Set life’s record straight

When I was in Sunday School, I had a teacher who stressed a point that has stayed with me all my life. Our class was at that wonderful age when “Why?” seemed to be our standard response to everything he said. Yet it never seemed to faze him.

One Sunday we had been questioning just why it was that bad things could happen to good people—accidents, poverty, illness, conflict. What was the cause of all the evil that seemed to be everywhere? We thought for sure we’d stumped him, but our teacher just smiled and said, “Why is always the wrong question.” He went on to drive home the lesson that seeking to find a cause for evil of any kind does nothing to destroy it, but makes it seem more real to us by building it up in thought.

Over the years I’ve pondered this teacher’s answer and come to realize how important it is to dispossess evil of its assumed validity by denying it any source, development, or history, and thus, an identity—without which evil cannot exist. It’s surprising, though, how often I catch myself looking for a cause for some misfortune or illness, and think, “I wonder what I bumped into to get that bruise?” Or, “Where could I have picked up this cold?” But searching out a material history to substantiate an evil is always the wrong approach. Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, understood the importance of challenging and actually annihilating the false material records that try to influence us or become part of our history. In her short autobiographical book Retrospection and Introspection, she wrote, “The human history needs to be revised, and the material record expunged” (p. 22).

The importance of watching thought more carefully for intrusive material records was brought home to me while reading the recently released book Provenance by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo. It’s a true account of a modern-day con artist who went to great lengths to pass off forged paintings as legitimate works by well-known masters. He found that not only did he have to present a convincing painting to prospective buyers and dealers, but he also had to have the provenance—the records tracing the background or history of the painting—to back up the supposed authenticity of the work. In fact, the con artist found that buyers were willing to overlook deficiencies in the forgery—rationalizing that even great painters can have a bad day—as long as the provenance was convincing enough. So he went to great lengths to insert false records into the archives of museums and other art institutions so that they would provide the appearance of genuine provenance for his forged artworks. Using this combination of forged art and trumped-up provenance, he successfully passed off hundreds of faked paintings as originals, fooling noted art dealers and authorities.

This made me think more carefully about what I’m accepting as the legitimate record, or provenance, of men and women as God’s creation. Am I willing to accept the far-from-perfect forgery called a material body just because a convincing history comes with it? Does the accumulation of a certain number of years of life experience constitute a valid history for the child of God that I claim to be? Does my provenance really include some long-standing, unhealed problem? Or some inherited trait? Are these anyone’s true history? Or are they just popular fictions presented for us to buy into?

The ninth chapter of John’s Gospel in the Bible offers a good illustration of how preoccupation with human history can sidetrack our healing effort, and of how to disarm evil’s advances. In John’s account, Jesus’ disciples brought to him a man born blind, and, just like my Sunday School class, Jesus’ students’ first thought was to find the cause of the condition—”Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?.”. Wrong question! Did Jesus mess around with this line of reasoning? No way. He was not taken in by a history that would attach sin or blame to a parent or a child, and so make a reality of evil. After dismissing the disciples’ theory, Jesus established the truth of the man’s heritage—his genuine nature as a sinless child of God. Jesus’ firm grasp of the man’s true nature—and of God-created individuality in general—freed him from even considering the false provenance that had sidetracked his disciples. Neither was the man’s long-standing blindness, nor any supposed cause for it, relevant to Jesus, only “that the works of God should be made manifest in him [the man].” Jesus then healed the man, expunging the false, material record of blindness associated with him, and rewriting his human history, in which only the truth of his wholeness is recorded.

How do we expunge, or erase, the material record and so revise our human history? Science and Health says we need to “turn our gaze to the spiritual record of creation, to that which should be engraved on the understanding and heart ‘with the point of a diamond’ and the pen of an angel.” The opening chapter of the Bible lays out this spiritual record. It starts with the light of spiritual understanding, which illumines all of God’s work and makes it accessible to everyone. In this all-encompassing light, all of creation is seen to be purely good—the likeness of the all-good God. There is no occurrence of evil anywhere to be found, no conflict, no inharmony, no limitation or demise.

