Recently it became more widely known around our town that a huge aquifer lay right underneath us. This meant that the town and surrounding area were situated over a pure water supply, held in the porous rock and gravel underground. It was interesting to see how this news affected people. It gave many a feeling of confidence, security, and abundance. You could see this in their eyes and in their joy when talking about it. What a sense of good came from knowing of this seemingly endless supply of fresh water right under our feet!
And not only is this water available to all (by tapping into it when needed); in several places it just bursts forth, gushing from the earth in clear and refreshing springs. An unseen pressure drives it to the surface so that it's visible and can be put to use.
These observations made it a lot easier for me to see why the Bible passages that speak of well-springs, fountains, wells, living waters, and water-springs have such an uplifting effect on us when we read them. It also caused me to reflect on the distinction between water available to be tapped into, and water springing forth as the result of an unseen, uplifting pressure—a wellspring announcing its own availability. Perhaps it was the sight of such a spring that led the Bible author of Ezekiel to write a wonderful description of this phenomenon as a vision of healing water. See Ezek. 47:1-12. In fact, one edition of the King James Version of the Bible labels this chapter "healing waters."
Ezekiel describes this upwelling of healing water as flowing from the right side of a temple. It starts as a stream, does not diminish, evaporate, or lose its drive, but widens and deepens, healing all with which it comes into contact.
Ezekiel's description can indicate how the practice of Christian Science healing can become more apparent in our lives. The more we understand, love, and demonstrate the truth of God, good, and of man as His image, the more we feel the healing truth welling up in us, where it increases in effectiveness, flows stronger, and provides healing to all others in the range of our thought. The unseen pressure that impels this upwelling in us is the Christ, the true idea of God.
A mountain spring sometimes comes forth because water further up the hill provides enough pressure to push the water up out of the earth. Mary Baker Eddy refers to this phenomenon in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health. "The fountain can rise no higher than its source," Science and Health, p. 18. she says. This natural law can be likened to the divine law of healing. When persecuted for his healing works and for calling God his Father, Christ Jesus said of himself and his divine source, "I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise." John 5:19.
Our own acknowledgment that it is the divine power which is impelling and uplifting our life in the practice and demonstration of spiritual healing—and that we are always at one with our divine source in the same way that a fountain is at one with its source—can free us from any belief that our healing practice is derived from human motivation or skill. In fact, it helps to free us from reliance on human motivation or skill by turning us instead to the source of all healing—God.
The only time the word pressure is used in Mrs. Eddy's published writings is in the following passage in the textbook: "Christian Scientists must live under the constant pressure of the apostolic command to come out from the material world and be separate." Later, on the same page, she points out the source and results of this pressure: "If our hopes and affections are spiritual, they come from above, not from beneath, and they bear as of old the fruits of the Spirit." Science and Health, p. 451.
It is these hopes and affections that cause us to offer Christian Science treatment to someone who is suffering, to extend the truths of Christian Science to those who have not yet heard this good news, and to pray daily for mankind. They also show us that in spite of the many claims of pressure in life, claims that often suggest we are not ready or able to participate in the joy of Christian healing, this "constant pressure of the apostolic command" is actually the only real pressure —the only pressure that can have any effect on us. And it is beneficial, not harmful. Certainly the most natural and therefore the most happy experience we can have is to feel the upwelling of spirituality.
The healing practice is not some
distant goal but is at the very
heart of who we are as God's
sons and daughters.
Surrendering to spirituality's gentle but steady urging to live more and more in the radiant reality of our true being enables us to witness the joyous healing effect of the Christian practice this produces. Mrs. Eddy asks a probing question about our response to this urging: "When will Jesus' professed followers learn to emulate him in all his ways and to imitate his mighty works? . . . May the Christians of to-day take up the more practical import of that career! It is possible,—yea, it is the duty and privilege of every child, man, and woman,—to follow in some degree the example of the Master by the demonstration of Truth and Life, of health and holiness." Ibid., p. 37.
Christ Jesus reinforced the import of his great healing works by continually instructing his students to surrender to this upwelling of the spirit of Truth in their lives. He kept demanding that they recognize in themselves the same force that was at work in him: "The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. . . . Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father." John 14:10, 12.
When we respond to this promise by taking specific actions that extend and enlarge our natural capacity to heal, we too "bear as of old the fruits of the Spirit." A good starting point is to acknowledge and accept our true, spiritual being and therefore to accept that we are right now able to practice Christian healing—that we are, in fact, forever the expression of Truth. The healing practice is not some distant goal but is at the very heart of who we are as God's sons and daughters.
Another step that reinforces the acknowledgment of our current practice is to set aside time for giving Christian Science treatment to community and world needs. It is a time when we put into specific practice what we are learning in our study and spiritual research. Also, we can let it be known, when appropriate, that we are available to help. Many have felt the great healing effect of the simple and loving offer "Would you like me to pray for you?" Nurturing an ever-expanding sense of our practice, we will see the whole world as our field. And keeping a record of healings helps to remind us of the joy and potency of this practice.
Reflecting on the impelled development of her own practice, Mrs. Eddy wrote, "I once believed that the practice and teachings of Jesus relative to healing the sick, were spiritual abstractions, impractical and impossible to us; but deed, not creed, and practice more than theory, have given me a higher sense of Christianity." Miscellaneous Writings, p. 195. Many have followed Mrs. Eddy's lead and changed their own lives from the mistaken belief that Truth is abstract to a healing practice that responds to the upwelling of "a higher sense of Christianity." You can too.
