The children of men wander down strange and devious ways in an effort to find happiness. Like Ponce de León, the Spanish explorer who hunted through trackless Florida wastelands for the mythical fountain of youth, so mortals explore the wastelands of materiality in search of the wellspring of joy.
Centuries ago David, the sweet singer of Israel, discovered this wellspring of joy to be wholly spiritual and its source to be divine Love alone. He said (Ps. 16:11), "Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore."
In their quest for happiness men soon learn that no material circumstances, personal friends, or possessions can bestow it, or their absence deprive them of it. Sometimes only after ceaseless disappointments and needless woe is mankind ready to learn the great truth revealed in Christian Science that joy is spiritual and that man, the reflection of his Father-Mother God, already possesses happiness in fullest measure.
The real man, as the embodiment of all right ideas, the compound idea of Spirit, God, includes all good. He lacks nothing, but forever unfolds and expresses Love's joyous self completeness. To acknowledge and understand this truth is to prove it in human experience.
In the beginning "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good" (Gen. 1:31). Nothing needs to be added to this perfect creation, and nothing can ever be taken away from its grandeur and loveliness. We discern this loveliness in proportion as we turn away from material sense and lift up our eyes to behold God's work.
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, tells us in its textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 272), "The divine Principle of the universe must interpret the universe."
What is God's interpretation of the universe; can it be poverty, sickness, and sin? Is it unhappiness and fear? No, these are not of His creating, and He is not aware of them. They are the testimony of matter or the material senses, the very opposite of the real.
A material, personal viewpoint would rob one of joy, for its distorted concept of creation always has something to be straightened out, some mote to be removed from a brother's eye, or something to cause unhappiness and disappointment. But is there really anything the matter with God's creation, with that which He pronounced "very good"? Are not the tangles of one's own making, the motes of one's own forming?
Our Master, Christ Jesus, refused to believe that evil was real. He rejected the argument that sin, disease, or any other discord could rob man of his joy. Walking in the radiancy of true being, he taught the oneness and allness of good, and he said (John 15:11), "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." Christian Science reinstates the teaching of the Master; it says in the words of the prophet (Isa. 12:3), "With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation." It is proving, even as Jesus did, that God's perfect creation is here and that God's man is joyous and free.
There may be times when we forget this very good creation and believe we lack something essential to our well being and happiness. Man, the reflection of his divine Principle, can no more know lack than God Himself can be aware of it.
Perhaps we have been seeing a discordant, unlovely environment. Did God make it? No. Then we have divine authority, not for running away from it, but for seeing it transformed by our understanding of the spiritual fact that right at hand is the loveliness of Love. We shall find cause for rejoicing on every hand when we begin to see everything as the one Mind, infinite good, causes us to see it. To become aware of Love's ever presence, to reflect divine Mind's knowing, is to find our problems solved.
There is no foreboding fear in the thought of a little child. No anxiety darkens his expectancy of good; he is happy and confident in the good that is here. We too may rise above troubled, anxious thinking and prove that good alone is real. This was confirmed in the experience of a young mother who for the first time attended a lecture on Christian Science. Returning home late at night from a near by city where the lecture had been given, she was told that her baby was suffering from what seemed to be a serious malady which had developed while she was away.
This mother quietly took her child and laying it beside her on the bed lifted her thought in gratitude and joyous acknowledgment of the truth, as taught in Christian Science, that good alone is real. She pondered the lecturer's words that had told her of the allness of God, His ever presence and ever available love.
In a few minutes both mother and child were sleeping. Upon awakening the following morning, the child was perfectly well, to the great surprise of the rest of the family, who were not Christian Scientists. This joyous recognition and acceptance of God's presence had healing in its wings.
Happiness is as natural to man as perfume is to the lily of the valley. Every expression of pure joy, from the least sense of gladness to the greatest spiritual joy, is acknowledgment and acceptance of Love's ever presence. When we are happy we are grateful; ingratitude is joyless. Joy is the divine quality reflected from Mind, and gratitude is the human expression. Well may we question the genuineness of gratitude and goodness devoid of happiness.
If we are tempted to ask, How can I be happy when this problem has not yielded? let us remember that that which solves the problem knows no problem to be solved. That which meets the difficulty does not know the discords of personal sense any more than light can know darkness; hence its ability to destroy them.
"If God is infinite good, He knows nothing but good; if He did know aught else, He would not be infinite. Infinite Mind knows nothing beyond Himself or Herself. To good, evil is never present; for evil is a different state of consciousness. It was not against evil, but against knowing evil, that God forewarned. He dwelleth in light; and in the light He sees light, and cannot see darkness" (Miscellaneous Writings by Mrs. Eddy, p. 367).
A joy-filled consciousness resists and overcomes discord even as light destroys darkness. Such a thought does not have to struggle to overcome error, for it is lifted up above it.
One summer day the writer was watching a tiny wren whose home was threatened by a larger bird. The plucky little wren battled with the invader, but would stop every few minutes and fly to the limb of a near by tree, there to pour out his heart in joyous song; then he would return once more to the defense of his property. This continued at intervals until his tormentor was routed.
We may learn a lesson from our feathered friend. In our efforts to overcome error let us pause long enough to pour out a song of joy. Then we shall see error melt into the nothingness it really is.
Paul tells us (Gal. 5:22, 23), "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law." Here the quality of joy is placed second only to love. "Against such there is no law," no false belief calling itself material law to bind man to discord and suffering—only the law of omnipresent Love. The liberation and freedom of man are assured by this law of Love. Inspiration and spontaneity are the outcome of joy, the offspring of a happy heart.
The very heavens will sing for us and the trees of the earth clap their hands when we at length discover the wellspring of happiness and find joy to be divinely natural, our birthright as a child of God.
In a poem entitled "Pippa Passes" Robert Browning puts these words in the mouth of a little factory girl who is enjoying her one yearly holiday:
Thou art my single day, God lends to leaven
What were all earth else, with a feel of heaven.
By her joyous singing she helps to lift the thought of all those whom she passes along the way.
We also, with a song of joy in our hearts that man is joyous for he is the very expression of God, divine Love, may lift the burden from many a troubled one, thus helping to bring Love's healing touch to all with whom we come in contact. Let us never forget our Leader's words in Science and Health (p. 514): "Mind, joyous in strength, dwells in the realm of Mind. Mind's infinite ideas run and disport themselves. In humility they climb the heights of holiness."
