A simple change in thought
José Rodríguez Peláez
This is an interview with José Rodríguez Peláez, from Málaga, Spain, for the Radio Edition of the Spanish Herald. José is dedicated to spiritual healing as a Christian Science practitioner, and he also gives public lectures on this subject.
What impact did Christian Science have on your life?
Shortly after I obtained the book Science and Health, I had to put into practice what I was learning when my wife was diagnosed with a life-threatening disease. The physicians said she would live for only a couple of months. Nevertheless, after she prayed for six months and received spiritual treatment from a Christian Science practitioner, the physicians acknowledged that she was completely healed. They considered this healing a miracle.
What did all this mean to you?
Well, for many years I was a practicing psychotherapist in Málaga, and I was well respected in my field. I was making good money, owned property, and had a good life. When my wife was first pronounced incurable by the medical faculty, and then healed by scientific prayer, this caused me to question my lifework. It was clear that I’d been working in the field of health because of my love for people; yet, here I was, still attending to my patients in a traditional manner instead of treating them with prayer. I realized that my resistance to changing the way I worked stemmed from a fear of insufficient provision. It seemed to me that if I mentioned to my patients what had occurred, they would think I had lost my mind, and I would no longer earn the necessary income.
I came to realize that the same God who had healed my wife was also my sustenance. Christ Jesus taught the need to be aware of God’s government. He said: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”1 I took this promise very seriously and decided to dedicate my life to the public practice of Christian Science. I still live comfortably, the difference being that my wife and I enjoy life so much more. We have also faced moments in which we have had to remember that God is faithful to His promise.
Is there a specific case you’d like to tell us about?
Yes. Three years ago we had to face some considerable expenses for which we didn’t have the needed funds. So my wife and I began to pray, basing our prayer on the fact that God always fulfills His promises, as it says in the first pages of Genesis, where we read that God made everything good and made man in His image and likeness. Spiritually, we are the man of God’s creating. And since God is both infinite and All-in-all, He is all substance, so we already have all that we need because it is included as part of our makeup. The fact is, we are a divine creation, the very image of God, Life itself. This is a law–it doesn’t depend on us, but operates unfailingly, just as the sun rises every morning.
Well, my wife owned some land in the mountains, and for a period of 12 years she had wanted to sell it, but there had been no buyers. According to the laws of Spain, the lots were too small to build on, so they could be used only for farming. But then one day, we received a phone call from someone who wanted to purchase the land and offered us a really good price. Although we were very happy, we thought he must be mistaken. Since we didn’t want to cause him any harm, we went to speak with him, to make clear that he wouldn’t be able to build on the property. He said he was aware of that, but the land was worth a great deal to him. He ended up paying us an amount three times greater than what we needed.
Tell us a little about what prayer is to you.
We generally confuse praying with pleading, reciting, or asking. The inference is that God does not know something about my problem, or I need something that is missing from my life. For me, prayer consists in recognizing what is already here.
The Bible contains a passage in which Hagar is cast out, alone in the desert with her son Ishmael, and they are dying of thirst. She decides to turn to God, listening to Him, and receives a message or divine inspiration —what we would call an angel—that makes her perceive what is really true, that what she needs is already there. Then she discovers a water spring that she had not been able to see before.
Sometimes it seems as if we are in a world of shadows, lacking the light of God; whereas, in the presence of sunlight, everything blossoms, there is luminosity and joy. To pray is precisely to turn to God and see the spiritual reality that never causes fear or worry, but peace and joy. Reality helps us see that we already have everything because we are the children of a tender, loving Father and Mother.
What you’re saying here is interesting because it means that when we faced tough situations, good was already present with us, but we hadn’t realized it.
Exactly. Good is the only thing that has ever been; evil never was. But sometimes we need courage and steadfastness to claim this good. I remember a friend of mine who was doing well; he had a job in a major bank that paid him a high salary. Yet every time I saw him, he would tell me how unhappy and depressed he was in that job. I asked him what he would like to do, and he answered that he would really like to perform and play his guitar. I asked him why he didn’t do it, and he answered that he couldn’t make a living that way.
And that’s the problem: We believe that the source of supply is something separate from God, something we have to earn with our own effort. But a job is not the real source of supply; it is just another opportunity to reflect the qualities God has given us.
For a time I didn’t hear from my friend, until a couple of years later I was told he had left the bank and was happily making a living by giving guitar concerts. In other words, all good, the source of supply, is God, and had always accompanied him, but since he was seeking good elsewhere, he felt unhappy and enslaved, and he wasn’t doing the work that was really his. We all have something wonderful to give to the world, and our sustenance doesn’t come from the sweat of our brow. Supply is actually God’s smile.
Someone might argue that there is a God who sustains us, and yet the laws of economics overwhelmingly say the very opposite.
I can imagine Jesus, surrounded by more than five thousand people. He feels compassion for the multitude because they have been with him for hours; it’s late, they’re hungry, and it isn’t safe to send them off in such conditions. He turns to his disciples and says, “Give ye them to eat.”2 His disciples tell him they only have five loaves and two fishes, and it’s not enough to feed so many. That is, having so little, how are we going to be able to solve so many problems? And that is exactly what the economic outlook is saying to us now: How are we going to solve so many problems with the resources at hand?
Well, Jesus takes those loaves and those fishes, lifts his thought—rising above all the limitations that oppress us--recognizes the abundance of good already present for everyone, and feeds the multitude.
Jesus considered this challenge an opportunity for light, truth, to reappear, for fear to dissolve, and for God’s tender care to be manifested. Mary Baker Eddy wrote: “In the scientific relation of God to man, we find that whatever blesses one blesses all, as Jesus showed with the loaves and the fishes,—Spirit, not matter, being the source of supply.”3
So prayer is turning to this higher source…
Precisely. There is a citation from Mary Baker Eddy’s book Miscellaneous Writings that, for me, summarizes what we have been talking about. It says: “God gives you His spiritual ideas, and in turn, they give you daily supplies.” And what follows is interesting: “Never ask for to-morrow: it is enough that divine Love is an ever-present help; and if you wait, never doubting, you will have all you need every moment.”4
To pray, turning to the divine source of supply, is to bless, which means to utter good words, to announce good. In order to say good things, we first have to think good thoughts. That is, there has to be a change of mentality, because when we think fearfully, we aren’t thinking in the atmosphere of spiritual reality, of Love, where only trust and harmony exist. Thinking good is thinking like God; it is knowing that everything already is. And when we think in this manner, problems are solved.
1 Matt. 6:33. 2 Luke 9:13. 3 Science and Health, p. 206. 4 Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 307.
