After I graduated from college, I served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the West African country of Burkina Faso for two years. It was a terrific experience, shaping my understanding of the world in meaningful ways and providing opportunity for much personal and spiritual growth. As part of the close-of-service process, volunteers are required to undergo a thorough medical exam. Not long after I arrived home, I received an envelope from the Peace Corps containing a letter stating I had tested positive for a certain waterborne illness. It also included a packet of paperwork to get the medical treatment covered by Peace Corps. I became quite fearful on reading this news. I was living with my parents at the time, but I didn’t say anything to anybody. Instead, I took the envelope and went to a quiet part of the house in order to calm my thought and listen for what God was communicating to me.
Almost immediately a very clear thought came to me that said: “They made a mistake; they sent this to the wrong person.” Of course, it was my name and address on the envelope and my identifying information on the paperwork. But I recognized that thought as a message from God telling me that the news contained in the envelope had nothing whatsoever to do with my, or anyone’s, true spiritual identity.
Spiritual being is completely beyond the reach of error’s would-be attacks.
Through my study of Christian Science, I have come to understand myself and all creation as the direct reflection of God, made in His image. Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, writes: “God is the creator of man, and, the divine Principle of man remaining perfect, the divine idea or reflection, man, remains perfect” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 470). Knowing God to be entirely good, loving, complete, and harmonious, as His reflection I knew I could only express completeness and harmony. There could be no disease. The idea of sickness or disease is so irrelevant to the nature of God’s perfect creation that it was as if the diagnosis had been mistakenly sent to me.
The idea behind mail being sent to the wrong address has become a helpful way for me to understand man’s complete separation from claims that we are material. When we find ourselves confronted with mortal suggestions that we are subject to sickness, sin, or death, it is like receiving a letter or email trying to inform us that we are something less than God’s spiritual creation. But the key is to understand that we receive such messages in error. Material messages can never actually reach our true spiritual identity. They can only be addressed to a false material sense of being: “Dear Mortal, We regret to inform you that you are sick/sinful/fearful/lonely/lacking/etc.” Such messages cannot reach us as spiritual ideas because God alone communicates to His creation and only communicates good.
These truths are rooted in the understanding of being found in the first chapter of Genesis. God created man in His image and likeness and saw that creation is good and complete (see Genesis 1:27, 31). Because God is All, each individual identity reflects Spirit and is spiritual. There is no other sense of being. Any claim that being is material involves a false understanding of mankind’s origin and nature. Suggestions of sickness, sin, or death only pertain to this false concept of being, which is without origin.
Sometimes we accept as true what the messages are saying because we mistakenly believe we are the mortal to whom the message is addressed. But this is false. Because our genuine identity is spiritual, health, harmony, joy, peace, and purity are the facts of our being. When God, through the Christ, uplifts thought to understand that identity is wholly spiritual, we recognize that any message addressed “Dear Mortal” and containing claims of our imperfection is not addressed to us—to the truth of our being. We can then dismiss the message as having nothing to say about us. When we pray to discard such messages because we understand our spiritual nature and the perfection of our being, healing occurs.
Any claim that being is material involves a false understanding of mankind’s origin and nature.
My understanding that we can never be subject to anything unlike God, good, has been further helped by ideas expressed in the Bible, Science and Health, and in the Christian Science periodicals. In a Christian Science Sentinel article, L. Ivimy Gwalter suggests that if we feel that we are being targeted by error, we can think of ourselves as a target out of range (see “Target Out of Range,” October 15, 1955). Spiritual being is completely beyond the reach of error’s would-be attacks. Christ Jesus offers the parable of the tares and wheat growing side by side until the harvest, when the wheat (good) is gathered but the tares (error) are burned (see Matthew 13: 24–30). Mrs. Eddy elucidates this parable by explaining that the inharmonious and unreal can never really mingle with the harmonious and real. It is only to mortal sense that they seem to grow to-gether, but the real and unreal are separated “through the realization of God as ever present and of man as reflecting the divine likeness” (Science and Health, p. 300). Though different sources for study have spoken to thought at different times and in different ways, they all point to the fact that God’s man can never be touched by claims that we are limited mortals.
Being spiritual, we are each free to reject claims that we are not whole, not well, or that we are separated from God. We are eternally linked to God, but are completely separate from a material sense of being. These truths, applied to my own situation, resulted in healing. I recognized that my spiritual perfection gave me authority to dismiss the message in my Peace Corps letter as a “mistake,” as having nothing at all to say about me as God’s perfect likeness. With that thought, all fear left me and I knew that I didn’t need to give any further thought to the contents of that envelope. It has now been more than five years, and I never experienced any symptoms of that illness.
