It's the first thing to go!" We sometimes excuse a memory lapse with a remark like this. Even if humorously spoken, though, it reveals acceptance of the common theory that senior years involve diminishing mental capacities. Christian Science challenges this theory with the proposition that it's the universal acceptance of such beliefs—not age or material causation of any kind—that produces memory loss.
The spiritual truth of memory refutes the fallacy of impairment. Memory is actually a faculty or ability of divine Mind, God, not matter. It doesn't depend upon or reside in a material brain; neither is it capable of impairment or deterioration. Since it is a function of divine Mind to retain all of its ideas, it's impossible for memory to fail, be lost, or become impaired. Memory can't lapse, because it expresses the continuity of intelligence. It is therefore uninterrupted, always present and immediately accessible. How could intelligence, the primal attribute of omniscient, omnipresent divine Mind, ever be absent? How could immortal memory ever be diminished or deficient?
As God's spiritual image and likeness we actually reflect God, good, and it's through reflection that we possess the faculty we call memory. We don't really have a mind or a memory separate from God. We reflect all-knowing, unerring Mind and therefore can't become confused or forgetful. Neither can we suffer from painful or unhappy memories when we realize that true memory is faithful to good alone. Applying such spiritual truths to human experience, we find that God, divine Mind, causes us to know what we need to know, when we need to know it. Neither aging, disease, nor injury has any connection with our real being, therefore they cannot affect our true capacities.
