Don't pass it by

I keep coming back to this burning bush -- this happening so significant, and yet so materially unexplainable, that it demands attention and will not just drop into the oblivion of forgetfulness.

Because it insists that there's more to life than the hard, cold facts of "what meets the eye." More than complicated physicality's interrelationships, which seem to be a required part of the functioning human body. And I crave to understand that moreness of life.

Christian religions have taught that man is not just animal physicality, alone in physical surroundings. He has a capacity for goodness, courage, integrity, insight, wisdom; for these can't be the result of selfish interests. They have to be evidences of a greatness in man that exceeds physical systems and self-preservation. they're part of that moreness of life.

But many people still accept as fact a physical body and a material universe. A body that can sin or be sick, a universe with conditions that restrict, thwart , victimize, kill. Some believe that God sends difficulties in order to test mankind -- sends the limitations, the disease, the tragedy. They acknowledge that matter acts in predictable, self-enforcing patterns, and that only a "miracle" -- a setting aside of God-approved law -- will change the patterning. All one can do in a time of trial, they say, is ask God to help get rid of something He Himself has caused. Or else find some mechanical help from limited matter itself, from medicines and manipulations.

Christian Science doesn't teach that. God is infinite Mind, infinitely intelligent, says this Science. He is Love, the only real source of courage, strength, integrity -- that moreness that is man's true nature. The God who is Love itself does not send evil. The God who is Mind does not send blight. There is nothing loving in creating a man full of disharmony. There is nothing intelligent in creating a man who doesn't have dominion.

Time and again, Christ Jesus proved that the "facts" about limitation, thwarting, victimization, are not lawful limits on man. He healed disease. He raised the dead. He provided for the needs of men and women where no supply was. And he taught his disciples to heal, to confront evils of every sort and destroy them by relying on the totally good power of God. He said, "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom," n1 and he sent them out to heal.

n1 Luke 12:32.

For many years the early Christians healed. And Mary Baker Eddy n2 says, "The divine Love, which made harmless the poisonous viper, which delivered men from the boiling oil, from the fiery furnace, from the jaws of the lion, can heal the sick in every age and triumph over sin and death." n3

n2 Mrs. Eddy is the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science;

n3 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,m p. 243.

Beautiful assurances of God's unceasing love for His beloved children! But doesn't it really seem too good to be true? Isn't it really just a theoretical hope, that good onlym is real, that the ever-present Christ is the law of annihilation to allm evil, even now?

Can the truths expounded and demonstrated by Christ Jesus really act today to heal the body and harmonize the world?

And that's why I keep coming back to this burning bush -- this happening that refutes hard, cold facts, this happening that is humanly so out of the ordinary as to seem unexplainable: premature heart contractions -- "extra" beats -- a distress bothersome and fearsome for some length of time. Two days after I called a Christian Science practitioner for help in prayer, the malfunctioning ceased and the distress was gone. Reliance on prayer, on the healing power of Christian Science, and the trial was over. Dissolved. Eradicated.

Very much a burning bush for me. A confirming that gives pause to the searching thought. "Look right here, at this thing you've witnessed. Don't pass it by without fully seeing, without understanding, what has happened . . ."

And within that burning bush, a voice that speaks: ". . . the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." n4

n4 Exodus 3.5.

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