Jack Edward Hubbell, C.S.B., of Palo Alto, California
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The
Mother Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
Let me begin by telling you about a black slave named James Somerset who over 200 years ago was brought to England from Jamaica by his master. Somerset escaped, was recaptured, and was to be shipped back to Jamaica for sale. A government office clerk, named Granville Sharp, was so incensed by Somerset's plight that he instigated a vigorous defense on his behalf. This became an important test case, which dragged on through three court sessions. Finally, the judge rendered his decision. He held that the seizure and sale of a man was so odious in itself, that nothing could justify it but positive law. And, of course, there was no such law in England.
So, from June 23, 1772, it was legally established that any man that set foot on English soil was free! This decision did not create a new law, it simply confirmed man's natural right to be free. If Somerset had known this, he could have claimed his freedom at once. The point is that it is not enough to be free, we need to know it and claim it.
This event may seem irrelevant to your situation, because you are free, and you know it. When Jesus spoke to his disciples about freedom, they too must have felt the subject was irrelevant. They told him perhaps indignantly that, as Abraham's seed, they had never been in bondage to any man. (John 8:33) But Jesus knew that freedom is vastly more than just a political status. Being free is living a life without limits.
So many of our problems appear to be those of limitation limited health, limited wealth, limited opportunity, limited time. Being free is living a life unrestricted by ill-health, debt, stress, fear, unbounded by time and space. In short, being free is living a life unlimited by matter.
If we are to be free really free we need to gain dominion over matter. This evening we are going to discuss several different forms of limitation, but before doing so I'd like to first address the basic limitation of matter, because all forms of limitation are only variations on the basic limit of matter itself. Now you may be thinking, "That's all well and good, but the fact is that substance is matter whether we like it or not and there's nothing we can do about it."
But one man has proven that we can do something about it. The man was Christ Jesus. Every one of his works were in direct opposition to matter and material laws. He needed money to pay his taxes and he got it. He healed the sick, fed the multitudes, stilled the storm, overcame time and space. How did he do it? What did he know about substance that is unknown to today's physicists?
Perhaps you are thinking, "It's not what he knew about substance; it was just that he could perform miracles." Well, it's true that all of his works are generally considered to be miracles. But in the Bible the word "miracle" has been translated from the Greek word meaning "marvel." The word "miracle" means an effect independent of natural law.
Thomas Huxley, in his famous dissertation on miracles, stated that a miracle can in no case be anything more than the discovery of a hitherto unsuspected law. So, were Jesus' works miracles, that is, outside of law, or were they in accordance with a hitherto unsuspected law, and therefore scientific? Well, they certainly were not in accordance with material laws. But they were in demonstration of law. A spiritual law, yes, but nevertheless a law! Once we recognize his marvelous works were not miracles, but the demonstration of law, they have a practical significance. Why? Because a natural law is universal and available for anyone, anywhere, at any time. We need to understand these spiritual laws and put them into practice.
Wasn't this what Jesus meant when he said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). Note, Jesus did not say, "I shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." But, "ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free!" Therefore, his words must apply to you and me, here and now!
Well, what is the truth we need to know to gain freedom from limitation? The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, helped answer this question for mankind. She did not set out to establish a new religion. The religion of Christ Jesus only needed to be understood, and her words echo and re-echo the teachings of Christ Jesus.
One day, while suffering from the aftereffects of a severe accident, she called for her Bible, and, pondering one of the healings Jesus had performed, she was instantly and completely healed. What happened? She wasn't sure, but she was determined to find out. She withdrew from society and devoted the next three years to studying the Bible and the deeper things of God. Later, she wrote of this period; ". . . but I must know the Science of this healing, and I won my way to absolute conclusions through divine revelation, reason, and demonstration" (Science and Health, p. 109).
The innumerable successful demonstrations served as proofs that she had made a tremendous discovery. She had discovered the laws that Jesus utilized in performing his healing works. And it is this discovery that she has shared with the world in the textbook of Christian Science: Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.
