Inevitable health

Glance at any newspaper, magazine, or television program and you would think that disease is an inevitable part of life—that it’s not a question of if, but when, most people will need the latest medicines to hold at bay an array of diseases. The aggressive marketing of prescription drugs has come into question, and that’s good news. Those in the medical profession have also begun to question the benefits of constantly placing images and descriptions of disease before the public. For example, in The New York Times “Room for Debate” commentary (August 4, 2009), Marcia Angell, a senior lecturer in social medicine at Harvard Medical School, wrote, “Direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising does exactly what it is intended to do—increase sales for drug companies. Increasingly, it does that by promoting medical conditions, as well as drugs. If the industry can convince essentially normal people that minor complaints require long-term drug treatment, its market will grow.”

Christian Scientists have a particular need to challenge today’s suggestions of the inevitability of disease. These hypnotic suggestions attempt to stunt spiritual growth and instill a mental state of fear and helplessness, even in the minds of those who know through their study and practice of Christian Science that disease is not only not inevitable, it is fundamentally unreal. Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, wrote: “Selfishness and sensualism are educated in mortal mind by the thoughts ever recurring to one’s self, by conversation about the body, and by the expectation of perpetual pleasure or pain from it; and this education is at the expense of spiritual growth. If we array thought in mortal vestures, it must lose its immortal nature” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures).

If such suggestions are not consistently challenged, we might find ourselves unwittingly fearing a contagious or age-related disease, or tending to self-diagnose a condition. We might classify some diseases as harder to heal than others, and wonder what we might do if we had a “life-threatening disease.” We might even find ourselves wondering if it is safe to trust spiritual healing for ourselves or for our children.

These are not our thoughts! And we have Christly authority to dismiss them on the basis that they do not come from God, the one infinite Mind. In reality, there is no classification of disease, because in reality, there is no disease. All of the modifiers of disease—chronic, acute, hereditary, communicable, terminal—lose their ability to frighten us when we know that they have nothing to modify. Every name of disease becomes an “alias” when we know that its real name is “nothing.”

The widespread assumption that disease is a foregone conclusion springs from another even more widespread assumption: that we live in matter and are governed by material laws. Christian Science challenges that basic assumption. Beginning with the premise that Life is God and God is All, Christian Science teaches that man, God’s spiritual creation, both male and female, is not a hapless wanderer in a material world, not a victim of circumstance. Man’s life is not fragile or vulnerable. His health is not a state of matter, but of spiritual consciousness. Mary Baker Eddy wrote, “The true consciousness is the true health” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 298).

What is the true consciousness? It’s the consciousness of good, the consciousness of God with us. Conscious of the beauty of divine Soul, the purity of divine Spirit, the gentleness of divine Love, the stability and perfect order of divine Principle, the intelligence of divine Mind, we can’t at the same time be conscious of disorder and disease. Contrary to popular opinion, health and not disease is inevitable. Wholeness is inevitable, because God is One, infinite and indivisible. And God is eternally asserting Himself, joyfully declaring, “I AM THAT I AM.”

Mortal mind, or the human mind and its objective state, matter, claim to mimic this assertion with constant claims to power and reality saying: “I am powerful. I am beautiful. I am active, I am intelligent.” But along with these claims come the darker assertions: “I am fragile. I am old. I am sick.” But what is this “I”? It isn’t the man God created. This man—the only real man—is created by God in His own image and likeness, never becoming less than God’s perfect, full expression. The man (or woman) of God’s creating—our true spiritual identity—does not have a personal mind, vulnerable to repetitive suggestions that life could be subject to disease or destroyed at any moment.

It’s not easy to swim against the tide of mortal opinions, particularly when the vast majority of people think from the premise that matter and disease are the ultimate reality. Mary Baker Eddy knew this all too well. She noted, “At present mortals progress slowly for fear of being thought ridiculous” (Science and Health). But is it illogical to believe that God heals the sick through spiritual means alone? Jesus proved that spiritual healing was not ridiculous, but sublimely logical. Mrs. Eddy wrote of him, “Jesus demonstrated the inability of corporeality, as well as the infinite ability of Spirit, thus helping erring human sense to flee from its own convictions and seek safety in divine Science” (Science and Health). Jesus recognized that the body was not an independent agent, making its own decisions, framing its own conditions. All power, authority, and action belong to God, Spirit. There is nothing too hard for God. Nothing exists outside His infinite control. Acknowledging this fact banishes fear and fills us with the conviction that it is utterly safe to trust our lives to Him.

