Two brothers once lived and played together in the remote backwoods. Both boys were accomplished woodsmen. They swam freely in the lakes and rode horses bareback with ease. Nature was their closest friend, but neither of them had ever seen the sea.
One day one of the boys accompanied a relative on a long visit. He traveled a great distance and saw the ocean for the first time. When he returned home he was full of this new discovery and was eager to share with his brother all the wonder of it.
But how was he to start?
In his excitement he reached out imaginatively to what they were both familiar with, what they both cherished. He began by saying that the sea was like the rich green flow of the forest seen from the hilltop, like the sound of the wind rushing through the trees, like the soft rain on their faces in a summer shower, like the rise and fall of the horses' backs beneath their knees, the long manes streaming on the air.
His communication problem vanished as he continued to find simple comparisons between the ocean and the images of backwoods life. His listener was able to explore what was unknown to him through this language of symbols by which he could feel, identify, and share.
Now the words and the comparisons alone did not do this for him. What scaled the initial communication barrier and made this sharing possible was the love, joy, sincerity, vigor, freshness, and perception behind what the brother said.
In the same way, healing is a language. It is the language of God's love for man. This language is available to each one of us. It does not depend merely on the fervency with which we want to share; nor is it the result only of our love for our listener, however genuine this may be. The language of healing flows through our human capacities in exact proportion to our affection for the Christ-idea.
All healing in Christian Science is evidence of communication—the communication from God to man of spiritual ideas created and cherished by the one author, God. As human consciousness is purified, it acts as a transparency through which the light of these ideas flows naturally and lucidly.
The thought of Paul was such a transparency on Mars' Hill. There, as we read in Acts, his listeners were suddenly exposed to the impact of symbols, or the language of metaphor. Discounting the dedication of one of their altars TO THE UNKNOWN GOD, he cried, "In him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring."Acts 17:28;
What was he saying? Biblical scholarship has attributed the origin of his poetic allusion to the third-century B.C. poet Aratus. But as Paul utters them, these words have new life and meaning. What we infer from the apostle's text is that man exists in the consciousness of God; that God is the very source of all man's true activity and purpose; and that man's being soars in Mind, God, who is his real Father and creator. "In him we live, and move, and have our being" —the Bible has given us these great truths in a few words of poetry. Actually, they come across to us in a single metaphor.
The Scriptures teem with metaphors and symbols, without which scientific spiritual teaching is not possible. Christ Jesus illustrated, rather than fully defined, Truth; he demonstrated through healing, rather than merely verbalizing what he knew of reality. Our Master was not appealing to an intellectual elite. The beauty of his communication had impact for fisherman and Pharisee alike. That beauty was recognizable through his inspired use of parable and similitude, through the divinely symbolic meaning of his whole earthly career.
Said Peter to his Master, "Thou hast the words of eternal life."John 6:68; On the walk to Emmaus, the two wondering disciples felt their thought drawn to the single focus of the "stranger's" words, so that their hearts burned within them.See Luke 24:13— 32;
Similarly, instilled with the inspired Word of the Bible, the writings of Mrs. Eddy bring to us the spiritual vitality of ideas given metaphoric shape. The healing power communicated through such language constantly awaits our own discovery and use. Mrs. Eddy's language proves that the prayerful use of verbal symbolism awakens, sometimes startles—that its effect, as in the boy's enthusiasm for the sea, is to rouse the understanding latent in each of us. To rouse and to heal. For example, see her words: "The rays of infinite Truth, when gathered into the focus of ideas, bring light instantaneously, whereas a thousand years of human doctrines, hypotheses, and vague conjectures emit no such effulgence."Science and Health, p.504;
Anyone who has used a pair of binoculars or gazed through a telescope or a microscope has some clue to Mrs. Eddy's insight here. Just as words must be written or spoken to communicate, so spiritual qualities must be lived to have their healing effect. Words are no substitute for a deep affection for the qualities themselves in all their sweetness and vigor.
Right now, Spirit, Soul, Mind, Principle, Truth, Life, Love—these seven definitive synonyms for God as presented by Mrs. Eddy—release their rich vocabulary of qualities into the human understanding through the Christ. How vital are these qualities? For instance, obedience, mercy, intelligence, remain as words on a page or sounds in the mouth until lived through the action of the Christ in the affectional consciousness.
Obedience. There is nothing mechanical or unimaginative about the expression of this quality when we understand it as an attribute of Principle, Soul. Scientifically speaking, obedience is reflection. It is being what you are—the image of your Maker as reflected in the mirror of divine Science.
Let us then be led to Mrs. Eddy's "'limpid lake" when we learn obedience. Her symbol is unmistakable. She writes: "Stand by the limpid lake, sleeping amid willowy banks dyed with emerald. See therein the mirrored sky and the moon ablaze with her mild glory. This will stir your heart. Then, in speechless prayer, ask God to enable you to reflect God, to become His own image and likeness, even the calm, clear, radiant reflection of Christ's glory, healing the sick, bringing the sinner to repentance, and raising the spiritually dead in trespasses and sins to life in God." The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p.150.
When we identify obedience as reflection, our lives declare the presence of God as Principle, Soul.
Mercy. Nothing can be more tangible, more real—perhaps more startling today— in human consciousness than the expression of divine mercy. It is one of the attributes of Love, Truth. Mercy is the motivating force of Christian Science treatment.
When we are suddenly made aware of a violent act of reprisal in some divided city —even in our own community—what are we prepared to do about it? Our first step is not to consider what could be done in these areas to correct the situation humanly. Our first step is to see that mercy is not just something needed "out there" but something we need to recognize and cherish. Right now we are under divine command to discover mercy—as alive and active in the detail of our lives.
Just as this spiritual quality is part of God's healing vocabulary, so the prayer that expresses it becomes, in turn, part of the language of healing in world experience. And from every prayer that embodies an understanding of divine mercy flows the act or expression of forgiveness in human lives, communicating the gentle presence of Love, Truth.
Intelligence. It takes intelligence to see Truth's allness exposing the nothingness of error. But Mind is Love, and therefore Mind's intelligence is also Love's expression. Thus one might conclude that an act of tenderness is essentially an act of intelligence.
Again, no one can be blind to the beauty of such an act. It follows that beauty, as a quality of Soul, also bears the color of intelligence: man's intelligence is beautiful, his spiritual beauty is intelligent. You can't have intelligence without beauty. And so we see that, even humanly speaking, our response to the real beauty in our lives is always an accurate measure of our intelligence.
How may we increase our vocabulary in the language of healing? To begin with, we see that our recognition and appreciation of a spiritual quality expressed by our neighbor is made possible through the presence of that very same quality in our own spiritual makeup. It is intelligence that detects intelligence; it is the action of beauty in us that leads us to appreciate the beauty of our brother's action; it is the genuine strength in us that honors the genuine strength in another. For without the presence of such qualities in our spiritual individuality—however hidden, however unsuspected—our recognition and appreciation of what we see in another would not be possible.
Man's vocabulary of spiritual qualities is infinite. A wealth of discovery lies before us. And the spoken language we are accustomed to using will become constantly richer and sweeter as we grow closer to God in this way. Our power to communicate helpfully with each other will grow with our expression of spiritual qualities, becoming at the same time more deep-toned and rarified as our affection for these qualities increases. On their wings, the Christ-idea moves freely, bringing permanent healing and blessing.