Mrs. Eddy recognized that since the laws Jesus demonstrated were spiritual and repudiated matter, they couldn't have a material source. So what is their source? Spiritual laws have to emanate from a Principle that is Spirit, and this Principle she called God. The spiritual laws Jesus utilized prove the existence of God, a divine Principle that is Spirit. Then it isn't surprising that Jesus defined God as Spirit. Jesus also explained God to be First Cause the good, perfect and only creator of all being.
Generally speaking, we, like the physicists of yesterday, start with what we see matter and then try to reason back to its cause. But Jesus did it the other way around. He started with cause, God, Spirit. Spirit must have a perfect effect which is spiritual. Mrs. Eddy states: "Is Spirit the source or creator of matter? Science reveals nothing in Spirit out of which to create matter" (Science and Health, p. 278). If matter is substance, then God, as Spirit, creator, must be a myth. But Jesus knew God does exist. Therefore, he must have recognized matter as the myth, an illusion or error. This does not mean there is no substance. Of course substance exists. It's just that it is not material; substance is spiritual. The question naturally comes, "Well, if substance isn't material, what is all of this we see around us?" Mrs. Eddy answers: "What you see, hear, feel, is a mode of consciousness, and can have no other reality than the sense you entertain of it" (Unity of Good, p. 8).
This explanation may sound absurd because most of us when we think of matter think of something solid, a thing tangible to the physical senses. But not today's physicists. In fact, the source and nature of matter remains a mystery to them. I'd like to add that I have found the astronomers and physicists with whom I've talked as brilliant as they are to be very open-minded, receptive to new ideas and very humble when discussing substance.
Most physicists support the theory that the universe is composed of minute building blocks or things called particles, and in their search to find the basic elementary building block, physicists have discovered smaller and smaller particles. They discovered one called a neutrino that's so small it has no dimension at all, and a questionable mass. Dr. Jovanovic of Fermi National Laboratory questions, "But how can a particle without the property of mass be a building block?"
With the discovery of quantum physics or new physics, it is becoming apparent that physicists are observing phenomena in terms of probability, and not like the old, classic physics dealing with objective reality or solid things. Quantum physics does not always make materialistic sense, but it does make sense in the domain of ideas. So more and more physicists are agreeing that consciousness plays an important role in establishing what is matter. That's why Mrs. Eddy's statement that "What you see, hear, feel, is a mode of consciousness" (Unity of Good, p. 8) may not sound absurd to today's physicists. Indeed, some are asking such questions as: Do we create the particle we are experimenting with? Did a particle exist before we thought about it? Wolfgang Pauli, a Nobel Prize physicist, indicates that physics has become the study of the structure of consciousness (Jung, Carl G. and Pauli, Wolfgang, The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche, Princeton University Press, p. 175). Freeman Dyson of Princeton states: "You won't really understand quantum mechanics deeply until you also understand the nature of mind" (The Christian Science Monitor, June 14, 1988, p. B4). This past May, at an international conference of particle physicists held in Blois, France, Andrei Linde of CERN agreed that he could perceive of a universe composed exclusively of mind (International Herald Tribune, May 19, 1989).
But this does not answer the key question; "What is Mind itself? What is consciousness? What is its source? What substance composes it?" It can't be matter. Particles don't think. They arent intelligent or conscious. Therefore, the source and substance of consciousness must be Spirit, an intelligent source we call divine Mind, God.
Being Mind, then creation, including man, must be Mind's idea. What does Mind create but ideas? So, it's not so much that God thinks about you. You are God's idea, a spiritual idea, unlimited by matter, and dwelling within the infinitude of divine Mind. Andrei Linde is correct. The universe is composed exclusively of Mind, but the vital distinction is that this Mind is God. As the apostle Paul tells us, "For in him we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:28). All being exists in divine Mind.
What we've been talking about so far is very simply summarized by Mrs. Eddy. She wrote: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all" (Science and Health, p. 468). In proportion that we understand this truth, we will begin to have dominion over the basic limits of matter itself.
