes, but they’re not actually the problem. They’re objectifying what’s going on in thought, and the remedy, even physically, is to bring the healing action of the Christ, Truth, to bear on thought. Science and Health says, “To remove the error producing disorder, you must calm and instruct mortal mind with immortal Truth” (p. 415).

Instead of being hypnotized by fear about what we think matter can do to us, we can turn our thoughts to God in prayer and let our thoughts be inspired by Truth. We can pray to perceive spiritually the loving nature of divine Love, which embraces us always in Love’s allness. We can affirm and understand the perfect faculties, rhythm, and freshness of Soul, the undiminishing being of divine Life, and the pure, entirely good substance of Spirit, all of which are reflected in our real individuality, here and now. 

Sometimes even as we pray, the carnal mind, or fleshly sense of life that resists spiritual understanding and freedom, tempts us in various ways to hang on to the misconception that body, or physicality, constitutes us. It tempts us with thoughts of organs or processes or disease. But we can put these temptations down as we mentally start with Spirit instead of the body and pray to see that our individuality faithfully reflects Spirit only. There is no physicality in Spirit, no physiology, no physiological laws or conditions; there are no material organs or functions or processes; there is no physical structure or anatomy. None of these are found in Spirit and its image, man.

Science and Health gives this comforting statement: “The blood, heart, lungs, brain, etc., have nothing to do with Life, God” (p. 151). If they have nothing to do with Life, God, then they have nothing to do with us, because we are Life’s expression. So we need not fear blood, heart, lungs, brain, and so on. Instead we can look in prayer to the harmonious substance, being, action, capacities, and individuality that Soul, or Mind, is forever imparting to us and sustaining in us.

It’s divine Love’s purpose to lift us out of the fear of matter into the spiritual understanding of our here-and-now oneness with Life. In this loving light that casts out fear, we discover in ourselves the reign of God’s own harmony, and find healing.

David C. Kennedy