When I was a senior in high school, my English literature teacher liked to dramatically quote the Greek saying, “Know thyself!” I think she felt it encouraged a sense of individual responsibility and awareness on our part, as it was often the last thing she said to us on Friday afternoon before setting us free for the weekend. I liked the sound of that saying—there was nobility in it, and it encouraged a kind of individual maturity that I hoped to develop.
Years later, as a student of Mary Baker Eddy’s writings, I read this in her autobiography: “Art thou still unacquainted with thyself? Then be introduced to this self. ‘Know thyself!’ as said the classic Grecian motto. Note well the falsity of this mortal self! Behold its vileness, and remember this poverty-stricken ‘stranger that is within thy gates.’ Cleanse every stain from this wanderer’s soiled garments, wipe the dust from his feet and the tears from his eyes, that you may behold the real man, the fellow-saint of a holy household” (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 86).
Well, that’s pretty demanding work—involving much more than I’d learned from my high school English teacher! I can see now, in a way that I didn’t in high school, that this work cannot be done without God being part of the process. When I see a need for the kind of self-cleansing that Eddy describes, God naturally comes to thought. I find myself in prayer, yearning to better understand my Maker and my relationship to Him.
