On Being A Lighthouse Keeper
NOT too long ago, I saw an exhibit of award-winning photographs from around the world. Many were deeply moving, but the one that caught my attention and drew me back to it was from France. It showed a lighthouse almost totally engulfed in waves that towered above the lighthouse. The sea looked like a huge hand about to close around the structure. At the center of the photo was the lighthouse keeper. He was standing at the doorway looking calmly out at the scene before him, despite the violent ocean.
So often our lives are filled with events that are like those waves. Even on the world stage, particularly at this time in history, it may seem that stability and certainty about the future are far off. These fears might be the "waves that we feel are ready to engulf us. The book of Isaiah, in the Bible, tells us of a way we can rest secure despite them. We read: "When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.
This refusal to be vanquished--in fact a determination to go forward courageously--is one of the hallmarks of Christ Jesus' ministry. He never failed to turn to God and to gain the inner peace that comes from knowing "the spirit of the Lord. This same peace comes into our own lives as we learn to turn to God in prayer and to understand our relationship to Him. God is infinite Love, and this unchanging divine Love doesn't abandon us. Instead, it shows us that our true nature is spiritual and that, for thi s reason, the "waves cannot actually harm us.
God's man--our real, spiritual selfhood--isn't housed in a material body that can be destroyed, but instead reflects his creator's qualities--such as purity, strength, tenderness, goodness, love, intelligence. Where even one spiritual quality is in evidence, there we have a basis for recognizing our sonship with God. and there we also have grounds for stability even in the storm. This is true because God is the source of all intelligence, and we express intelligence as we turn to this one divine Mind. In
this way, we are affirming that God is present right where we are.
Our certainty of God's love for us rests on more than just hope or positive thinking, however. Since God is divine Principle, He is the basis for all true law. And this law is what Christ Jesus relied on in his ministry. Mary Baker Eddy calls this law Christian Science, and she both discovered and founded it through a deep study of the Scriptures, especially Christ Jesus' life.
In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mrs. Eddy shows how this spiritual law brings peace and stability to our lives by revealing God's infinite goodness. She writes, "Undisturbed amid the jarring testimony of the material senses, Science, still enthroned, is unfolding to mortals the immutable, harmonious, divine Principle,--is unfolding Life and the universe, ever present and eternal. The material senses may seem to be telling us to be afraid or angry or overwhelmed by events in the world or
in our own lives. But as we turn to the law of God that Jesus knew and practiced, we find that this law is also operative in our own time and place.
Through prayer that affirms God's presence with us, we find the individual answers we need as we learn to know Him and to feel His love for us. As we respond to that love and accept our sonship with God, we are motivated to take the necessary steps toward solutions, including reforming our own lives if need be. Then, even if storms seem to rise around us, we will know spiritual calm and safety amid the storm.
