The new or comparatively new student of Christian Science is likely at some time to ask himself, "When shall I be fit to heal others?" The question is important because it relates to a stage of maturity he desires to reach. But it is even more important because it implies that one is progressing in loving more actively.
Christian Science is the Science of Love demonstrated. It is concerned not only with revealing to mankind the highest concepts of Deity but with applying those concepts to bring harmony into human experience.
In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy tells us, "The divinity of the Christ was made manifest in the humanity of Jesus." Science and Health, p. 25; That divinity had a quality that could make men fall back in awe, but it was practical enough to feed the hungry and heal the sick. Christ Jesus came to show us the Father, but he did not stand up in a synagogue to be worshiped. He took God into the marketplace and with the finger of God, Love, touched the untouchable lepers with transforming compassion. He proved what God is by showing what Love does. So the newcomer to Christian Science who wants not only to be healed but to heal is asking for precisely what God imparts—outgoing love.
This love is not for tomorrow but for today. The way to mature, to come "unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ,"Eph. 4:13; a goal we all must eventually attain, is not a process of absorbing spiritual truths until we embody enough of them to make us healers. We grow only by living in accordance with Truth, not by hoarding truths for later use. The time to live is now, and we cannot live it and use it until we understand it.
The instant that a fault of character or a belief of physical impairment is seen as a lie about God's creation, because the appropriate revealing truth has been admitted into human consciousness, the instant we glimpse the true Light, or light of Truth, "which lighteth every man that cometh into the world" John 1:9;; the instant our inner spiritual consciousness obliterates some aspect of lying material knowledge, in that instant God is evidenced in us as healing, outgoing love.
The degree of our practical reflection of divine Love depends on the degree of our understanding of Truth, for God is both Love and Truth, and we cannot have one without the other. Although we work humanly toward the fullness of divine sonship, we manifest a degree of sonship daily and inevitably. We all become healers in the measure that we are uplifted and purified by Truth, for Truth impels outgoing, healing love.
The beginner in Christian Science will have evidence of his improved influence on others. He will see nervous people become calmer when he chats with them—not necessarily about religion. He will notice that downcast people become brighter in his presence. Is not this healing? And there is a sense in which we are all beginners each day, for there are always fresh truths to learn.
In the presence of Christ Jesus, men became more aware of God, good. Often this quickened awareness called out latent faith that even long-standing ills could be healed. But the many kinds of people who thronged the Master must have felt different degrees of encouragement.
Men see God best through those who have become transparencies for Truth. They see in other transformed men or women a possibility they may not have dared to hope for—their own transformation. Mrs. Eddy writes, "The divine nature was best expressed in Christ Jesus, who threw upon mortals the truer reflection of God and lifted their lives higher than their poor thought-models would allow,— thoughts which presented man as fallen, sick, sinning, and dying." Science and Health, p. 259. In following the Master in the demonstration of Truth according to our degree of understanding we too necessarily throw upon others a truer reflection of God, lifting others' lives higher.
There is no need for the newcomer to Christian Science to ask himself when he will be fit to heal. In the degree that he understands Truth he is bound to be a healer. In the measure that good dwells in him, even his unspoken thought, his personal influence apart from his direct intentions, must work the works of God, good.
Jesus healed the woman who touched him. Or rather, the Christ, Truth, to which Jesus was fully surrendered, found in him a pure transparency through which to answer with power the woman's outreaching faith. Insofar as we are Christly, having been remade by Truth, we too let the light through to others.
In due time, as God makes Himself felt through us increasingly, the sick, the lonely, the deprived, will turn to us for help. We are then free to give specific, sustained prayerful treatment. But to imagine that healing does not begin until we reach this point is like supposing that no one can play the piano until he becomes a concert pianist.
Moreover, if the beginner is tempted to tell himself that his influence for good must be small because his experience is small, let him reflect upon the fact that, properly speaking, there is no such thing as a "small healing." Every healing of oneself or another through the understanding of Truth is a demonstration, a proof, of the tremendous fact of God's all-presence. It recapitulates, with practical force, the fundamental teaching of Christian Science that God, good, is All, that man is His image and likeness, and that evil is nothing vainly claiming to be something. The full understanding of this truth is mankind's way to heaven, harmony, and it is the only way.
That is why every Christian Scientist, working to become an ever-clearer transparency for Truth, whether he calls himself a beginner or not, is helping today to heal the world.
