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Deep sanity

Today’s column explores how to find spiritual poise, calm, and clarity in the midst of life’s storms.

  • By Joni Overton-Jung

Christian Science Perspective audio edition
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I have a wonderful friend whom I call every once in a while to say, “Just calling for a sanity check,” and that’s usually enough to get us both laughing.

Those chats are times to be reminded of what I know is really true – right where the stirrings, swirlings, and information hurtling from all directions seem to be.

They’re a reminder to hang in there, anchor deep from a spiritual vantage point, and listen patiently for the quiet, relentless voice of God, divine Truth, whispering, nudging, and assuring.

Listening then gives way to inner clarity: feeling the peace, comfort, and safety of divine Love; and the certainty that infinite Love alone is the only true source of real thought. If a thought isn’t joyful, kind, or peaceful, it’s not really us, not part of what we truly are as the very spiritual expression of God, whose unending love vanquishes discouragement and anger.

In “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, speaks of “the calm, strong currents of true spirituality,” manifested in health and purity, deepening the human experience (p. 99).

O to feel those constant, quiet currents steadying us while the world heaves and swirls! And to discover the present, spiritual poise and calm that helps still any storms – first within, then rippling out into the world.

At a time when I felt as though I was drowning in darkness and depression, a quiet message began to emerge in my thinking, saying, “You are not these thoughts; these thoughts are not you.” And with that message came a deep stillness, a beginning of seeing my way clear. And, ultimately, lasting freedom from that depression.

This poem by Allison Phinney (Christian Science Sentinel, Jan. 19 & 26, 2009) encapsulates this experience perfectly:

I can tell you this …
not my wisdom –
others have told it –
Daniel, the Psalmist,
Jacob, Stephen.

When the darkness comes down
like an Arctic night, the
daylight’s squeezed out,
supposedly nothing to know,
some angel comes, says,
“O man greatly beloved,”
pulls you up from your knees.

You don’t even have to see
a dawn, a change of times or
season, the real
sings again in you – in spite of
reasons – just God’s
light not gone, but there,
and more than ever
everywhere.

Adapted from an article published in the Aug. 2, 2012, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.

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