Immune From Allergies

I well remember a day when one of my sons, who was unhappy with me for scolding him over his lack of attention to a third-grade assignment, sidled up to his mother and announced, "I think I'm allergic to my father!" Little did he realize he was using a word that would soon be in vogue everywhere as a lazy substitute for dislike.

But it has gone further. These days, weather forecasts aren't just for gardeners, sports enthusiasts, and outdoor wedding planners. They're for everyone who has been persuaded to watch out for such things as the pollen count, mold spores, extremes of temperature, and potentially damaging rays of sun. And allergy watching is not just weather-related or seasonal; it has spilled over into what people eat, wear, and even sleep on.

No wonder a columnist for The Times of London recently felt compelled to share the medical statistic that 40 percent of British schoolchildren now suffer from allergies of one kind or another (excluding feelings about their parents!). But he did suggest that most statistics are open to misinterpretation, and that epidemics can be misunderstood. He even went so far as to say that allergies might be the current medical vogue, with nations developing collective allergies.

One suspects that most people would like to break out of this fear that they can be the victims of so many hidden invaders that can rob them of their health and harmony. Christian Science, which is anchored in the Bible, emphasizes the need to acknowledge that God, all-powerful Spirit, is the only cause, the only creator. And that all God's creation, including man and woman, is forever maintained by Him in a perfect, harmonious, spiritual state of being.

Nothing in God's creation is unlike Him. Nothing can irritate or be irritated. We cannot be subject to prevailing theories opposed to these facts, and suffer bad consequences, when we admit only God-based thoughts into our consciousness. Through this action of prayer alone, many people have been healed of allergies and of the fear of developing them.

Christ Jesus practiced this spiritual healing. The Bible shows he was never intimidated by or indifferent to illness, or to the fears that produce it. He was the master of them because he understood their basic falsity, their lack of connection to our real identity as the sons and daughters of God, created perfect and exempt from disease of any kind.

We can overcome fear and false belief, too, when we are aware of the facts of being, which can be defined as the laws of God. These laws were demonstrated by Jesus, and later explained by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of this newspaper. She wrote: "Let us feel the divine energy of Spirit, bringing us into newness of life and recognizing no mortal nor material power as able to destroy. Let us rejoice that we are subject to the divine 'powers that be.' Such is the true Science of being. Any other theory of Life, or God, is delusive and mythological" (Pg. 249).

The "divine powers" could be thought of as God's presence and healing power. No one wants to be deluded by believing in any other so-called power. We should be responsive only to "the divine energy of Spirit" - God - and rejoice in the physical renewal that is the result of improved, spiritualized, thought.

Although it seems otherwise, our bodies are fundamentally states of consciousness. The longer we entertain a sense of our environment as merely material, the longer we'll feel trapped in a material concept of who we are. But as thought becomes spiritualized, we'll see the universe as it really is - Godlike - and discern more and more our spiritual identity, immune from even the slightest hint of allergy or sensitivity. False concepts and unjustifiable fears are replaced by spiritual facts. Error is corrected with spiritual truth, and discord is replaced with harmony. We discover the incorruptible and eternal substance of our being. Such knowing identifies us with our divine source.

Why, with such understanding we might even sneeze at the suggestion that as God's image we could be anything but fearless and healthy!

Articles like this one appear in 13 different language editions of the magazine The Herald of Christian Science.