Okay, let's see how we can apply these principles in a practical way to several different forms of limitation. First, let's consider one of the most prevalent limitations, that of insufficient funds or supply. Being free is living a life with unlimited resources. Sometimes the evidence of lack seems so overwhelming that we feel we need a miracle to solve the problem. For instance, many communities today suffer from an inadequate water supply.
I was challenged with a shortage of water many years ago. I was one of a party of three on a geological expedition in Utah. We went into a remote desert area, but could carry only enough water to last three days. We expected to locate water in the region. However, after two days of fruitless searching for water, we had no choice but to return to civilization the following morning.
That evening, I turned to God in prayer. I recalled some accounts in the Bible of people suffering from limited supply whose needs were met through an understanding of God's love and power. Jesus fed over five thousand people with only a few loaves and fishes (Matt. 14:15-21). Elisha provided a widow and her son oil and meal that lasted through an entire drought (I Kings 17:10-16). Moses struck a rock and water poured out of it (Num. 20:11).
I asked myself, "Did these experiences actually occur, or were they myths or allegories?" I reasoned that they were demonstrations of divine law. And, that the same law which was in effect at the time of Moses must still be operating now. I had learned from the Bible that God is love, and Christian Science shows this Love to be power. Divine Love is the power that gives impulse to law.
It is inconsistent with God's love that man should be in want. The Bible states: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want" (Ps. 23:1). To want something is to deny its presence. I asked myself: "Am I denying the presence of good"? God is ever-present. God is good; therefore good is ever-present. So, there can be no absence of good. Consequently, it wasn't a question of overcoming real lack, but proving lack isn't real. I felt at peace, confident that God's love was adequate to meet the human need.
The following morning, before we were to break camp, I decided to look once more for water. I turned into a narrow canyon near the camp, but there was nothing but sand and rocks on the canyon floor, not even a sign of vegetation. I sat down on a boulder to re-establish my thoughts of the night before. My eye fell on a patch of green moss about the size of my thumb nail growing in a crevice of the rock forming the canyon wall. I struck the moss with my handpick, and it became quite moist. I struck it again and again, and suddenly water burst from the crevice in the rock, an abundance of water that continued to meet our need (Christian Science Journal, March, 1966, p. 140).
Was seeing this little patch of green midst thousands of acres of sand just fantastic luck? Not to me. I saw it as proof of God's law in action. It only confirmed a phenomenon recognized in Christian Science, namely, that there is a definite relation between our human consciousness and what we physically sense as experience. It's not that we become conscious of something over there. What we see over there is a mode of human consciousness. Our human experience, whether good or bad, harmonious or discordant, is but the externalization of our individual consciousness. Consequently, if we need to improve our human experience, then we must first improve our human consciousness.
How do we do this? By prayer. Prayer is not a tool we use to repair God's creation. God's perfect creation doesn't need repairing. Prayer is the endeavor to become conscious of things as they truly are, not as they seem to be. Prayer doesn't change reality it reveals it. We don't say a prayer, we live it. Prayer is knowing the truth and living it.
To know the truth, to pray, it is important that we make a distinction between absolute truth and a relative statement about absolute truth. For instance, it's true that the sun rises each morning. But it's only true relative to our point of view on earth. Christian Science recognizes the only absolute reality is that which God creates. God, perfect cause, doesn't create imperfection. If He did, He wouldn't be a perfect creator. Of course, imperfection appears to exist. You and I appear to be imperfect, limited mortals.
But this is a false, relative view of God's perfect, spiritual creation, of the man you really are, made in the image and likeness of God. The Christian Scientist does not ignore the relative picture, any more than we ignore the rising of the sun. We don't ignore what appears as a mortal man, sin, disease, inharmony, but endeavor to become conscious of reality from God's point of view.
To be conscious of reality is answered prayer and why the Christ is the very basis of prayer. For centuries, Christians have thought of Christ mainly as the person Jesus. But Christian Science makes a distinction in the relation between Jesus and Christ. Jesus was the man who, more than any other man, demonstrated Christ. He did it so completely that he's correctly titled, "Jesus, the Christ."
