Many, like Jacob of yore, when ready to renounce the exile of sin, think their decision to return to the Father's house sufficient to bring them immediately into the full realization of the heaven-harmony promised in Christian Science. They find it hard, at first, to understand conditions that arise, sometimes, apparently the very opposite of right realization. Christian Science explains the cause of these experiences on page 565 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, where we read, "This immaculate idea, represented first by man and, according to the Revelator, last by woman, will baptize with fire; and the fiery baptism will burn up the chaff of error with the fervent heat of Truth and Love, melting and purifying even the gold of human character."
The journey back to the Father's house is a journey from sense to Soul,—a journey into the understanding of God as good. What is good to human sense can be at best but a promise of ultimate good, which will be realized when thought is purified of every material element or human concept. With this fact before us, it is not surprising that the human concept of good is ever advancing as one's thought of Truth is being purged and purified. Hence, it becomes apparent that in absolute Christian Science there can be no loss and no sacrifice. There is just an exchange of old erroneous beliefs for higher, holier viewpoints, bound to bless abundantly. So when, in our journey, as in the experience of Jacob, fear or sin presents itself to be mastered, and we are "greatly afraid and distressed," it is well to remember that there is the same infinite Love to help us wrestle with the temptation and rebuke the error, until the radiance of the newly risen morning light breaks in upon human thought, flooding it with the glory of a new-born vision, and a new promise expresses itself in a better human manifestation.
In his journey back to his father's house, Jacob found he could not return as he had left it. There was an old, mistaken sense of birthright, substance, and blessing to be exchanged for a right sense of brotherhood and possession. Greed and dishonesty had to be so completely healed that the fear of their consequences was rendered null. Then it was that divine forgiveness was gained. As the new-born light of Truth appeared and dispelled the night, there was manifested the complete restoration of brother-love. With the coming of the dawn, Jacob saw Esau on the way to meet him, laden with gifts, and with an affection which had forgotten there was aught to forgive. So, with us, when discord seems to result from our efforts to do right, we may know that it is the call of Truth and Love to a higher realization of good. We should be glad to see the error uncovered; for chaff does not make daily bread.
Perhaps we are grieved because, although we believed we were meek, we never gained the promised inheritance. Finally, we learn that we have failed to understand the term "meekness" as used in the Scriptures. Experience often reveals, in such cases, that we were meek before error, instead of before God. True meekness awakens prayerfulness to know the Father's will and to do it, but makes one, on the other hand, fearless and strong in the face of error. True meekness bestows upon its own the ability to take stands for Truth, often in the face of opposition which the old, misinterpreted sense of meekness could never have given the courage to do.
The old sense of protection, deemed a virtue of the human race, must be abandoned. The mother must learn to set free the child she would give her life to protect, that it may rely on the everlasting arms, which alone have the power to guard and guide aright. So the business-man must cease to bind down his business by a too zealous human watchfulness, letting Mind direct and cleanse it of lack and discord and burden. The wife must turn housework into homework; and the home-maker find time to keep a better house, with joy and freedom attending. The child at school and at play must learn that God's law is the law of progress, and let Love show the way. All along the line, a human sense of duty should be exchanged for reflected activity, which brings rest, and freedom, and fulfillment. Those brought up under the old belief that
"... Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do"
find that work does not mean a great stirring up of dust and bustling about, but constant right thinking, which accomplishes all that is worth reckoning in the work of the world.
Sometimes, the healing of the concept of service requires considerable waiting, seemingly with hands tied, when one is longing to manifest a higher sense of activity. One is reminded that, at the age of twelve, Jesus recognized his life-work was to be about his Father's business. Still, he spent eighteen years more as a good carpenter, and as a searcher to know the will of God, before that was realized in its completeness, and he was able to demonstrate his place as the Messiah. In the waiting hours, one learns that the highest service to mankind is to meet its problems with right thinking, with the faith that the understanding of Truth avails. Then, as crises are met in the divine way, with such blessing attending as human thought could not conceive, the meaning of service in Christian Science appears, and the heart is gladdened by the higher work which unfolds.
Perhaps the ability to accomplish big ends, and confidence in one's resourcefulness, foresight, and capacity, must be refined and purified. The acknowledgment that of ourselves we can do nothing, but "with God all things are possible," turns us to Deity. Self-confidence is exchanged for confidence in God. Finally, the promise to Christian Scientists is fulfilled. Of those who seek to know and to do the will of God, Mrs. Eddy wrote in Science and Health (p. 128), "Christian Science enhances their endurance and mental powers, enlarges their perception of character, gives them acuteness and comprehensiveness and an ability to exceed their ordinary capacity."
