I was recently going through some issues of the Journal, and I came across an article titled “Church membership and worshiping the one Mind” by Grayce G. Young. It includes the following: “To live Christ’s Christianity in church organization, each member must willingly turn from personal sense and human opinions to God, Mind, for inspiration. Seeking the guidance of divine intelligence, one is not deceived by the disguises of personal sense, which are sophisticated, modern-day forms of idolatry” (September 1996). These ideas arrested my attention. I paused for a while to reflect upon the passage. And then I read it over and over.
I would always repeat to myself, “modern-day forms of idolatry.” This caused me to consider the following passage from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy: “Some day the child will ask his parent: ‘Do you keep the First Commandment? Do you have one God and creator, or is man a creator?’ ” (p. 69). Weeks followed, and I kept on thinking deeply about these ideas.
Days, weeks, and months later, I reasoned carefully through everything I would hear, keeping in thought this statement from Science and Health: “Human opinions are not spiritual. They come from the hearing of the ear, from corporeality instead of from Principle, and from the mortal instead of from the immortal” (p. 192). Over the years, studying and adhering to By-Laws found in Mrs. Eddy’s Manual of The Mother Church had helped me to progress in my understanding and practice of Christian Science, and I had been moved to enter the full-time public healing practice. This step of dedication to Christian Science improved my understanding of God as Love, intelligence, and Principle, and of my neighbor and of myself as the very dear sons and daughters of that Love, God—the Father-Mother of all. The Manual By-Laws can help guide each one of us into the spiritual understanding spoken of in Science and Health: “Spiritual understanding unfolds Mind,—Life, Truth, and Love,—and demonstrates the divine sense, giving the spiritual proof of the universe in Christian Science” (p. 505).
