Justice for everyone
A little girl and her family had been staying at our ski chalet in the mountains. When I arrived at the end of their holiday, I was greeted with the news that she had spent three days of the four-day holiday in bed with the flu and was just now recovering. "Was that fair?" wailed her mother, who knew that the child had forgone receiving an award at school for the sake of this outing.
A few days later I too found myself with flu symptons. I began thinking about justice.
Fairness is obviously no inherent in human existence. Cases of injustice crop up constantly in daily life or in the news media. "I never promised you a rose garden" could be the theme song of mortal life.
But what is the solution? To me, at least part of it is to stop looking for justice where it's not. Justice or any other good quality is based in God. It is not found withinm material existence; it's fpind instead ofm material views and expectations.
"Entirely separate from the belief and dream of material living, is the Life divine, revealing spiritual understanding and the consciousness, of man's dominion over the whole earth." n1 The "Life divine" Mary Baker Eddy n2 refers to here -- Life that includes perfect justice -- may be "separate from the belief and dream of material living," but it is present to anyone who cares prayerfully and persistently to reach out for it, acknowledge it, and live it. God Himself is this Life of man, and such qualities as intelligence, love, justice, are basic to man's nature as God's spiritual reflection.
n1 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,m p. 14.
n2 Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science.
Thoughts like the above healed me. The next day I was whizzing down the slopes again, feeling very much like a bird let out of a cage. The cage had been nothing more than a faulty state of mind, which conceded that an injustice such as flu virus could be more real and powerful than God. There was no fairness within the cage, but once outside, I saw that divine justice was all around -- more present than the blue sky above me and more real than the sparkling white snow on which I was skiing.
Surely justice must have one of the considerations of Christ Jesus as he healed the sick and freed the sinner on the hills of Galilee. At one time he berated a ruler of the synagogue who objected to Jesus' healing of a crippled woman. Jesus pointed out that the man freed his animals from their stalls on the sabbath day, so why shoudln't the woman be freed from sickness on the sabbath day as well. n3
n3 See Luke 13:11-17;
Jesus knew the unreality of disease. But he also knew that the kingdom of heaven, which includes all true justice, is ever present, though not always apparent to the material senses. Consequently Jesus healed disease. Mrs. Eddy writes: "Disease has no intelligence to declare itself something and announce its name. Mortal mind alone sentences itself. Therefore make your own terms with sickness, and be just to yourself and to others." n4
n4 Science and Health,m p. 391.
As we turn away from "the belief and dream of material living," instead of searching in frustration for what it never can give, we'll find indications of "the Life divine" all around. We'll find that health and justice are not far off, but available now, and this knowledge will help us heal ourselves and others. DAILY BIBLE VERSE The Lord shall judge the people: judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness , and according to mine integrity that is in me. Psalms 7:8