But what is the Christ he demonstrated? The Christ is God's presentation to human consciousness of divine, absolute truth. This truth appears to us as idea, an absolute true idea, which corrects the false concepts and thereby improves our human consciousness. The Christ is that state of consciousness that knows what is absolutely true. This is knowing the truth that makes us free. Free from what? Obviously the truth does not free us from the truth, but from an error. The error that 2 x 2 = 5 is corrected by the truth that 2 x 2 = 4. Likewise, the imperfect conditions Jesus corrected were errors that yielded to the truth. He was not demonstrating mind over matter, but demonstrating truth over error. This is what I did in the desert. I replaced the false concept of limited good with the absolute truth of God's law of abundance and love. This change of consciousness was manifested in freedom from lack.
Let's consider another prevalent form of limitation. Being free is also living a life unrestricted by ill health. Jesus brought freedom from all kinds of disease. He was the master healer! Some scholars have said that the healings Jesus performed were not the result of prayer, but rather were simply the work of a master hypnotist. Interestingly enough, some critics say that Christian Science also heals by hypnosis. Actually, Christian Science does exactly the opposite: it awakens man from a hypnotized state of thought.
For instance, let's suppose you are invited to a party, and the hostess tells you she has hired a hypnotist to entertain her guests. You accept the invitation but explain that you will be late arriving at the party. Now, before you arrive the hypnotist asks for a volunteer and then proceeds to hypnotize the individual into believing he is a duck. The individual goes waddling around the room, flapping his arms and quacking. The hypnotist then asks for another volunteer, and does the same thing to her, then another and another until all of the guests are acting like ducks. About this time you arrive at the party. You see people acting in a strange manner. But you don't see ducks. Why not? Because there aren't any and you haven't been hypnotized into believing there are. Christian Science shows that all disease and abnormality is nothing more than a false, hypnotized state of thought.
Mrs. Eddy tells us that, "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick" (Science and Health, p. 476). Why didn't Jesus see an imperfect man the same as everyone else? Because there wasn't an imperfect man and Jesus wasn't hypnotized into believing there was. He saw man as he really is, made in the image and likeness of God. This correct view broke the mesmeric state of thought and the man recognized himself as free. Jesus didn't change the man. He simply awakened the man.
Let's return to the party for a moment. Suppose one of the guests comes up to you and says he is a victim of a new incurable disease called 'duckitis.' He describes the symptoms, which include growing feathers and web feet, and quacking like a duck. He asks for your prayer to heal him. By now you recognize that he has been hypnotized. How would you pray? Would you go to the Bible and research web feet? Would you ask God to heal duckitis? Of course not! If you tried to do anything for duckitis, this indicates you too had been hypnotized. Rather, wouldn't you awaken the guest? Once awakened, that would end all there is to duckitis.
It was never a condition, never more than a false mental state. Since disease looks and feels real, the tendency is to treat disease. But that's treating a decoy that's like treating duckitis. That's why a Christian Scientist never, never treats real disease, but deals with the false belief that disease is real. If you don't remember anything else from this lecture, remember that to treat duckitis is quackery!
Well who or what is it that would hypnotize us? Certainly not God! What appears as hypnotism is only the suggestion of a suppositional opposite of divine Mind. God is the only Mind and God doesn't hypnotize. Nor is He hypnotized. You reflect the divine Mind as your Mind. You think as God causes you to think. If you don't, you're not using your Mind. To acknowledge we reflect the divine Mind as our Mind is to gain freedom over a hypnotized state of thought.
Some healings do not appear quickly in Christian Science, but they do come when consciousness is changed. For instance, let me tell you about the daughter of good friends of mine. She was born with one leg about an inch shorter than the other. A steel brace was recommended by the doctors, but even then, the medical prognosis was that the leg could never be normal, and that she would always be a cripple. The parents decided to rely exclusively on Christian Science. Two years went by without healing. The child walked with a decided limp. At times, the parents struggled with discouragement and self-condemnation, and wondered why God was letting them down.
