God is Life, the only real Life. Since God is everywhere, Life is self-existent, eternal. Then all elements of Life—vitality, growth, creativeness, and development—are expressed everywhere in God's universe. All of Life's infinite faculties, including the ability to act, are expressions of—and inseparable from—Spirit. Therefore they are perfect and spiritual.
In the record of creation in the first chapter of Genesis we find the inspired account of the true universe. Heaven, earth, and every identity therein are figuratively presented—as grass, herb, tree, creatures, fowls, and generic man—each one a productive spiritual idea, composing God's beautiful plan of continuing unfoldment.
Close study of this chapter shows frequent reference to God-governed movement. We read that "the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Gen. 1:2; We feel the steady flow of action in the record: earth produces, fowls fly, creatures move. Liveliness and movement permeate the wonderful portrayal of infinite, pulsating Life, in which each spiritual idea harmonizes, fulfilling its active role in God's perfect universe.
Mrs. Eddy writes, "In the order of Science, in which the Principle is above what it reflects, all is one grand concord." And farther on in the same paragraph she continues: "Mind is perpetual motion. Its symbol is the sphere. The rotations and revolutions of the universe of Mind go on eternally." Science and Health, p. 240; Since Mind, God, is the only motivating force, each evidence of true motion must be vibrant and eternally strong. It occurs as Mind's expression, not as matter. It is an idea of perfect Mind effortlessly expressed because, as reflection, it derives its impetus from Spirit.
Moreover, as Spirit's outcome, movement is never discordant. Because Spirit includes no obstructive force, inactivity is impossible. It is without origin or claim to actual being. Because evil cannot identify legitimately with God, good, evil has no real identity, no place to function.
Spiritual ideas are not physical; so spiritual action—the only true action occurring anywhere—is spontaneous and consistently good. It is God-sustained.
To demonstrate and enjoy the blessings of normal mobility, one must spiritually value its immortal, unphysical nature. One must identify movement with "the Spirit of God" and acknowledge that, as God's expression, movement is not mortal but immortal, therefore effortless. Movement is the result of divine Mind's knowing, and this activity is never labored or strained. Neither does immortality lapse into mortality, Life into inertness, rigidity, insensibility, or lifelessness. These are mortal misconceptions of the activity included in true being. Christian Science exposes their falsity and helps us prove that any degree of abnormal immobility is impossible.
Within Mind's allness, symbolized by the sphere, which represents total being, movement is a derivative of Mind. It may appear humanly as some activity at home, church, business, in the factory, or in a jet plane crossing continents and oceans. It may appear in bodily action such as walking or vigorous gymnastic effort. But however the activity looks to the physical senses, it is basically the direct reflection of divine Principle, controlled exclusively by spiritual law. It is logical, then, to see that Mind's activity is free and perfect— an intelligent function incapable of breakdown or fatigue.
To prove this in human experience, one must never think of movement as a personal possession, for then mobility is likely to express the beliefs of this personal sense. Actually, movement is not personally produced or physically controlled. It isn't more agile in youth and less lithe in maturity. All true response is spiritual, therefore instantaneous and unlabored.
Divine Mind is never sluggish, neutral, or dormant—never at a standstill. Liveliness is spiritual, linked to ever-active Life. Energy and vigor flow from limitless Mind to its beloved expression, man. Christ Jesus might almost have been describing Mind's effortless movement expressed through man when he spoke of the "well of water springing up into everlasting life." John 4:14;
To demonstrate this in human experience, we need to express mental liveliness, awakeness, alertness. Sleepy, self-indulgent thinking may appear as a slow-moving body. Willful, unyielding attitudes may be evidenced as rigid muscles. But spiritually oriented thought naturally subordinates false mortal beliefs. The conditions of the body are then seen to be the subjective effect of conscious good. Then all action from the blinking of an eye to the climbing of a mountain becomes to us Mind's manifestation, free and joyous. We can all discover God-derived movement within our own consciousness and express it actively as buoyancy and freedom.
