A lesson from limpets

In his work Miracles,m C. S. Lewis uses an interesting analogy to shed light on why many people find it hard to believe in God. He describes a "mystical" limpet in God. He describeds a "mystical" limpet (or shelfish) who catches a glimpse of to his fellow creatures, this sage limpet has to use many negatives.

He tells them that man has no shell, that he's not attached to a rock, that he's not surrounded by water. (Conditions necessary for every Limpet.) Since the more perceptive limptes have some positive insight into man themselves, they get an idea of what man is like.

But those limpets who don't have a vision of man tend to get only the negatives in the sage's message. Lewis writes: ". . . uncorrected by any positive insight, they build up a picture of Man as a sort of amorphous jelly (he is no shell) existing nowhere in particular (he is not attached to a rock) and never taking nourishment (there is no water to drift it towards him.)" n1

n1 From A Mind Awake, An Anthology of S. S. Lewis,m ed. (New York: Harcourt Brace Brace Jovanovich, 1968), p. 76;

Without spiritual insight, our concept of god can be equally negative and mistaken. Because God is said to be immaterial, we may assume He is not concrete. Because he is said to be incorporeal, we may assume He is not personal. Because He is said to be infinite good, we may suppose He is too far above for us to approach or know.

There false assumptions are reversed when we gain sufficient spiritual insight into His true nature. God's immateriality poses no problem when we begin to sense in our lives the concrete reality and power of Spirit. God's incorporeality ceases to puzzle when we discover we can feel His loving presence no matter where we are. And God's infinite goodness seems far less remote or fomidable when we realize that He is calling us to sonship through His ever-present Christ.

In fact, if we really want to know what God is like, we gain no truer picture than in the life of Christ Jesus. As the Son of God, Jesus presented the Christ , the true idea of God, better than anyone else who ever lived. Any questions about the real nature of God are answered in Jesus' godlikeness, in the divinity that shone through his life and words. As Jesus himself said, "He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me." n2

n2 John 1: 44;

And what do we see in Jesus' life? A life so filled with honesty and integrity that God Himself must be Truth. A life so overflowing with lovingkindness, compassion, and mercy that God could only be divine Love itself. A life so imbued with spiritual power to heal and save that god must be Spirit, omnipotent Life. All that Jesus said and did was derived from his -- and ourm -- Father-Mother God.

And because He is "Our Father which art in heaven,"n3 we too an claim our spiritual sonship in Christ. We too can develop the spiritual insight that destroys the misconceptions of God that would make Him seem abstract, remote, or impersonal. This is what Christian Science helps us do.

Through the Christ Science, or Christ knowledge, consciousness is illumined with spiritual light, which destroys false concept of God and man and reveals reality. As Mary Baker Eddy n4 explains, "Spirit imparts the understanding which uplifts consciousness and leads into all truth." And she adds, "This understanding is not intellectual, is not the result of scholarly attainments; it is the reality of all things brought to light." n5

n4 Mrs. Eddy is the Discover and Founder of Christian Science;

n5 Science and health with Key to the Scriptures,m p. 505.

DAILY BIBLE VERSE I will be found of you, saith the Lord. Jeremiah 29:14