MANY people know the marvel of living in a time of expanding concepts and scientific wonders. Material barriers are being surmounted, but this broad knowledge is not without its limitations. It is well known that physical scientists have recognized for some time that the framework of substantial matter is crumbling away. New theories and vast stores of information point to new concepts, but the significance of these cannot always be fully comprehended. Parts that should fit together contradict each other or shoot off in opposite directions. Coherent relationships often seem unexplainable in the context of a single total concept.
Philosophers and scientists wonder where this will lead. To mortal sense the question arises, Will mankind ever perceive a complete picture or must they learn to live with fragmentary patterns and a continuing sense of disorder?
Christian Science gives a logical and conclusive answer to this question that has no satisfying answer in the broad context of modern thinking. All-inclusive Mind is God. The revelation of spiritual completeness is not a blind, mystical assertion of a totality beyond the understanding of mankind. On the contrary, it enables men to know the infinite.
Left to itself the pattern of human progress is fragmentary, unaware of its own direction or potential. But when interpreted spiritually, it points to real progress. What a joy to know there is an all-encompassing order in the divine plan of progress and that mankind is included in it! In fact, the total order is established forever in these three words: God is All. Mrs. Eddy writes on page 544 of Science and Health, "In God's creation ideas become productive, obedient to Mind." And on page 302 of the same work she says, "Principle is not to be found in fragmentary ideas."
Christian Scientists have the opportunity today to recognize that completeness and spiritual progress, realized, result in more than fragmentary patterns in human experience. We can glimpse the totality of good revealed here and now through divine Mind and expressed in the activity of the Christ-idea. Complexities of material existence then resolve themselves into the harmony of the divine order. From a spiritual standpoint, modern advancements hint the limitless nature of Mind.
There have been many times in human history when existing standards have been questioned and found wanting, when the total picture has been incomplete. Individually, we face such times in our own experience. Discord of every nature is in some way a belief that there is no totality of good, that something can separate man from the allness of God. Christian Scientists know that this is not true. Man can never be separated from his creator.
The wholeness of Christ, the spiritual idea of God, is always available for healing when one turns his thought to God. Then the spiritual ideas needed for the immediate situation are revealed to the receptive thought. Understanding the allness of God begins gradually and goes on continuously. It is both the point of entrance and endless circumference of eternal harmony.
Revelation is the unfoldment of the Christ, Truth, that Jesus taught. The Christliness that the Way-shower manifested, culminating in his ascension beyond material thought, was a total overcoming of the belief in powerful matter. Jesus disclosed the promise of the Christ in his healing works and in his words (John 12:32), "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." The seamless robe which the Master wore was significant of the encompassing truth. Love enfolds our being. No fraction or fragment is excluded. Individually and in the universe, all is within the totality of good.
Since false mortal beliefs and evil thoughts are not part of this whole picture of truth, they are without power and before the omnipotence of good are seen to be nonexistent. To prove the practical healing Christ in human experience, we deny error and hold to the understanding of the allness of God. We utilize the clear, ageless truth. Our Leader tells us on page 98 of the textbook, "Mystery does not enshroud Christ's teachings, and they are not theoretical and fragmentary, but practical and complete; and being practical and complete, they are not deprived of their essential vitality."
Identity is not lost or absorbed into a nameless cosmos. Spiritual identity forever continues to develop as the expression of the Father's plan. Not only has each spiritual idea its place and function in the pattern of the whole, but no spiritual idea conflicts with, overshadows, or frustrates the development of another idea. The mortal scene is one of competition and strife for land, jobs, and the minds of men. It is important to challenge this mortal belief of conflicting power and to see the positive spiritual relationship between one creator and His creation, in which there is no strife.
Christian Scientists need to remind themselves constantly of the obligation they have to serve the world with their understanding of the totality of good. The work done individually expands to and generates a mighty power for good and aids in the total rejection of evil. This is world salvation. It is easy to think that one's individual effort is meaningless in the vast universal picture, but the effort of each one is vital. A single sincere declaration of the power of all-inclusive Mind carries with it the weight of the Christ and cannot be deprived of its effectiveness.
As Christian Scientists the world over strive to see more of the absolute spiritual universe and continue to demonstrate the allness of God in their human experience, we shall one day see manifested in the universe the clear vision of St. John (Rev. 11:15), "There were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever."
