The time traveler

I remember only the barest outlines of the story. Yet it was one of the most intriguing ideas I'd ever encountered.And it came from a pretty unlikely source: I'd read it in a comic book as a young boy.

The tale dealt with a time traveler from our present who was sent backward to a prehistoric period. While there, he had a shock of recognition. He became aware that everything he did -- trample a blade of grass, kill an animal with his modern weapons for food and self-defense -- would bear on all subsequent earthly events. Why, the hero might even do something that would result in harm to his own person eons later. Such a heavy existential dilemma! And such heavy science fiction.

But art always touches us when it deals with universals; and this yarn of my youth impressed me with a thought of the interrelatedness of human history.

Higher than fictive science, however, Christian Science reveals the true foundation of history -- a foundation grounded not in time but in eternal divine Life, or God. Science recognizes man and the universe not as material, subject to a time frame and inevitable decay, but as spiritual, the compound idea of God. In consonance with the inspired writings of Scripture, Science shows God to be infinite Principle; eternal, divine Mind. He expresses in His creation completely harmonious development.

Humans and the material universe appear to exist in a finite consciousness. In this false view of creation, both the microcosm and the macrocosm have beginning and ending, birth and death. In actuality, creation was, is, and always will be characterized by immutable harmony,m because it is the manifestation of all-harmonious God.

The Bible bursts with passages extolling God's timeless and tamperproof creation -- as here: "I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him." n1 And Christ Jesus astonished his listeners with his classic statement of his preexistence, later proved by his resurrection and ascension: "Before Abraham was, I am." n2

n1 Ecclesiastes 3:14.

n2 John 8:58.

Past events, whether recent or remote, are truly influential only to the degree that they exhibit the power of God in the strengthening of good or the destruction of evil.

The eternal harmony of the real universe has practical application to humanity's belief in discords. God's all-power, understood and applied, annihilates the assumption that a mortal time traveler (whether a human or a simple gene) can ever disrupt creation, which remains concordant and good. It destroys the fear of any evil precondition. Are we afraid that we could embody some disease suffered by a forebear, some malady waiting to spring forth in us? Because of the ever-operative law of divine good neither curse nor fate can afflict God's idea, man, our true identity. Mary Baker Eddy n3 states categorically, "Heredity is not a law." n4 And she also says, "Heredity is a prolific subject for mortal belief to pin theories upon; but if we learn that nothing is real but the right, we shall have no dangerous inheritances, and fleshly ills will disappear." n5

n3 Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science.

n4 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,m p. 178.

n5 ibid.,m p. 228.

As we claim and prove our real dwelling place to be the eternal Mind, the past and future will recede as threats of evil. The present love of the Father bases our harmonious, real existence forever. DAILY BIBLE VERSE For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. . . . Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage for ever: for they are the rejoicing of my heart. Psalms 119:89, 111