"The nurse should be cheerful, orderly, punctual, patient, full of faith,—receptive to Truth and Love," Science and Health, p. 395. Mrs. Eddy tells us in Science and Health. Does this description apply only to those who have chosen nursing as a profession? Couldn't each of us be considered the nurse caring for the patient we call "me"?
And how are we to nurse this patient? We begin with the radically different view Christian Science shows us—that sickness and decrepitude are not inescapable; actually they are not facts of life at all. True life is the reflection of the Life that is God, in whose image man is made. Man is our true identity; and man's life is as eternal, indestructible, and undegenerating as is Life, God, his creator.
The Bible corroborates this spiritual fact. Through the illumination that Christian Science throws upon the Scriptures we can rise up in protest against the false, material view of life and claim our real spiritual being as God's idea, man. Through the regeneration and purification that naturally result as we make honest efforts to live on a spiritual basis, we find physical limitations beginning to drop away. Our lives become —and remain—vigorous, useful, and progressive. As the Bible tells us, "Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." Deut. 34:7.
Moses' dominion over decline and debility must surely have been the result of his active obedience to God's law and purpose. When he saw that "the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed," Ex. 3:2. did he catch some glimpse of the fact that matter is not the substance of life or of man? Man and the universe are as inexhaustibly eternal as Mind, God, their source and substance; and Moses' unfading vigor and faculties were natural demonstrations of this truth.
That God does not create us to die but to live more and more abundantly was a basic proposition of the teaching and practice of Christ Jesus. Christian Science, the theology of Jesus as set forth in Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, shows us how God's promise of eternal life can be realized in increasing degree, here and now.
No matter what our chronological age, it is never too soon or too late to begin the necessary, God-blessed work of replacing mortal mind's erroneous view of life as material with the recognition and demonstration of man as the son of God. Putting the nursing qualities to work is a good way to begin.
Cheerfulness
A genuinely cheerful countenance is more than a Pollyanna smile. It is the outward sign of an inward, joyful understanding that Soul, God, not time and the flesh, is in control; that man is immortal because he is the reflection of immortal Soul. The lines and shadows of gloom, fear, sourness, and sorrow fade before the brightness of Soul-inspired cheerfulness. Jesus said, "In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." John 16:33.
Orderliness
Mental order is an expression of intelligence, the essential quality of Mind and its idea, man. Mind-bestowed intelligence cannot become disordered, careless, forgetful, or confused. As we better understand the spiritual basis of intelligence, we become less likely to be tempted by apathy. We are more eager to engage in daily, systematic, inspired, healing study of the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's writings. Spiritual order in our mental realm naturally and necessarily results in more orderly living spaces. We are inspired to deal wisely and thoroughly with outworn, outgrown accumulations—mental and material. Chaos and clutter give place to brightness and beauty. "Let all things be done decently and in order," I Cor. 14:40. Paul advised the Corinthians regarding their worship services. This outlook can reach beyond the times when we are literally in church. It can leaven every aspect of our lives.
Punctuality
Being punctual does not mean being enslaved by a clock face. It means instead giving a prompt response to Christ's call to obey divine Principle, Love—to express God's lively, lovely being now. Punctuality does not let us live in daydreams or nightmares from the past. Nor does it let us wait passively for things to get better in the future while present opportunities to demonstrate the Science of immortality slip by unimproved. It prompts us to rise up at once with the strength of Spirit and Truth to respond in a Christly way to the present moment's need —whether that need is to heal, to write a letter, or to keep an appointment on time.
Patience
Patience, courageous and consistent, helps us take up each day the work of demonstrating man's God-given dominion over sin, sickness, and death. This quality must have undergirded those probationary periods the Bible tells us of —Noah's riding out the days and nights of constant rain, as the waters of the flood lifted his ark "above the earth"; See Gen. 7:17. Moses' years in the wilderness patiently weaning the children of Israel away from the idolatry of Egypt and leading them into an understanding of the one God, Spirit; Jesus' days in the wilderness, in preparation for his public ministry.
Patience is calm, hopeful, and enduring. It makes us willing to expect good, to work and pray for a complete healing, no matter how long and dark the days may seem. The writer of Hebrews, after describing the many faithful servants of God who had stood firm in facing challenges, declares, "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith." Heb. 12:1, 2.
Faith
Our trust that God is good, able to lift us above sin, sickness, fear, and sorrow, both precedes and follows a growing understanding of His gracious, loving nature as revealed by Christ Jesus and Christian Science. This faith is not blind belief in a capricious, mysterious deity. It perceives, in spite of the material sense evidence to the contrary, that immortality is the present fact of man's life. Faith treasures this transcendent spiritual wisdom as its true substance.
Receptivity
Mortals frequently appear to lack the receptivity that is open to good, that includes meekness, flexibility, willingness to go forward. One who is receptive to truth puts aside the delaying tactics of intellectual reasoning and argument and accepts without hesitation God's angel messages. This welcoming attitude toward the bounty of fresh, new ideas that Truth and Love are constantly pouring forth transforms earthly longevity into a joyful, fearless progress out of fleshly beliefs into an ever-expanding consciousness that life is eternal.
"An ill-tempered, complaining, or deceitful person should not be a nurse," Science and Health, p. 395. Science and Health declares, and this surely applies to the "nursing" we do for ourselves. Ill-tempered fretting over the bonds of sickness or decrepitude does not break them. Complaining that we can't do this or that the way we used to diverts us from grappling energetically with the errors involved in the complaints. Instead of consenting to mortality—however it appears—we can bring to bear on ourselves the qualities of the nurse, which are begotten by Love, empowered by Love, and express Love. Let us start now to put them into practice, putting to silence the mortal cries of protest against Principle's—Love's—uncompromising demand that we demonstrate now the vigor and ever-widening horizons of eternal Life.
As we do, we nurse ourselves out of sickness or senility—and out of the mortal sense that would paint these false pictures. And at the same time we help destroy for all mankind the wicked belief that helplessness and decay are God-sanctioned elements of life. Even small victories are proofs of God's true love and unopposed power. Our victorious moments must inevitably lengthen into light-filled, Christ-regenerated days. Even now, immortality can be proved, not theoretical and remote but a reality present and at work in our daily lives.
Life perfect and eternal? Without a doubt.
