To what are termed the material senses, the statement that man is ageless constitutes an absurdity. Man, according to these senses, begins in material birth, continues through infancy and maturity to maximum achievement, and on to the weakness of a second childhood and final oblivion. No sooner is material man counted into the population than the process of counting him out again begins. In rich language, Shakespeare in his play As You Like It describes this doleful cycle in a passage that has been referred to as "The Seven Ages of Man." If, as we read in Psalms, "the days of our years are threescore years and ten," Ps. 90:10; we might ask, in the words of an anonymous epitaph,
It is so soon that I am done for,
I wonder what I was begun for.
We learn in Christian Science that the material man trapped in a time cycle is not real. He is an insubstantial projection of a mind that is as unreal as the pictures it projects. "Human thought," Mrs. Eddy writes, "never projected the least portion of true being." Science and Health, p. 126; Even the greatest longevity illustrates an infringement on infinity. Immortality is not circumscribed. Eternal Life has no limits.
God is Supreme Being, and all true being is in God. The complete nature of Deity is designated in Science and Health by seven synonyms: Spirit, Mind, Soul, Principle, Truth, Life, Love. These terms are found in the Bible or may be inferred from its teachings.
Infinite Mind can suffer no senility; all-pervading Spirit experiences no decrepitude. The beauty of Soul can never wane. Divine Principle tolerates no weakness or infirmity; immutable Truth knows no decline; eternal Life admits of no decay; immortal Love includes no corrosive element. The real man reflecting God, his creator, is the only man there is right now and lives in an unending consciousness of good. He remains forever at the acme of perfection as the outcome of God. The true selfhood of each one of us reflects fearless, diseaseless, sinless, ageless, deathless being in the eternal now.
It is a sobering thought to realize how often so-called mortal man becomes a slave of his own inventions. In Ecclesiastes we read, "Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions." Eccl. 7:29; One of these is the invention of time.
Time is not a force or power; it is only a convenient, man-made system of measurement. Its passage should have no more effect on us than the unreeling of a tape measure. The false belief that time is a power capable of destroying man is indicated in an old hymn:
Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away.
Happily, we are not sons of time; we are sons and daughters of God! As such, we live in measureless eternity. You and I are living in the eternal now of Spirit, where time is unknown. God, good, includes no time factor.
That Christ Jesus, the master Christian, was fully cognizant of this divine fact is evidenced by his declaration, "Before Abraham was, I am." John 8:58; This statement sprang from his immaculate understanding of timeless, spiritual being. He knew that the Christ, his spiritual selfhood, had existed and would continue to exist in the eternal now of Spirit.
Many who have glimpsed the truth of man's ageless being have preserved a youthful zest and mental and physical activity commonly regarded as incompatible with their years. One who is fully qualified spiritually can carry on the healing work in Christian Science no matter what the calendar says.
All the great work that followed Mrs. Eddy's discovery of Christian Science was carried out in the second half of her life. The spiritual thinking underlying Mrs. Eddy's continued activity is seen in the following words written to a branch church: "I am quite able to take the trip to your city, and if wisdom lengthens my sum of years to fourscore (already imputed to me), I shall then be even younger and nearer the eternal meridian than now, for the true knowledge and proof of life is in putting off the limitations and putting on the possibilities and permanence of Life." The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 177;
Her ongoing demonstration of ageless being, including remarkable achievements throughout her eighties, is described by one of her biographers: "There was an inner stillness about her which embraced her industry, a freshness which mellowed the touch of years, a drinking in of immortal essence which silenced the flesh." Julia Michael Johnston, Mary Baker Eddy: Her Mission and Triumph (Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1946), p. 155;
We can follow our Leader by partaking of that "immortal essence," by rejecting identity in aging matter, and by confidently asserting our unity with timeless Life, God.
If we are faced with mandatory retirement, we can resist the temptation to feel that we have come to the end of our usefulness and that it only remains for us to subside gracefully into inactivity. We can reject the suggestion that it is time to withdraw from church work. One of the baneful habits of the human mind is the harking back to so-called happier days. This is not new. Listen to Job's plaintive cry: "Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me; ... as I was in the days of my youth." Job 29:2, 4; It is impossible to go back in time, and even if we could, we would find no more good than is infinitely available to us today.
We can never retire from our function of reflecting unchanging, ever-active Principle. Mind's ideas continue in God's love. Understanding this and consciously expressing such qualities as strength, intelligence, integrity, and love, we can confidently meet the challenge of advanced years with a fresh heart, youthful vigor, and a viewing of new horizons.
We have God-derived power to reject false, aging beliefs as we claim our true selfhood and life "hid with Christ in God" Col. 3:3. and endeavor daily to demonstrate our Christly nature. And it is never too early or too late to begin.
