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Escapism Is Not the Answer

From the November 1970 issue of The Christian Science Journal


In the absolute sense—in the kingdom of heaven, the true habitation of man in God's image and likeness—the word "escape" has no meaning. Indeed, in this holy kingdom, revealed by our Master, Christ Jesus, as a present reality, there is actually no evil to escape from, and certainly no desire to flee the perfect harmony of spiritual existence.

On the other hand, in this seeming temporal state of human existence, escape has at least two connotations. It can represent the result of the sincere effort to repudiate and heal sin and suffering through repentance and regeneration and to demonstrate the divine control of circumstance for the benefit of oneself and others.

Or it can appear to have a sinister significance. For example, mortal mind can argue to the uninstructed human consciousness that escape can be made from one human predicament into another supposedly easier, more pleasurable, and more rewarding worldly condition. Thus that human consciousness can seemingly be made to believe that it can profitably exchange boredom, loneliness, fear, pressure, and discord of many kinds for amusement, dissipation, daydreaming, socializing, travel, and similar diversions. And in extreme cases, if driven ultimately to desperation, it may contemplate some Nirvana or oblivion, as by means of the "bare bodkin" of Hamlet's morbid musings. But Shakespeare also makes Hamlet seem to suggest, in his soliloquy, that when he would have "shuffled off this mortal coil," he would only have exchanged one bad dream for another.

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