“Write a poem about a social injustice.”
That was it? That was the assignment? Yes, that was it. My high school English teacher offered no further explanation—just a due date.
I could think of a lot of social injustices: racism, economic and social inequality, having to write this poem without being given any pointers on how to write one! As the days went by, none of my most promising ideas came into focus, or took shape in the form of a poem. I knew where my talents lay. A poet I was not!
As the Monday deadline for this assignment loomed, I continued to put off the inevitable struggle it would take to complete the assignment—until it was crunch time early Sunday evening. Then, I retreated to the bedroom of my grandparents’ apartment, where I was visiting, with paper and pen in hand (imagine: no laptops then) and a pit in my stomach.
“Where do I even begin?”
“How am I going to accomplish this Mount Everest-of-an-assignment in a couple of hours?”
Every good idea comes from the one and only intelligent Mind, or God, and these ideas are unlimited, and totally original in content.
But breaking through the panicked thoughts was one persistent, hopeful message: “He performeth the thing that is appointed for me” (Job 23:14). I had read these words before, and in that moment, they came back to me like a customized message from God. The “He” in that statement stood out to me like never before. It reminded me that I wasn’t going to be performing, or doing, anything; God was the doer of the work assigned to me—to all of us. Without fail, I would have the ideas I needed to fulfill this legitimate demand to write a poem. Why? Because these ideas wouldn’t be coming from me—from my mind, my talent, my ability to be clever or to think creatively. I had learned in the Christian Science Sunday School that every good idea comes from the one and only intelligent Mind, or God, and that these ideas are unlimited, and totally original in content, because they represent the unlimited divine Mind. And thankfully, they come to us without delay or interruption since we are the reflection of this one Mind. When you stand in front of a mirror, there’s no delay in the reflection of yourself imaged on the mirror, and likewise, there’s no delay in the communication of ideas from Mind to us as its reflection. In my heart of hearts, I knew this was true.
As I prayed with these ideas, I also thought about Christ Jesus, who healed lepers, restored sight to the blind, and raised the dead. As miraculous as these works appeared, Jesus saw them as perfectly natural and in line with divine law. Rather than take credit for them, which would have been easy to do, he gave all the glory to God. His humility came from a deep, unwavering love for God and an understanding of his inseparable relationship to his Father—his divine sonship.
Through his powerful works, Jesus showed us that all things are possible with the Father, and nothing is possible without Him. In fact, he once said with great humility, “I can of mine own self do nothing” (John 5:30). There was no ego, no “I’m-the-one-doing-the-work,” no “I’m-the-creative-force-behind-this” mentality in him. He recognized God as the author of every good idea, intuition, and healing impulse. While some consider humility to be a weakness, Jesus recognized it as one of the greatest strengths—a quality that is indispensable to progress and overcomes the limitations and fears we associate with mortal thought, such as, we don’t have enough time for a task, or the ability to do it. The brain actually has no ability to think or create. None! It’s simply the object of false, mortal mind, which claims the brain is the center of all intelligence. The divine Mind does the only knowing, and this Mind is our Mind.
I prayed for the humility to see this truth for myself, as well as for my classmates.
Soon, ideas began to flow. One idea that had been percolating in thought came into sharper focus and began to unfold in a logical way, developing rhythm, continuity, and purpose. To be honest, I was surprised at how easily things seemed to be coming together. In fact, within a couple of hours—including the thirty minutes or so I had prayed about the assignment—I felt confident that I had a meaningful, solid poem.
The next day in English class we all handed in our assignments on time.
While some consider humility to be a weakness, Jesus recognized it as one of the greatest strengths—a quality that overcomes limitations.
Days later our teacher called us up to his desk individually to get our grades. As I stood face to face with him across his desk, I noticed he’d folded over the corner edge of my paper, obscuring the grade. Peering at me over his black-rimmed reading glasses, he bluntly asked, “Did you write this?” He knew me to be an honest person, and I assured him that yes, I had! He then peeled back the corner of the paper to reveal the grade: an A+, a grade he rarely awarded. While I was grateful for the A+, I knew that divine Mind had “written” every single word.
To me, this experience beautifully illustrates what Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, wrote in her textbook about Mind’s expression of itself. She says: “Mind is not necessarily dependent upon educational processes. It possesses of itself all beauty and poetry, and the power of expressing them” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 89).
Right this moment, divine Mind is expressing—in you—the unlimited intelligence, creativity, beauty, and poetry it possesses. This spiritual fact has helped me through many more challenging assignments since that poem, and it applies to whatever “Mount Everest” you’re facing, too.
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