Robert Henri, the great American artist and teacher, glimpsed the freeing result of inspiration when he wrote of an artist, "He paints like a man going over the top of a hill, singing." Robert Henri, The Art Spirit (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1930), p. 79;
Scripture says that at one time Christ Jesus "returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee."Luke 4:14; Because he knew that the Father never stops expressing Himself through the Son, he was the supreme witness to unrestricted action. He walked with God, so his movements were unconfined. His teachings make plain that each of us may demonstrate and enjoy the same dominion if we too claim divine sonship. He said, "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." 12:32; The kingdom includes among God's gifts freedom of movement. It has been ours as long as it has been God's, and that means forever. So activity—yours and mine and everyone's—is intact and responsive only to Mind's motivation.
Sometimes individuals forget this. They temporarily identify themselves as originators of movement. They believe that physical ligaments, tendons, and muscles somehow result in unlabored or labored movement. They don't realize that the physical state is a mortally-mental image—a thought-picture of material life, a concept in agreement with limitation and deterioration. Matter-oriented views are as idolatrous as pagan worship, though generally accepted by an unquestioning society preoccupied with medical diagnoses.
People often permit mortal history to limit their normal movement. Beliefs of age or inherited disability may appear to outweigh the natural, spiritual concepts of uninhibited movement if unguarded, habitually lax thinking lets them in. Once accepted and credited as realities, hobbling, crippling beliefs may assume a physical form, the outcome of a distorted view of true, harmonious movement.
Then what? One must look honestly through deceiving appearances. He must discredit mortal beliefs and replace them with true facts as presented in the spiritual record in Genesis. He needs to rise out of the passiveness and deceptiveness of material sense into the dominion of spiritual understanding. Then animal magnetism—the mesmerism of material sense—can no longer use his consciousness for destructive immobilization.
Claiming the manhood and womanhood of spiritual being erases selfish, inverted opinions about body and reveals its spiritual makeup forever unadulterated by disease, negative dispositional traits, overweight or underweight, or cramping physical beliefs of any kind. As divine Love's expression, body, or spiritual identity, enjoys and expresses natural activity stimulated by Mind's boundless outflow of spiritual power.
As one accepts and consciously applies these truths to bodily movement, he begins to think about himself intelligently, meekly, humbly, spiritually. With childlike trust he looks to God for all his needs. He's happy and free, knowing there is but one true universe, which is conditioned by Love. He lives this Love devotedly. He associates himself with his Father's perpetually harmonious universe and sees that every function within it is spiritual, operating exclusively under divine Mind's dictates. Then paralysis is an impossibility.
A man proved this when assailed by physical inertness. He telephoned a Christian Science practitioner on a Wednesday and said he was almost immobile. Any bodily action was extremely painful. The practitioner reassured him that divine Mind produces and controls all action. Since his true and only being was inseparable from God, good, his action was painless and free. It was completely spiritual, not physical, therefore perfect now. His movement was safe in the one Life, God, and he could prove this.
The man accepted the mental challenge. He activated the healing process by being grateful—first, for obvious human benefits right there in his bedroom. Then for more meaningful spiritual blessings coursing throughout the world, embracing every activity in Love's tenderness. With the practitioner he consciously accepted the natural spontaneous goodness of all true movement and its symbol in normal bodily functions. He attributed all power to God, good, and denied physical sense on the basis of its godlessness.
The following Sunday morning he telephoned to say that he was up and dressed, ready to attend church services. Soon after, at a Wednesday evening meeting, he testified to his complete healing.
Mrs. Eddy writes: "When Spirit made all, did it leave aught for matter to create? Ideas of Truth alone are reflected in the myriad manifestations of Life, and thus it is seen that man springs solely from Mind." Science and Health, p. 543.
Then man's activity is not mortal, not physical or restricted. Movement, as God's idea, belongs to Him, and He maintains it now and forever. God's spiritual creation, manifested everywhere, expresses ageless energy and resiliency.
