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M. ETHEL WHITCOMB
Are now and here and everywhere. Because yesterday and tomorrow are not ours, the only time we can claim is now, and if the now is not improved by positive right thinking, we cannot know health or peace. To think and act in "the living present" is a divine requirement, and until it is obeyed one is not ready for progress. It is therefore helpful to ask oneself, Am I living in the now? So long as one's thoughts drift back to yesterday, or dream of or dread tomorrow, one is not living in the now. To such Truth is calling: Now, the present moment, it is "high time to awake out of sleep," and behold the glorious reality of life in all its beauty and perfection. One who lived in Mrs. Eddy's household wrote of her, "She never allowed her day to dawn darkened with the clouds of yesterday, but with forward gaze she pressed toward the mark" (Journal, May, 1911, p. 74 ). We are bidden to "remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy," but when is it Sabbath day? He who is from "everlasting to everlasting" knows no time; to Him there is no Saturday or Sunday, He knows only the one eternal day. The hour, then, is the Sabbath, to be kept holy by spiritual right thinking. How significant is the "remember"! We are to keep in mind, never to forget, that this moment is the time to be hallowed. And how shall it be kept holy? We must not only forgive, but forget all injuries, all wrongs, all hardships of the past, to keep the "now" hallowed with peace and acceptable unto divine Love. No dates of past sorrows should be recorded, no darkness or doubt; no unkindness or criticism can be thought or spoken in this ever-present Sabbath. Rather should we say with Paul: "This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." The eternal Sabbath is a day of rest; there must be no toil or worry, fear or anxiety; we must rest in the sacred sense of the government of infinite good. In hours of perplexity, when material sense whispers that we know not what step to take; when decisions must be made, when human wisdom is found helpless and the heart cries out, What shall I do? from Truth comes the answer, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." Keep the "now" hallowed with active, positive faith in the operation of divine good, and in the expectation of the present manifestation of good in human affairs. We have no time to waste in thinking upon what might have been, or in questioning if it can ever be; our part is to deny the temptation to look either backward or forward, and stand in the "now" with the firm conviction of Job: "I know that my redeemer liveth," — know that Truth is redeeming this very hour from every phase of suppositional evil. As one insistently dwells in today, and refuses to try to solve questions of tomorrow, fear and anxiety dissolve, and thought becomes so transparent that divine wisdom shines through unhindered, illuminating one's way before him. The vital import to a sufferer of dwelling in the "now" was illustrated to the writer at a time when she awakened in the night with the manifestation of a severe physical difficulty. She knew the medical name, also that according to its so-called law the suffering must continue. She had learned, however, through Christian Science that God is the only lawmaker, and therefore refused to accept this verdict, but affirmed instead God's ever-presence and the availability of His power to deliver. Suddenly there came to thought an important duty which she had promised to fulfill at eight o'clock the following day, and for the next two hours thought vacillated between the contemplation of divine power and the work to be done at eight o'clock. Mortal thought pressed the question, "What will you do with the work of tomorrow?" At last came the conviction the one thing only should concern her and that it was the Sabbath "now." To look beyond to the duty of the tomorrow would make her unfaithful to the present duty. Then flashed across her thought the words of Scripture, aglow with a new meaning, "Now is the accepted time; behold now is the day of salvation." She saw that now is always the time accepted by divine Love for man to experience freedom, and that now is the time for us to expect to realize it. With this call thought turned wholly away from tomorrow, and she found herself joyously declaring that now is God, divine Love, supreme; now is heaven here; now there is no law, force, influence, power, presence, or intelligence apart from God; in a word, "Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ," as saith the Scripture. The recognition that "now is come" brought with it the consciousness of present health; every evidence of disease disappeared, and there were yet two hours intervening before the morning duty. In order to claim intelligently our heritage, we must know that now is the only time and here the only place. It matters not how long one may have worked in his endeavor to be freed from some burden or disease, the present always holds deliverance from every weight, the perfection of every faculty; it holds the inspiration, light, and strength needed for the solution of every problem; it holds for each child of God capability, possibility, opportunity, health, joy, and boundless freedom. Nothing can be lost, neither can one good or holy thing be withheld from man today. Why? Because "we live, and move, and have our being" now, — in the ever-present, ever-loving, ever-living God, whose law is unchangeable and who holds man in perpetual good. He who is the "same yesterday, and today, and forever," gives the same good to creation every day. From this reasoning we see that we cannot receive more of good than we are now experiencing, until we are prepared to receive it; time neither gives nor takes. Then why delay the acceptance? All that ever has been, all that ever can be, is here today. Jesus proved this to be a divine fact when he said to the man infirm for thirty-eight years, "Rise, take up thy bed, and walk." No time was needed to convalesce, for "now" held within it the needed health and strength. The man with the withered arm immediately stretched it out when Jesus spoke to him the word that is corrective and redemptive. Even Lazarus walked forth at once in living response to the truth that is "spirit" and "life." Blindness, lameness, and disease have grown no more real in the last nineteen hundred years. Today Christian Science is giving proof of this, and men are rising on every side and claiming in the Sabbath "now" their holy heritage of sight, hearing, health, and life. In "Unity of Good" (page 37) Mrs. Eddy writes: "Our Master said, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Then God and heaven, or Life, are present, and death is not the real steppingstone to Life and happiness. They are now and here; and a change in human consciousness, from sin to holiness, would reveal this wonder of being." Because disease of every name is a mental experience, a supposition instead of a condition, resulting from fear, mistakes, discord, selfishness, and ignorance of God, a change from material to spiritual thinking alone can bring health to the body. Because life is a thinking process instead of a breathing process, freedom from disease can take place in "the twinkling of an eye," — at any moment when discordant thinking yields to godlike thinking. What an imperative injunction and sweet reward is given in the command of Scripture, "Acquaint now thyself with him [God], and be at peace"! Acquaintance with God turns us from the material teaching which says that man is subject to disease and evil here, but that he will be perfect hereafter, and with Job we can exclaim, "Yet in my flesh shall I see God." No longer need the weary bow under the enslaving beliefs of age, sin, sickness, or sorrow, when they realize that they are "sons of God," and "joint-heirs with Christ." Can the heir of eternal Life grow old or lose any of his faculties? Can the heir of boundless strength be weary? Can the heir of omnipotent good be bound by evil appetites? No, for it is written, "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." When? Now! Now is the life, light, health, and peace of God ours as sons and heirs. What hope thrills the heart of the burdened one, trying to carry life's load through human strength, when he sees the meaning of this passage! Awakened from the dream of helplessness, he affirms with thanksgiving its mighty import. He had once hoped to see the Father and be known as His son in some future heaven, but now he hears with the hearing ear, "Arise, shine; for thy light is come." Throwing aside his beliefs of heredity, age, and disease, he rises as son and heir in the present kingdom, and with grateful heart opens his consciousness to receive the heavenly good that his Father is giving here in the eternal now. In the familiar words of Barlow — in our Hymnal, — Why do ye look with tearful eyes, And seek, far off, for Paradise? Beneath thy feet, Life's pearl is cast.
Christian Science Sentinel, October 26, 1912 |
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