One Of The most valuable lessons of my life came from my wife and our then four-or five-year-old son. She told me that he didn't need to have the same sense of timing about things, that it was OK for him to be different from me. Today that son is a professional musician, and his own sense of timing has served him very well.
I came to find joy in our differences.
In the intervening years, however, I needed to be faithful to that lesson more than once, and to understand that there are spiritual facts undergirding its wisdom. Looked at from the perspective of my own life experiences, what our son should do, or how quickly he should do it, seemed very clear to me. What seemed his inability or apparent unwillingness to conform to my plan was at times disturbing to me.
While there is a proper place for parental guidance and discipline, it's not a matter of domination. I found that as I recognized the validity of his own distinct spiritual individuality as God's child and his direct relation to God, I found peace and enjoyment in our differences. Neither his mother nor I needed to be his "go-between" with God. He has his own one-to-one relationship with God, as we each do; and God governs His child. Gradually I learned to trust our son to God and so to trust his own God-given sense of himself and his ability to know what was right for him.
Does that mean that any behavior is acceptable, and has a spiritual basis and validity? Of course not. What about behavior that is unproductive, harmful, or destructive to oneself or others? The preacher in Ecclesiastes alerts us, "Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions." Eccl. 7:29.
What God creates reflects Him; it is good, pure, indestructible, and not destructive. When confronted with the opposite, however, we need to discern that fact and stick with it as the fact, and this involves another lesson. It's a lesson Christ Jesus leads us to grasp. The Master, whose healing works brought forth the pure in heart where sinners had appeared to others, advised, "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment." John 7:24 .
This individual was God's reflection—valuable and essential.
At one time I was supervisor to a woman whose daily refrain was "I don't know." And she appeared to be content with not knowing. The frequency and consistency of her actions and words seemed to challenge the spiritual fact that man, God's reflection, is inherently intelligent. What I was learning in Christian Science and attempting to practice forced me to a point of decision. How did I reconcile this behavior with what the Science of Christianity was teaching me about man's God-given intelligence and worth? Did I believe she was an exception to an otherwise universal, spiritual fact? Was the spiritual fact not a fact at all? Or was what appeared to my own and others' material senses as her apparent ignorance as much a misperception of these senses as the appearance that the sky and the ocean meet at the horizon?
Over a period of weeks, each morning as I drove to work, I consciously rejected the evidence that my eyes and ears were telling my intellect. My intent in doing this was not to change her, but to lift my own thought to see God's creation, to perceive through spiritual sense the man of divine Love's creating: intelligent, alert, thoughtful, caring, useful, productive, valuable, essential! During this same time, as the woman's supervisor, I made every effort to see that my interactions with her communicated my expectation that she could express the needed qualities for the work.
One day, quite by surprise, a colleague of mine commented that he had never seen any-one change his or behavior as dramatically as this individual had. This colleague was well versed in behavioral psychology and had previously complained that this woman's behavior was unprofessional. Now he went on to say that she had been transformed by love.
This lesson was particularly clear to me: People are rarely the way they appear to be—that is, the way they appear to the material senses. In fact, our experiences in utilizing our spiritual sense, the God-given ability to recognize truth, convince us that the material senses are completely incapable of perceiving man's spiritual makeup and individuality. If we hope to know ourselves and others accurately, we will reject the material appearance and employ spiritual sense to discern our own and others' individuality.
In her book Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy writes: "We should blush to call that real which is only a mistake. The foundation of evil is laid on a belief in something besides God. This belief tends to support two opposite powers, instead of urging the claims of Truth alone. The mistake of thinking that error can be real, when it is merely the absence of truth, leads to belief in the superiority of error." Science and Health, p. 92.
What about dominating, oppressive, or even abusive behavior? Is this as real and intimidating as it appears? A couple of years later, I got a glimpse of the answer to this question. I had a manager who was brilliant, gifted in many ways, capable of deep affection and extraordinary kindness. Unfortunately, he displayed an equivalent capacity to humiliate people publicly, abuse them verbally, and systematically pursue their professional destruction. Furthermore, he appeared to enjoy it much like a sport. Although I was never the direct object of the worst of this abusive behavior, colleagues and friends were.
Because he expressed so many positive qualities, there were frequent opportunities to clarify in my own thought that the good he expressed was spiritual and enduring. This was evidence of his true individuality; his real nature was an expression of God's nature, including nothing unlike God, divine Love.
This time, however, my spiritual concept of man was challenged more aggressively than ever before. How could I reconcile abusive behavior with the Science of man as made in the image and likeness of God? How could the same consciousness act in such opposite ways, as loving and malicious, supportive and destructive, with a love of beauty and cruelty? Does God create man with a split personality? Did God create an abusive man? Is there a man not created by God? Is there such a thing as an evil intelligence? Are there two creators, or two powers—good and evil—which combine in man?
