Say no to mental aging

I walked into our public library recently to discover that the card catalogs had been replaced by small machines. "No!" I thought. "I was happy with the way the old system was set up!" Resentful of the change, I was also, to be honest, a little afraid I couldn't understand how the new machines worked. Suddenly I realized that these anxieties were associated with growing old.

I am what the wolrd would consider young; yet I recognized that I was falling into a trap of limited thinking. I feared change and insecurity, feared that I could not progress with others. "Welcome to old age!" I told myself as I stood there gazing at those machines and examining my thinking.

But I soon realized I could put a check on mental aging. And the time to begin was nowm -- not 20 years down the road. What I needed was to understand and prove the ever-revitalizing power of God. If I would daily acknowledge God and my inseparable relationship to Him, and live in obedience to His law, I could not grow old in thinking.

There was a woman who certainly proved this power of God. When she was 87 years old she founded this newspaper. The woman, Mary Baker Eddy,n1 strove constantly to bring her actions into line with Christ Jesus' teachings. Deeply studying the inspired revelations of the Bible, and practicing Christian healing , she also endeavored to communicate in the Christian Science textbook what she discovered -- that man is God's immortal offspring; that he is not born into matter, given a few years to live, and then sentenced to death. Man is the immortal expression of God. He simply cannot be material, but must be spiritual.

n1 Mrs. Eddy is the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science.

Mrs.Eddy states in this textbook -- Science and Health with Key to the Scripturesm -- "How unreasonable is the belief that we are wearing out life and hastening to death, and that at the same time we are communing with immortality!"n2

n2 Science and Health, p. 78.

We cannot actually be running out of life, for God is Life. And if God is Life, we, because we are in reality His spiritual reflection, are never approaching death.

The Biblical couple Abraham and Sarah proved this in some degree when, because of their faith in God, they were able to begin their family many years later than their peers.n3

n3 See Genesis, Chapters 17 and 21.

We have similar opportunities. We can start today demonstrating in small ways that we are the immortal idea of our eternal creator -- that infinite Love, God, is our Mind, Soul, Principle.

For instance, when we are tempted to fear change, we can, instead, rejoice in the fact that man is the eternal expression of eternally evolving Life and Truth. He is forever spiritual and complete, yet forever new. Therefore we have in reality nothing to fear from human change. In fact, we can find much good in it. Weren't those machines in the library proof that humanity is overcoming limitations of time? The God that guides all -- the one true mind of man -- is guiding us individually to overcome obstacles to right activity in our lives. Man as God's image is not aging. Man is progressing. In understanding these profound truths, and practicing them in small ways, we bring out our own natural abilities. Making progress in understanding God and man as His likeness is an inspiring adventure.

"Infinite progression is concrete being," writes Mrs. Eddy, "which finite mortals see and comprehend only as abstract glory. As mortal mind, or the material sense of life, is put off, the spiritual sense and Science of being is brought to light." n4

n4 Miscellaneous Writings,m p. 82.

As I pondered the spiritual light of scientific truths, I denounced the personal limitations I had put on myself, disregarded fear, and discovered that those library machines were not only easier but much more efficient. This was a small way of proving that each of us expresses forever the limitless and eternal freedom of God. DAILY BIBLE VERSE The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing. Psalms 92:12-14