One day they visited a Christian Science practitioner who assured them that the picture of a crippled child was really an illusion. They were reminded of Mrs. Eddy's admonition: "When the illusion of sickness or sin tempts you, cling steadfastly to God and His idea. Allow nothing but His likeness to abide in your thought" (Science and Health, p. 495).The parents agreed from that point on that every time they looked at the child or thought of her, they would hold to the absolute truth about her.
Arriving home, the little girl came limping down the hallway. But the parents immediately refuted the false relative picture, and replaced it with the absolute truth that right where a cripple appeared to be, right there was God's perfect child. They continued to hold to this truth and there was a decided change in their consciousness.
Soon thereafter, while at the beach with some friends, they noticed their daughter running along the beach with the other children without a limp. She was completely healed! (Christian Science Sentinel, July 18, 1977, pp. 1301-1303)
This awakening from a false state of consciousness is not just one aspect of Christian Science healing. It is the healing itself! For instance, when did the healing of the duckitis take place? When the symptoms of web feet disappeared? No, there were no web feet. Don't think of the awakening as removing real web feet. It only reveals that the web feet weren't real. The healing was the awakened consciousness. We do not recover from that which is not, but rather discover that which is. It's not a question of recovery, but discovery. This awakening is not the result of blind faith, will-power, positive thinking, mind over matter, not medication or exchanging one limiting material concept for another material concept. This awakening comes from gaining a Christlike consciousness. One that knows the truth. Such a consciousness cannot be hypnotized because a consciousness that knows that which is, will never accept that which is not. A consciousness that knows that which is, is a consciousness imbued with the Christ. Being aware of reality being conscious of ourselves as we really are is knowing the truth that makes us free. Freedom is knowing the truth. That's why Christ Jesus was the freest man that ever lived.
Being free is not only overcoming the bondage of limited supply or ill health. Being free is also living a life unlimited by time. Jesus was never in bondage to time. We never get a picture of him harried and flustered. When Jesus was told that Lazarus was dying; do you see him jumping up from dinner, cramming in one last bite and washing it down with a gulp and then frantically dashing out the door? I see him calm, poised, confident. Why? Because he knew the truth that God does exist, and that in spite of the physical evidence to the contrary, God maintains His creation in perfect harmony.
Who of us hasn't thought: "I have so much to do, but not enough time to do it?" Within the confines of matter, it would seem impossible that Jesus could feed thousands with only a few loaves of bread and a few fish. Within the confines of time, it would seem impossible to accomplish a great quantity of work within a few hours. Time, like matter, is limitation. Time is a measure between material events. So, without matter there can be no time. Claim your spiritual identity, and in proportion that you do, will you gain more dominion over the limits of time.
Gaining dominion over time is gaining dominion over age and all the limitations attributed to it. Nor are all the limitations due to old age. What about the terrible two's? Age implies failing faculties, limited vitality, potency, and mental alertness. But such conditions are not of God.
Mrs. Eddy tells us, ". . . the fetters of man's finite capacity are forged by the illusion that he lives in body instead of in Soul, in matter instead of in Spirit" (Science and Health, p. 223). What forges these fetters? Man living in a material body? No, they are forged by the illusion that he lives in a material body. So we deal with the illusion. How? By knowing the truth. The absolute truth is that you are spiritual, that you are this instant what divine Mind is knowing this instant. Therefore you are new each moment not in time, but co-existent with God.
That's why age cannot limit man's faculties. Vision no more comes from a physical eye, than love comes from a physical heart or intelligence comes from a physical brain. We reflect love, intelligence, and vision from God. The Bible tells us: "The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them" (Prov. 20:12). Did the perfect creator, divine Spirit, create imperfect material eyes? No. That's why Christian Science doesn't correct imperfect eyes; it corrects the lie about perfect eyes. The illusion that age can limit man's faculties is a lie about God's perfect, timeless creation. We are not searching for youth, but for the qualities associated with youth. The fountain of youth is God's continuous outpouring of ageless qualities comprising your being. The Revelator stated in the Bible: "There should be time no longer" (Rev. 10:6). Then there should be age no longer.