It may be a sense of generosity, expressing itself, seemingly, in loving deeds, which brings the discord, until the lesson is learned that happiness is not necessarily given by trying to make some one else happy in our way or by heaping upon others the things we ourselves enjoy, but rather by granting those we love the freedom to work out their own understanding of substance and happiness, and the chance of knowing the joy thereof. At first, we are amazed to learn that a mistaken sense of generosity may be but a high form of selfishness; that the more Christianly scientific expression of generosity is to share with others the freedom belonging to the children of the King,—to reach out to the Father and realize that good and perfect gift which comes from above. The encouragement of love and truth, to help others see the way, is scientific generosity. The generous soon learn the error of making that kind of demonstration for others which leaves them helpless to meet a future problem. On the other hand, those selfishly absorbed in their own success learn to extend a loving, encouraging, helpful hand, and come to find their happiness in pointing the way to others.
An awakened understanding of the Golden Rule teaches that the thing we really desire of others is not a mistaken sympathy or a solicitous remembrance of one's problems, but to be generously left to God to work out our own salvation in divine Science. The Scientist yearns for the generous acceptance by others that, in spite of what seems to be, man is God's idea, honestly and earnestly at work. Thus we learn to reach out to others a heart of love, to recognize and extend to them the mental freedom we so desire ourselves. It becomes apparent that false sympathy is a part of the lie that would claim to mesmerize and kill; for it increases the belief in error instead of destroying it.
Perhaps it is the desire that a loved one become a Christian Scientist like ourselves that awakens the discord. Then it must be learned that in Science he is and always has been God's child, never separated for a moment from the Father's loving care. Ofttimes it happens that learning to leave loved ones alone to God results in a rapid acceptance of Science, where once the human desire appeared only to awaken resistance. A human sense of hospitality may need to give place to that understanding of hospitality which entertains angels, or God's thoughts, until those wandering in the wilderness of error, hungry for the bread of Life, come to the feast of Soul and go away abundantly satisfied.
Perhaps we are startled to learn that a human sense of peacemaker is ofttimes foolishness; that stolid fortitude in the face of error, or a veneered pose of peace, is not peace at all. The only peace is the peace that comes when man is governed by God. Christian Science demands that we refuse to be manipulated by error, whether it talks from within or from without. Often the wouldbe peacemaker merely coddles error in others, bringing them far greater unhappiness and discord than would have resulted from an honest, loving rebuke, or the refusal to be handled by another's mistaken sense of things. We have no right to win the crown at the expense of those we love.
When trying to act as peacemaker, as that term is humanly understood, perhaps one finds himself the target toward which those he tries to conciliate finally direct their united attack. This may swing him to the sin of self-righteous aloofness, unless the lesson of the master Peacemaker is learned, and teaches him the great lesson of how to make genuine peace. We remember that, on that sad, sad night, when error went forth "with lanterns and torches and weapons" to capture and bind the great representative of the healing power of Truth and Love, and later the wild mob in a frenzy of hate cried, "Crucify him, crucify him," divine Mind governed the situation so completely that not a disciple, follower, or patient came in for a moment of hate or persecution, and the mob, rioting to destroy the kingdom of good on earth, was kept in perfect order. From such an exalted example we learn that the way of the peacemaker is not a human part expressed in sorry words and petty strifes, but the ability to realize the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, bound together by the motherhood of Love divine, until that realization does bring peace on earth, good-will to men.
So in our journey heavenward, when it would seem that our efforts produce results contrary to the outcome desired, when what we do seem but strange mistakes, until tears of anguish flood the eyes, it is well to stand and know that all that can be attacked is the false self; that all that can mistake is a false sense of good; that all that can be lost is sin, disease, and death; that all that can be burned is the chaff that would cover and obscure the spiritual idea. How we love to turn at such times to the one who, bearing the cross of mankind, comfortingly said, "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." Thus we come to understand what Mrs. Eddy means when she explains such experiences as "the fervent heat of Truth and Love, melting and purifying even the gold of human character," which "separates the gold from the dross that the precious metal may be graven with the image of God" (Science and Health, pp. 565, 66). We are reminded that the pure in heart see God; and we learn to bow in meekness and gratitude as we pray, Thy will, not ours, be done.
Be friends, in the truest sense, each to the other. There is nothing in all the world like friendship, when it is deep and real.—
