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Your Questions & Answers

Following the example set by the question-and-answer columns in the early Journals, when Mary Baker Eddy was Editor, this column will respond to general queries from Journal readers with responses from Journal readers. You’ll find information at the end of the column about how to submit questions. Readers are also encouraged to go to Chapter III of Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, by Mary Baker Eddy — “Questions and Answers.”

Can you explain the phrase "cycles of divine light"?

By Marjorie Dagnall

From the August 2012 issue of The Christian Science Journal

Q: Mary Baker Eddy speaks about Christianity as Jesus taught it not being a creed, but “the demonstration of divine Love casting out error and healing the sick . . .” (Science and Health, p. 135). She then goes on to say “. . . not merely in the name of Christ, or Truth, but in demonstration of Truth, as must be the case in the cycles of divine light.” Can you explain the phrase “cycles of divine light”? I’ve puzzled over this for years, and have never found a satisfactory answer.
—A reader in Anahola, Hawaii

A: Science and Health informs us that “. . . the light of ever-present Love illumines the universe” (p. 503). So Love’s light continuously evidences—through revelation—the universe of Mind’s continuous demonstration. To me, this is the “cycles of divine light” referred to in your question.

One of the definitions of cycle in my Funk and Wagnall dictionary is “loop”—like a bicycle wheel. Using this as metaphor, a dot on the bicycle wheel would appear to be spinning around and around in an endless cycle. However, the wheel translates the repetitive motion into forward progress, and by going through the cycles, the dot on the wheel can move infinitely forward, climbing mountains, crossing streams and valleys, and even landing in an occasional ditch. But always moving forward!