Being free is living a life unfettered by stress! Stress is the result of two conflicting forces. If you lock the fingers of your hands and pull, you build up tension. Or if you push palm to palm you build up pressure. But what happens when you put one hand behind your back? No stress. Why? Because there is only one force with nothing to oppose it. God is the one and only power. There is no second power to oppose God. Therefore there can't be any stress. To the degree that we recognize this, shall we eliminate stress from our daily activities. In the words of Paul, "We know that all things work together for good to them that love God" (Rom. 8:28).
Being free is being unlimited in our sense of right home and place. The captivity of the Israelites in Egypt was more than a physical one. Actually they were in bondage to the false belief that they were deprived of a home. The promised land was, to them, a material location. How many of us, like the Jews, are looking for a promised land in matter.
Jesus said, "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:20,21). Within a physical body? No, within consciousness. Home is not within four walls, a limited space inside of which man dwells. Home is a divine state of consciousness. Remember, "In him [God] we live, and move, and have our being," that is, you are an idea of God, dwelling within divine Mind. Where God is you are. You can't get outside of God's allness. You can't be separated from good. That's why you are never outside your right place. Oh yes, we may seem to be in the wrong place or wrong home, or even homeless. But that is a false relative view. Remember, we must replace this false view with the absolute truth. This results in a change of consciousness which is humanly manifested in your being in the right place at the right time, doing the right activity with the right reward.
Being free is having unlimited opportunity. For instance, suppose two individuals are walking down a road. They both see what appears as a body of water across the road. The first individual recognizes the water as only a mirage which cannot limit, obstruct or impede his progress. He knows the truth. The second individual, accepting the evidence of the physical senses not knowing the truth considers his progress blocked by the water and turns back. Now, it wasn't water that blocked his progress, but the failure to know the truth. It wasn't a real obstruction that needed to be eliminated but the false belief that the obstruction is real.
You may be thinking, "Well, that example isn't valid. My company supervisor blocks my promotion at every turn and he's no mirage." The supervisor isn't an illusion, but his ability to impede God's law of progress is a false relative view.
How often do we think, "If it wasn't for him . . . the dean of admissions, the casting director, the director of personnel, the purchasing agent . . . ." The fact is that God governs every event of your career. Since God is the only Mind, in reality there can be no conflict of minds, not even a meeting of the minds, but just one Mind being reflected by each individual no conflict of opinions, no conflict of interests, and no stress.
It's been said that "opportunity only knocks once," and so a lost opportunity may haunt us for life. We may feel we missed the boat. But isn't that limiting God? God has plenty of boats: they are leaving all the time. You can't be left behind, passed over, forgotten or deprived of good.
God wants the best for you! His will is good. God's will must be done. No human hand not even your own can obstruct Love's purpose or interfere with the progress ordained by divine Love. To the great heart of divine Love there are no misunderstandings, no broken promises. You can't be forced into a wrong place or forced out of a right one. You are always at the standpoint of opportunity, because you are always the recipient of God's great love for you.
Being free is a life without doubt or fear, a life without worry. Can you picture Jesus worrying? To worry is to break the First Commandment. We have no indication of Jesus ever being fearful. He may have been tempted to fear, but he knew too much of God's love to be afraid. Think of that! Can you imagine going through life and never once being afraid?
Jesus' disciples were terrified they would drown in the storm driven sea. But Jesus calmly rebuked the storm and it ceased. Does God cause hurricanes, earthquakes, and other disasters? No! Otherwise Jesus was opposing God when he stilled the storm. It's because the storm was not of God that he could refute it. There is no destructive element in divine Love. That's why, if you fear something, it's a sure sign it doesn't exist because it's not of God. If the condition isn't good, it's not of God; if not of God, it isn't true. If not true, it's powerless. Security is not so much a matter of where you are or what you are doing, as it is what you are and what you are thinking.
