The Alps were breathtaking. Overcome by deep gratitude for the amazing vista before me, I took a picture with my tablet. But I looked at the image with disappointment. The picture could not adequately capture the majestic mountains as I was experiencing them.
Just as my photograph was unable to capture the beauty and grandeur of the Alps, words are inadequate to completely express spiritual reality. Words are vessels for expressing ideas, but the reality of divine Spirit, God, and God’s spiritual creation is much more wonderful and vast than mere words can convey.
In her book “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” Mary Baker Eddy acknowledges the limitations of language: “The chief difficulty in conveying the teachings of divine Science accurately to human thought lies in this, that like all other languages, English is inadequate to the expression of spiritual conceptions and propositions, because one is obliged to use material terms in dealing with spiritual ideas” (p. 349).
As we strive to understand the spiritual reality behind the words written in the Bible and Science and Health, we can go beyond mere memorization of them to the practical application of the ideas the words convey, demonstrating their deeper meaning. The Bible and Mary Baker Eddy’s writings provide inspiration that awakens us to the kingdom of heaven within us. And as we put into practice the ideas and guidance provided by these spiritual writings, we are enabled to actually feel God’s presence and power through spiritual sense – the “conscious, constant capacity to understand God” (Science and Health, p. 209) which we each possess. This gives us the ability to understand spiritual reality.
Science and Health also states, “The great miracle, to human sense, is divine Love, and the grand necessity of existence is to gain the true idea of what constitutes the kingdom of heaven in man” (p. 560).
Through his teaching and example, Christ Jesus showed us the link between divine Love and the kingdom of heaven. He knew who he was as God’s entirely spiritual and perfect Son. He felt God’s great love for him and expressed this healing and inspiring love to everyone he met. Enveloped in God’s limitless love and feeling his oneness with God, he experienced the harmony of the kingdom of heaven. As we pray to follow Jesus’ example, we too can experience the kingdom of heaven wherever we are, since we’re God’s precious spiritual reflection.
“Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals,” we read in Science and Health (pp. 476-477). This statement expresses the highest sense of love because it entails perceiving the world from God’s loving perspective instead of viewing it through what the material senses are telling us. As we focus on and feel the love God has for everyone, we will experience the peace of living in the kingdom of heaven.
I learned about the healing effect of bringing my thought in line with divine Love when I was beginning my doctoral studies. My school had a competitive atmosphere that made me feel angry and afraid. Around this time, I experienced a flare-up of the eczema that had plagued me as a child.
At first, when I called a Christian Science practitioner for help through prayer, I would listen to her loving words, hang up, and then examine the eczema. Finally, it dawned on me that I had to stop looking at the problem and really examine my thought. I realized I needed to feel more love for myself and everyone in my new school because I knew that we are all, in truth, the expression of divine Love, and spiritual love casts out fear and is the antidote for anger. I strove to look beyond the material evidence of competitiveness and abrasiveness to see the children of God’s creating.
As I became more consistent in letting God’s love and peace take hold of my thought, the eczema was healed, and I felt free to enjoy my experience at this school. In the decades since, I haven’t had another outbreak of this condition.
Divine Love is the power behind the Word, and we can always reside in the kingdom of heaven as we choose to turn away from what the mortal senses are telling us and instead see the world from God’s loving perspective. Living in the kingdom of heaven, where we always truly reside, is a choice we make every moment as we love as Jesus loved.
