Springtime Thoughts MILDRED M. PALMER          It did not seem like flower time. Within the fragrant dusk of the pine woods we walked softly over thick layers of pine needles. Silence was there, — silence unbroken, save for the sighing music of the trees, — and sleep; but no hint of awakening life. Yet, presently, kneeling down where the sun, sifting through the branches, made a golden place on the ground, we gently pulled away the brown needles; and there, in their delicate beauty, were the white and pink blossoms of the trailing arbutus.          All of us, at some time, reach a place in our earthly experience where materiality utterly fails us, and we wander wearily "as sheep which have no shepherd." Finally, humility companions with us, and we turn to God. At this point many of us are led to ask for help in Christian Science; and in the darkness of our extremity, we reach out for a clearer understanding of Him. Then the revelation comes to us: God is really present. We are aware of the reality of permanence. We feel strengthened; and become conscious, in a degree, of the ever present tenderness of divine Love. As the days, filled with learning more of God, go by, old errors slip away from us; fears are destroyed; and finally the distressing circumstance, which seemed such a burden, disappears from our thought, and we are free.          Thus we learn that God is infinite, ever present good, Life, Truth, and Love; that man is His image and likeness; and that the kingdom of heaven lies within us. No more dreary waiting for death to usher us into His presence that we may know Him! Job said, "Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace." Life stretches before us beautiful and inspiring; for, indeed, "old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." Hopes, long buried perhaps, spring up in our consciousness. The harmony of creation sings to us, "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." The truth is revealed to us. This is the springtime vision; for God, divine Mind, is recognized, in whose loving warmth all right thoughts and desires unfold for the benefit of all.          But springtime promise must pass to summer growth; and summer growth to autumn fruitage. The infinite God, good, Spirit, and His idea or expression, man and the universe, indeed constitute the wholeness of Being. But we must prove this to be true; and the task of individually proving the Christ, Truth, in our daily experience is our real lifework. In the epistle to the Philippians we read, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." And Mrs. Eddy says, in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (pp. 253, 254), "The divine demand, 'Be ye therefore perfect,' is scientific, and the human footsteps leading to perfection are indispensable."          Error, counterfeiting infinite Truth, claims to be infinite also, and presents itself in an endless variety of ways, seeking to prove itself real to our thought. It may often seem to be a person, condition, or environment; but in Science and Health (p. 554) we read: "Error is always error. It is no thing." These arguments, then, are only false suggestions that there is something besides infinite good. None of these suggestions can influence or harm man; for man is the spiritual image and likeness of the one perfect God, Spirit, and is forever above the myth of materialism. As God, divine Mind, is the only creator, these false beliefs have no Principle; and unless we seem to support them by believing in them, they simply destroy themselves.          In Science and Health (p. 129) Mrs. Eddy says, "If you wish to know the spiritual fact, you can discover it by reversing the material fable, be the fable pro or con, — be it in accord with your preconceptions or utterly contrary to them." Thus, when the claim of evil clamors for admission to our thought in the form of sin, disease, or discord of any nature, it is our joyous privilege to prove it a nonentity. Not by willpower, — for willpower brings exhaustion and defeat; but as gently as we removed the pine needles in the forest that the blossoms might appear, just so gently let us find in the place of the material fable the spiritual truth which corrects it, and leave the truth there, that the perfect flower of demonstration may be revealed, and the glory of God shine upon our common pathway. It is true, as Tennyson writes,       That men may rise on steppingstones       Of their dead selves to higher things; for each demonstration made is a step away from a false belief of material selfhood, is a step nearer God and the realization of man's spiritual nature as God's child. And the clearer sense of Truth revealed to us in working out each problem is as the flash of a bluebird's wing beckoning us on to an eternal spring.          As we continue our work of overcoming, higher and higher proofs are demanded of us; and as we rise in thought to meet these spiritual demands, error still strives to drown the voice of Truth. So it happens, at times, that we seem to walk through a dusk that knows no light. But let us not be discouraged; for when the shadows are deepest, and it seems the very least like flower time, we may be taking one of those mighty invisible footsteps which will establish us more firmly in Truth, and thus enable us to take all the necessary steps waiting along our way, until at last we shall reach that shining place in consciousness where, every mortal thought being dissolved, "we shall see him as he is."   "Springtime Thoughts" by Mildred M. Palmer The Christian Science Journal, April, 1924

 

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