The light of infinite good
As a child in school I was much impressed by the old story in a school reader about the sun. According to the story, one day the sun heard a great commotion on earth and came down to see what it was all about. He was told by the animals that one of them had found a very dark cave. When the sun asked what dark is, they said he only needed to look in the cave and he would find out. But of course as soon as the sun looked in, the cave became as light as day.
From brief periods of attendance at a Christian Science Sunday School I had learned that God is wholly good. Later I came to see more clearly that this truth rules evil out altogether, for God is the only authentic creator. God, divine Love, could not create man subject to evil - to sin, sickness, poverty, failure, or fear. When through prayer and childlike trust in God we begin to awake from these dark dreams (and that's precisely what they are), we can find peace and healing in the light of infinite good.
To sophisticated, worldly thinking this may seem puzzling, and the question may arise, If God is infinite good, how did evil get started? Christ Jesus proved by curing all kinds of evils that, in truth, it didn't. If God had created these evils or permitted them to exist, the Master could not have annulled them.
We can learn to annul them, too. As we begin to understand evil's unreality in God's sight, questions about its origin grow fewer. We come to see that there really is no evil to question about - only the supposition of a power opposed to God, infinite good. Our faith in good and our understanding of its supremacy enable us to prove our God-given dominion over evil, whatever its manifestation.
The Bible says of God, ''Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity.'' n1 To God, the light of pure goodness must be everywhere and the darkness of evil nowhere. So to the real man made in His likeness - our actual selfhood at this moment - the darkness of evil must be nowhere. We can all begin to prove this, even if in small ways.
n1 Habakkuk 1:13.
When still quite young and inexperienced I was told to talk to a man about forthcoming work. On the telephone he was gruff and faultfinding, and the prospect seemed a bit terrifying. Opening Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, n2 I read, ''Spiritual sense is a conscious, constant capacity to understand God.'' n3 For the first time I realized that I had this God-given capacity, as did everyone else. I realized that I could understand God and the goodness of man, made in His likeness. I was lifted above fear and discord, and the interview was both pleasant and helpful. Many problems , some much greater, were to be resolved in the years to come in this same light of infinite good.
n2 Mrs. Eddy is the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science.
n3 Science and Health, p. 209.
Each time we turn to God, divine Love, and find deliverance, even from small troubles, the light of spiritual sense becomes stronger to us and the great goodness of God more real. We have felt its power. Then when we look into the dark cave of some more serious trouble, it must fade away, too, as we see its illusory nature. So we find our way out of the darkness of false thinking into the expanding light of spiritual understanding.
In proportion as mankind progresses to see the basic unreality of evil in the face of God's allness, the manifestations of evil - fear, hate, disease, crime, war - will recede, and the light of infinite good will be more apparent. DAILY BIBLE VERSE Ye are all the children of light. I Thessalonians 5.5
