New Year's Day is a time of questioning, of turning over a new leaf as the saying goes, of good resolves and renewed endeavor to improve oneself. The point which Christian Science stresses in this endeavor is the need for demonstrating one's real spiritual individuality as the image of God. This requires not only the expression of spiritual qualities of thought, but right activity, the occupation which puts true characteristics to work according to the greatest usefulness of which one is capable.
Time and eternity coincide when one learns to express his eternal individuality in his temporal human experience. On page 70 of "Retrospection and Introspection" Mary Baker Eddy speaks of the individual place the Virgin Mary filled; the place Christ Jesus filled in his individual mission; and that which she herself fills as the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. She follows her reasoning through to the inclusion of all men by saying, "Each individual must fill his own niche in time and eternity." An honest search of thought to find if one is doing his best to demonstrate his individual activity in eternity is a wholesome occupation for New Year's Day.
Because the physical senses seem to dominate the human personality, individuals are, generally speaking, concerned with matter, which is the concept of substance these senses present. Matter seems important to anyone in the degree that he permits himself to be influenced by the corporeal senses. But Christian Science turns mankind away from the five senses and their consciousness of matter to the realization of Spirit as All and consequently as the only true substance. It reveals man as the individual consciousness of Spirit, not of matter. It unveils one's real eternal occupation, showing it to be a specific activity in Spirit's reflection of itself—of good. This turning away from matter to God not only spiritualizes thought, but brings to one a more clearly defined individuality and right activity in his present experience.
