There are not two creations but only one—God's perfect, spiritual universe. As we glimpse this truth, we might say with the Biblical character Job, who was referring to God, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee." Job 42:5 To put it another way: "Now I get it! I see God's allness. And I see creation as it really is—spiritual, not material—glorifying God."
Creation as the outcome of God, Spirit, would have to be spiritual and good, reflecting His nature. The book of Genesis says that God saw what He made as "very good." And it tells us, "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished....
A few verses later we read, "But there went up a mist from the earth .... And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground ...." See Gen. 1:31; 2:1, 6, 7 This is the beginning of the Adam and Eve allegory, which suggests that there is another creation—a material one—the opposite of the original. Yet the mist hasn't affected what was "finished." What was finished remains just as good as God saw it to be. The fog didn't change that. The appearance of evil, with its claim of intelligent matter, doesn't change the fact that good alone is real. Science and Health says, "Befogged in error (the error of believing that matter can be intelligent for good or evil), we can catch clear glimpses of God only as the mists disperse, or as they melt into such thinness that we perceive the divine image in some word or deed which indicates the true idea,—the supremacy and reality of good, the nothingness and unreality of evil." Science and Health, p. 205
As we begin to understand the fact that the only real identity any of us has is spiritual, we see what we are truly like: not subjected to the Adam-dream—not conceived in matter, carried in matter, existing in matter, excited with matter, deceived by matter, or deteriorating in matter—but spiritually originated, spiritually maintained, spiritually housed, spiritually classified, spiritually satisfied, spiritually innocent, and undeceived. Because this is the fact of our being, we are not responsible for the Adam-dream, nor are we even touched by it; but we are responsible for not believing it.
Although mankind is mystified by the dream of life in matter, with its belief in original sin, a sinless God could create only a sinless man. God, good, can only express good through His "very good" creation. In reality, then, man is never evil or the victim of evil. He's never depleted, deprived, depraved, or denied any good, including health. We demonstrate this truth to the extent that we're genuinely conscious of our relation to God. Healings occur and, along with them, improvement in character. We prove that our true identity is Christlike, an individual spiritual idea in divine Mind, never a sick mortal outside of Mind. What appears contrary to our true selfhood yields to the correct concept of being. And it doesn't have to take time for that to happen.
Though we may have heard of God "by the hearing of the ear," through our spiritual perception we can discern His presence, and realize the only and eternal fact of our being as the perfect reflection of God. Then, if we're living in accord with His law, we can and must insist on freedom from suffering.
The fact of harmonious being is that God always sees us as His own image, which is Christlike. Mrs. Eddy writes, "The rule of mental practice in Christian Science is strictly to handle no other mentality but the mind of your patient, and treat this mind to be Christly." The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 364. To follow that rule, we would refrain from identifying ourselves or anyone else in a way that contradicts what God knows each of us to be—His spiritual idea, reflecting His pure qualities. No picture of mortality is ever the reality.
When any one of us experiences a healing in Christian Science, there may be a moment when we clearly glimpse the fact that we are not a mortal at all but a free, spiritual idea. I recall such an instance. It occurred when my brother and I were in the theater and were on tour performing as a dance team.
One afternoon we were practicing a particular routine that required him to spin around the dance floor with me on his shoulders. The floor was very slick. He slipped and fell. I landed full force on my shoulder with him on top of me. But there was apparently no damage.
Soon after our engagement ended, we were on our way to another city to fulfill our next commitment. While lifting a suitcase out of the back of the car, I dislocated the same shoulder. It was exceedingly painful. I couldn't raise my arms. It was even difficult for me to dress. Yet I didn't request help from a Christian Science practitioner, nor did I specifically pray about this difficulty myself. I must just have thought it was going to be all right anyway. Well, it wasn't! Neither blind faith nor simply enduring it was going to bring about this healing.
A week later my brother and I were alone in an elevator. He didn't know that I was in constant pain, but he saw my unhappy, miserable face and made a remark about it. This roused me to realize that it would be impossible for me, in that condition, to perform on the opening night of the show, which was the very next night. I couldn't bend. I could hardly move. It was then that I finally contacted a practitioner. She gave me a passage from Science and Health to study. At that point the light of the healing Christ, Truth, began to dawn in my consciousness. I felt the effect of the practitioner's prayers and had total trust in God's presence and power. It was as though my Father-Mother God were letting me know that everything was just as He would have it—"very good." I glimpsed the perfection of the only me there is.
Now I get it! I see God's allness."
That night there was an adjustment in my shoulder, though I was unaware of when it occurred. I woke up the next morning entirely healed, for the shoulder had shifted into place. Throughout the performance on opening night, I had free and painless movement of my entire body.
Healing in Christian Science includes spiritual insights, and what became plain to me was that I didn't have physicality in the first place to have difficulty with it in the second place. Right where physicality appeared to be was my perfect spiritual identity, and this was demonstrated through healing.
It would certainly appear that the practitioner followed Mrs. Eddy's instruction to treat the mind of the patient to be Christly, and the result was that I was without doubt, without fear, without pain, without dislocation. Now I saw myself more as God sees me—the only me there really is.
If we have a foggy view of ourselves or of whatever we are looking at, as I did before my healing, Science enables us to clear up that view—to see the mists disperse. Spiritually perceiving the truth of being, we see that there are not two identities for each of us—a pained mortal and a painless, perfect, spiritual idea. There is only one identity for each of us, which is always joyful, individual, spiritual, and well.
Through our God-derived spiritual sense, we are receptive to what He is revealing to us. Spiritual sense always speaks to us from within, as it did to me in my healing of the shoulder, revealing my relationship to God as entirely good. And what is spiritual sense telling us about our perfection? That it starts with God, not with man. Man is the reflection of God. So as we drop our own personal sense of goodness or health, the greatness of God's glory becomes more tangible to us and is more fully expressed in our lives. Thus, we experience healing, which is the practical evidence of the one and only creation that exists—the one that God always has shown, always will show, and is right now showing to each of us.