Prior to scientific discoveries made centuries ago, anyone claiming that the world was round was in the minority. Popular opinion held firm for a very long time that, according to what the eye could clearly see, the earth was flat. However, that popularly accepted belief didn’t flatten out the earth one little bit. No one had to set about changing the flat earth into a round one. No one had to dispose of the flat one. As popular opinion gave place to what had been true all along, people gradually ventured forth to learn more about the beauty and vastness of the earth because they no longer feared dropping off its edges into some imagined abyss. Today, an individual who insisted that the earth was flat would be the one thought ridiculous. What changed? Not the earth, but the thought about it.

In a similar way, Christian Science is leavening human thought regarding the body. This higher Science presents a whole new concept of body—a body that is not cellular or organic. This true body, man’s spiritual identity, is composed entirely of spiritual qualities. These qualities can’t be invaded, compromised, depleted, or destroyed. Because this is true, the Christian Science healer does not treat a sick material body, but rather misconceptions about the nature of body. This new concept of body (like the discovery of a round earth) is slowly replacing the generally accepted false concept of body (like the false belief of a flat earth). Mary Baker Eddy pointed out the inevitability of this mental shift: “Belief in a material basis, from which may be deduced all rationality, is slowly yielding to the idea of a metaphysical basis, looking away from matter to Mind as the cause of every effect” (Science and Health).

Mrs. Eddy said of the Christian Scientist, “His medicine is Mind—the omnipotent and ever-present good.” She added: “God’s preparations for the sick are potions of His own qualities. His therapeutics are antidotes for the ailments of mortal mind and body” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 268). The Christian Scientist, then, is not someone who, according to popular opinion, “doesn’t go to doctors or take medicine.” Christian Scientists do go to the great Physician—the all-knowing, all-loving, all-wise God. And the Christian Scientist takes plenty of medicine—the one true medicine—the medicine of divine Mind. The only side effects of this spiritual medicine are good, such as increased joy, confidence, unselfishness, patience. The practice of Christian Science is not so much about what Christian Scientists don’t do. Rather, it’s about what they do. Christian Scientists pray, love, rejoice, heal! These “potions of His own qualities” are available to all of God’s children at all times. Everyone can afford this spiritual medicine and healthcare. In fact, everyone includes it as his or her rich spiritual heritage, as the children of one all-loving God, divine Spirit.

This of course includes children. Children are not fragile or helpless. They are never too young to understand and prove the truth about themselves through spiritual healing. At one time, as a fourth-grader, our son suddenly became very sick with chills and a fever. Even though he was snuggled up in several blankets, he was shivering. He had been learning in Christian Science Sunday School that every suggestion of error, including illness, can be turned around to find the Truth—the spiritual counter fact. So when he said to me, “Mom, I’m so hot and then I’m so cold,” I asked him to tell me the spiritual counter fact. He paused for just a moment, and then said to me in a very matter-of-fact tone, “I’m not in matter to be hot or cold.” The blazing logic of that statement filled me with joy, and took away my fear. I didn’t have to convince him of anything. God had spoken to him directly. I continued to pray, and 20 minutes later his temperature was normal. He was completely healed.

When suggestions of disease seem Goliath-like—boastful, arrogant, overwhelming—whether they come over the TV or are heard in conversation, we can be like David, glad for an opportunity to prove more of God’s all-power. When Goliath bellowed his threats, David said to him, “Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts.” Children, teenagers, and adults can treat fears about bodily conditions with their own “five smooth stones.” Here are a few to choose from:

Disease has no scary name—its only name is nothing.

Disease has no place—it’s never on the body, but is merely a suggestion of mortal mind.

Disease has no cause—God is the only Cause, and He causes only that which is beautiful, pure, and good.

Disease has no course to run—only good can progress, and only good has form and structure.

Disease has no mind to believe in it—the one infinite Mind is All, and knows nothing mindless or destructive, nothing unlike itself.

We can say with David, “What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee. In God I will praise his word, in God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me.” Why? Because we already know that the body as flesh has no power to act contrary to the law of God. And because we already know—through an ever increasing understanding of God and the evidence of healings we have already experienced—that disease is not inevitable at all. Health is!

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