Very often Christian Scientists are heard to say, "He needs all the mental support we can give him," or,"I feel so much mental support from her." It is well, though, that all sincere students of Christian Science should be quite clear as to the metaphysical meaning of "support," and what its fulfillment demands of us. Certainly it is not the image and likeness of God that needs our support. We also learn from the clear, spiritual teaching of our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, to turn away from material personality, not to follow or support it; in fact, these words appear in "Miscellaneous Writings," beginning on page 308, "I earnestly advise all Christian Scientists to remove from their observation or study the personal sense of any one, and not to dwell in thought upon their own or others' corporeality, either as good or evil."
The human mind is apt to try to personalize the good qualities, the reflection of God, with the result that the error of idolatry becomes temporarily established, whilst the mistaken idolator learns through regretful experience that instead of supporting a friend or a cause as he wished to, he has often seemed actually to harm them. Any one, of course, who is awake to the fact that he has been placed on a pedestal and is wise and selfless enough to know what the great Master meant when he said, "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God," can never be harmed, neither can his good work be hindered by the carnal mind's suggestions. No shadow can fall across the enlightened consciousness of clear metaphysical thinkers, for we have the Scriptural assurance, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee," and not upon material selfhood. How loving and grateful we feel toward those whose lives are so pure that their singleness of vision lets the Christ shine clearly through, as light shines through a clear, transparent glass. Could gratitude be more sincerely or practically shown than by following these examples in reflecting the same qualities they reflect from Principle? But to idolize one susceptible to the mesmerism of flattery and self-importance is to hinder his progress through the acceptance of the lying suggestion that goodness originates in persons instead of in infinite Mind. This belief claims to reverse the spiritual fact about goodness by reducing it to the level of a human belief in it, thus causing to the misguided victims temporary spiritual blindness, until the awakening, often through suffering, comes. No wonder that such a state of thought finds it difficult to impersonalize evil expressed by a human being! Christian Science clearly follows the Master in his teaching and practice of the fact that neither good qualities nor evil propensities ever originate in or belong to persons; that good alone is real, because it is a reflection of God, good.
It is the sacred duty of every student of Christian Science, as far as he understands, to give his loving support in the right way to all, and this is done through clear metaphysical thinking about everything and everybody. He knows that man is the image and likeness of God, divine Mind; that now he is perfect and ever actively reflecting divine qualities, ever governed by divine wisdom and radiating the truth. No limitation or thwarted sense of action ever could attach itself to the idea of infinite Love. Could we show any one a greater, purer sense of love than by blotting out the mental picture of a man's corporeality, and by accepting and holding to the true concept of his spiritual individuality? Paradoxical as it may appear to the human consciousness, the only practical support we can offer any one is the conscious, spiritual recognition that man is the idea of God and lacks no support.
