Renovating our attitude

When asked why his club signed veteran player Rusty Staub to a three-year contract, former New York Mets manager Joe Torre responded, ''He still says, 'Hey, I want to play,' instead of 'Aw, I got to play.' ''n1

n1 Oklahoma City Times,m March 3, 1981

Our attitude toward our work does make a difference in our performance. Attitudes relate to our health, too. Keen enjoyment of a task can make us forget ourselves. But the reverse sometimes happens when a job we're not really at home with makes us sick with worry and dread. The remedy goes beyond simply changing jobs or thinking more positively about our current work. Change is needed - but change based on, and impelled by, an understanding of God as the one true Mind and the only creator and governor of man.

Several years ago I was confronted with occasionally recurring symptoms that, though never medically diagnosed, appeared to be colitis. Each time the symptoms developed, I gained quick relief through the prayers of a Christian Science practitioner. But the problem persisted.

One evening when my distress seemed acute, my husband asked, ''Have you noticed that this problem comes up every time you're preparing to speak in public?''

I realized he was right. Then I began to reconsider my needs - not so much now in the press for temporary relief as in a deeper desire for permanent healing.

I loved my work. But I did feel a bit out of my element in fulfilling the occasional speaking assignments that related to it.

Now I rethought this point in the light of Christ Jesus' teaching and practice. The Master certainly understood - and what is more he proved - that man's abilities are not of personal origin to build up or to bungle but have their source in God, divine Mind. Referring to the true idea of man's sonship with God, which includes all of us, Jesus declared, ''The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.''n2

n2 John 5:19

Suddenly it hit me that all real functions belong to God and remain in His keeping. My prayer shifted from petition to praise. Rightly identifying true being and doing as God's work purified my motives, changed my attitude, and freed even the physical functioning of my body. I was permanently healed.

If joy and a feeling of accomplishment don't seem built into our jobs, we can still claim the ever-presence of these amenities as springing from God, infinite good, and so feel their effects. Work, in the truest sense, neither magnifies nor minimizes self but glorifies God in quiet, calm reflection. Mary Baker Eddy , the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes, ''Every function of the real man is governed by the divine Mind.''n3

n3 Science and Health with Key to the Scripturesm p. 151.

Christian Science presents health as more than just the medical or mental suppression of disability or inability. Health signals the demonstrated presence of God. Its marks are unfeigned joy and spiritual freedom.

Prayer in Christian Science spiritually awakens us to realize what God and His offspring have always been - perfect, vital, dynamic. Unremittingly accepting the supremacy of God, omniactive good, renovates our attitudes and restores right action.

We can be happy in our work - not just because we have a favorite assignment to do, but because man's full reflection of God's qualities and abilities makes every right activity right down our alley. DAILY BIBLE VERSE It is God which worketh to do of his good pleasure. Philippians 2:13