Spiritual being, male and female, is a part of this spiritual creation, and is acknowledged to be the full and perfect likeness of divine Mind. Every aspect of creation is defined as the complete expression of the divine Creator, and so this spiritual record is sufficient. It’s the basis of all that we can know, or need to know, of man and the universe. And yet, every culture throughout history has developed its own creation stories to explain the nature of man and the universe. Even today, scientists are busy trying to discern truth from the basis of a big bang theory, or through genetics and evolution. But to the degree that any of these theories are based on matter they are groundless, based on a false provenance, inserted into human history to prop up the claim that substance can be material and man mortal. For spiritual progress, these material records must be expunged, and this can only be done by divine Truth.

In the light of divine Truth, the false material record of creation—the Adam and Eve story, in whatever guise it may take—loses its grip and influence on human thought. Though the serpent-talker may be persistent in offering the history of sin as real and inescapable, the voice of Truth is always with us, constantly affirming, in thought and deed, God’s omnipresence and unassailable supremacy. As we heed His voice and come to discern spiritual reality, the distracting offerings of materiality become less real, less convincing, until they are seen to be the “bald imposition” Mrs. Eddy described them to be (Science and Health). What did we ever see in them anyway?

This realization brings healing as the Christ—God’s message of spiritual truth—comes to human consciousness, lifting thought and revealing perfect selfhood. The Christ has no material history; it is, as the Bible says, “the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.” And so are we. Our genuine heritage is dominion over evil, and we have the ability to exercise it in daily life.

Several years ago, I had an experience that helped me see that I could do this. I discovered, much to my dismay, that I was passing blood in my urine. While I was never tempted to seek a doctor’s opinion as to the cause, that didn’t stop me from formulating all kinds of distressing theories on the subject. The temptation to self-diagnose—to give the physical difficulty a false provenance to substantiate the material picture—was strong. Needless to say, asking “Why?” was again the wrong question, and only served as a distraction as I labored to turn thought to God in prayer.

After a day or so, the situation continued unchanged, and I thought I’d better ask for prayer from a Christian Science practitioner. The practitioner I called was a dear woman whom I had known all my life, and I was a bit embarrassed to address the subject with her. When I called, I got no further than “I need help.” She didn’t wait to hear the details of the illness—she had no need to. Her response was quick and to the point: “No! There is nothing that can separate you from your God!” And she went on to assert my inclusion in the spiritual record of perfect God and perfect man. Her treatment was that form that Mrs. Eddy talked of in Science and Health when she referred to Jesus, “. . . whose humble prayers were deep and conscientious protests of Truth,—of man’s likeness to God and of man’s unity with Truth and Love.”

The physical symptoms of disease disappeared immediately, and have never returned, but the impact of this experience, for me, was in seeing the approach the practitioner took. She didn’t start out probing for an illusive cause to an illusory effect. She dismissed the material record as of no consequence and turned right to the spiritual record—the uninterrupted harmony of man, enforced by divine law. This spiritual record was always true, and could not change.

So what did change? The human history was revised to coincide with the spiritual record of perfection. This was brought about by the entrance of the Christ, bringing to light my true nature and heritage, without any element of evil. All the evidence supporting the false claim of disease was no more than an invention crafted by the “carnal mind.” to convince me that evil could be real in some frightening form. But no false, personal history can stand as true when corrected by the spiritual reality. No suggestion of evil has validity.

Whether the imposition argues to be the decline of aging, a long-standing disease, or a pandemic gathering momentum through mutual acknowledgement and fear, it has only the backing of a lie, a false provenance, to support it. With a clear knowledge of God and His Christ, we can never be fooled into accepting the forgery as legitimate or real. Instead we’ll challenge it, expunge it, and find our genuine heritage as a child of God.

Jim Walter retired last year and lives in Kingsville, Maryland. A pianist and music lover, he enjoys recording classical music selections, as well as his own compositions.

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