A college buddy of mine was a pilot with a combat cargo squadron during World War II. He flew a twin engine C-46 over the Hump, the rugged foothills of the Himalayas. One day he was carrying a large group of British soldiers returning to India from combat. Suddenly one engine stopped and he could not feather the propeller. Because of the excess load, the unfeathered prop, and only one engine, the plane began to lose altitude. The situation was desperate as they were flying over rugged mountain jungles.
My friend thought, "It's just not right that all of these men have survived combat, only to be killed on their flight back to safety." But he was a Christian Scientist, and he realized such a state of consciousness would lead to disaster. He began to lift his consciousness through prayer. He turned wholeheartedly to God, and affirmed God's law of love, a law that is constant, inflexible, and undeviating in maintaining the safety of each individual. He acknowledged that nothing can obstruct, impede or restrict the power of divine Love, which is upholding, supporting and protecting each individual. He felt a calm sense of peace.
But the plane continued to lose altitude. By this time the plane was brushing the tops of trees. He then said, "God, I know nothing is impossible to you, and your love is caring for us all. I don't know how you are going to take care of this. But whatever you do, you'd better hurry."
At that moment he saw straight ahead a landing strip. He managed to lower his landing gear just as the plane touched the ground. He made no adjustment as to direction. He came in dead center on the runway. He couldn't have missed it even if he wanted to. He had to land on that runway. Later, when asked by his colonel, "Bob, how did you ever find that abandoned landing strip?" My friend answered, "I didn't find it it found me!"
Was it exceptionally good luck that out of thousands of square miles of rugged terrain and dense jungle where Bob touched down there just happened to be a runway. No, it wasn't luck. Remember, what we "see, hear, feel is a mode of consciousness." What we physically sense as our human experience is but the objectification of our human consciousness. That's why it's vital that we uplift our consciousness with divine Truth. The world you look out upon is the world of your own thought. So why should the appearance of the runway in a jungle be any different than the appearance of water in the desert or the appearance of a normal leg where there had been an abnormal one? Knowing the truth doesn't improve an imperfect condition it disproves a lie about a perfect condition. We deal with the lie by knowing the truth.
Each of these three incidents regarded separately may appear as coincidence. But when you consider these in context with thousands upon thousands of case histories of healing in Christian Science we have no choice but to acknowledge that knowing the spiritual absolute truth does bring freedom.
Of course, we are grateful for each one of these many healings. But it's not only the healings that are so exciting, but what the healings indicate. It proves in the laboratory of one's own life that God does exist. It proves the existence of a spiritual law that supercedes a so-called material one. It refutes the evidence that substance is matter, and gives us a glimpse of the illimitable, the unbounded and infinite cosmos of divine Mind.
Centuries ago the astronomer, Copernicus, displaced the earth as the center of the cosmos. Early this century quantum physics displaced the physical senses as the central test of reality. As great as these discoveries were, they pale before Mrs. Eddy's discovery of the scientific principles that Jesus thoroughly understood and practiced. She tells us Jesus revolutionized the concept of reality. He translated "substance" into its original meaning, "Mind" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 74).
He proved that what is impossible to limited matter is possible in the unlimited, spiritual creation of divine Mind. Remember, the spiritual laws he demonstrated are still operating here and now for you. How else could Jesus have said, "The works that I do shall he do also?" (John 14:12).
No matter in what form limitation presents itself, it is never more than a false mesmeric state of thought which has no more reality than duckitis. By discerning, even in a small degree, the absolute truth that substance is actually spiritual, in that degree you'll find limits begin to disappear. So take heart. No matter who or where you are, you are always free to think, to know the truth. We are bound only by our own false concepts. The consciousness that is free of false concepts is free indeed. How do we eliminate false concepts? By knowing the truth! Where does the truth come from? It comes from God who presents to you the Christ, the absolute true idea which destroys the false concept and uplifts consciousness. When is this Christ, Truth going to appear? "The Christ is here, all dreams of error breaking, Unloosing bonds of all captivity." (Christian Science Hymnal, No. 412)
Paul said to the Corinthians, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (II Cor. 3:17).
[Jan. 24, 1990.]