The evidence seemed strongly in favor of the conclusion that there are two powers or natures and that the more powerful is evil! But Science and Health is very explicit in exposing this conclusion as fraudulent and illegitimate. So I pressed on in my efforts to accept as true about this individual only that which is in Love's likeness. Again, my motive was not to change someone else but to bear witness to what is true of God's man.
My boss told me a colleague's days in the company were numbered.
In a chapter in Science and Health devoted to explaining how evil claims to operate in human experience, Mrs. Eddy uses the name animal magnetism as "the specific term for error, or mortal mind." She goes on to say, "It is the false belief that mind is in matter, and is both evil and good; that evil is as real as good and more powerful." Ibid., p. 103. Her analysis doesn't end there, however. "This belief has not one quality of Truth." And further on the same page, she identifies the means of the destruction of this fundamental error: "The truths of immortal Mind sustain man, and they annihilate the fables of mortal mind ...."
In many ways, the management philosophy of this company seemed unconsciously based on the premise that evil is as real as and more powerful than good. Such assumptions as these appeared to rule the workplace: Everyone possesses selfish and corrupt tendencies that need to be kept in check by others. Friction and conflict produce creativity. Skepticism is intellectual honesty. Good will be counterbalanced by evil. It seemed that in this atmosphere, dominating and abusive behavior was trusted, valued, and rewarded.
My own battle with this belief in an aggressive and oppressive mentality reached a crisis. My boss confided to me that he had decided that the days of a colleague, a friend of very fine character, were numbered. Just hours later, I was stricken with unbearable pain. With the prayerful treatment of an experienced Christian Science practitioner, the physical healing was complete within a few hours. My mental wrestling was resolved with the conviction that Love is supreme; that all power belongs to divine Love; that Love is infinite, All, and has no actual opposite. There are not two powers, good and evil, but one alone; there is only one consciousness, one state of being, one God and one kind of man. Man is spiritual, not material. Man is living witness to the all-inclusiveness of Love, which excludes evil.
I found refuge in this statement from another of Mrs. Eddy's writings: " 'Good is my God, and my God is good. Love is my God, and my God is Love.' "The full statement is, "The real Christian Scientist is constantly accentuating harmony in word and deed, mentally and orally, perpetually repeating this diapason of heaven: 'Good is my God, and my God is good. Love is my God, and my God is Love.' " Miscellaneous Writings, p. 206.
My friend and colleague left the company for a better opportunity, without experiencing any of the typical humiliation or abuse. Prior to my leaving the company a year or two later, my boss's behavior gradually had become more consistently balanced and controlled. The abusive behavior subsided. There were many more occasions for me to ponder these words from Science and Health: "Christian Scientists must live under the constant pressure of the apostolic command to come out from the material world and be separate. They must renounce aggression, oppression and the pride of power. Christianity, with the crown of Love upon her brow, must be their queen of life." Science and Health, p. 451.
The lesson I learned could not be purchased with money: evil is never the genuine individuality of man, and its aggressive and oppressive presentments are never real or more powerful than man's genuine selfhood as Love's likeness. Man's true nature belongs to Love and is the outcome of Love. In the chapter "Science of Being," Science and Health includes this statement: "The spiritual man's consciousness and individuality are reflections of God. They are the emanations of Him who is Life, Truth, and Love." And later on the same page the scientific basis for that fact is described: "God is the parent Mind, and man is God's spiritual offspring." Ibid., p. 336. Only spiritual sense can discern the presence of spiritual consciousness and individuality. They are right where the material sense of life believes that only a mortal mentality exists.
In the context of my professional experiences, I have worked with many different types of people and have been enriched by the broad and varied array of differences they have exhibited. Their diversity has helped me to expand my comprehension of what Christian Science teaches about the infinitude of God, and man as His infinite expression. Those individuals whose natures seemed to me most unlike God have blessed me the most because of the persistent spiritual seeking and finding that I was forced to experience in reconciling what I saw of their natures to the Science of being.
Our true nature belongs to Love, is Love's outcome.
Studying the Bible along with the writings of Mary Baker Eddy guides us progressively to an ever more practical understanding that the physical senses are delusive and misleading about man's true individuality, and that conclusions as to the actual individuality of man are better sought through spiritual sense. In present spiritual reality, each individual is the beautiful, distinct expression of God, divine Mind, including innocence, grandeur, and goodness. Our cultivation of spiritual sense enables us to appreciate and enjoy the man of Love's creating in infinitely varied expression. Not even the most breathtaking sunset or panoramic view can compare with the beauty of an individual as the spiritual expression of Love.
Our view of all individualities needs to be reconciled to the facts of man's spiritual relationship to divine Love. The material sense of man will never accomplish this. Only spiritual sense can reject misconceptions of our own and others' natures and see the distinct likeness of Love. Why should we settle for seeing our best friend or even what appears to be our worst enemy other than in their true spiritual beauty and goodness?
Now thus saith the Lord that created thee,
O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel,
Fear not: for I have redeemed thee,
I have called thee by thy name;
thou art mine.
Isaiah 43:1
