Undeniable access
A Christian Science perspective on daily life.
"Access" means "freedom to enter or obtain," and often implies the need to remove obstacles. People across the world want access to so many of the same things – to clean water, sufficient food, good schools, honest information, reliable healthcare, and an overall secure life.
The demand for access hints at a spiritual reality – the right to know what St. Paul called "the things that are freely given to us of God" (I Cor. 2:12). Because we're creations of divine Spirit, we're entitled to spiritual consciousness – the awareness that God is supreme at every moment and in every situation. Access to this consciousness can't be denied by governments, disasters, or any circumstances.
As otherworldly as spiritual consciousness may sound, a glimmer of it can have very practical effects. Take the story of Doris Cuxun, who grew up poor in Guatemala. Despite her mother's counsel to give up her dreams, Ms. Cuxun found a faith that taught her she had God-given talents and helped her start her own business. Explaining her rise out of poverty, she said, "God made me feel that I was worth something" (The Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 17, 2007).
Everyone has spiritual sense! Striving to know God and do good gives access to a law of good that is always present. The Apostle Paul took a bold stand against exclusionary practices in his time, clearly affirming that Jesus had made a relationship with a loving God possible not only for his fellow Jews, but for all people: "For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father" (Eph. 2:18).
To insiders and outsiders, the powerful and the oppressed, Jesus offered a better life through Christ, the spiritual idea of divine Love, that can permeate our lives as it did his. By proof after proof of Love's power to release people from suffering, Jesus showed that evil has no authority in the kingdom of heaven, which he announced was available to all to experience now.
How do we gain access to this kingdom of spiritual consciousness when our material tendencies appear so ingrained? Mary Baker Eddy found the answer in what she called "a knowledge of the Science of being" – a study and practice of the nature of God that results in transformation and healing. She said that knowledge of this Science "develops the latent abilities and possibilities of man. It extends the atmosphere of thought, giving mortals access to broader and higher realms" ("Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," p. 128).
Science and Health explains that we're not hopeless sinners or victims, but spiritual beings continually existing as God's image. Learning that Truth is Spirit and totally good begins to undermine our fears that material and evil conditions are final. It energizes us to reject verdicts that peace can't come in certain places, or that natural resources are ruined forever, or that there are incurable conditions. God is omnipotent everywhere, and innate spiritual sense gives everyone access to the power that Jesus drew on to overcome what isn't God-like.
However daunting a material obstacle, it's still only a point of view. Being conscious of "broader and higher realms" than matter, Jesus saw no obstacle to stopping a storm, escaping a mob bent on murder, or healing people instantly. Easter reminds us that even death wasn't an obstacle to the Christ-consciousness. His own understanding of his immortal spiritual life raised Jesus from the grave.
There's nothing more important to do for the world than continue our efforts to live the Science of being. According to divine promise, all who commit to God-likeness, even those whose lives look permanently damaged, will find fulfillment: "I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off" (Isa. 56:5).
The everlasting name of every child, woman, man, and creature is the image of Spirit. So we have free access to all good.
Adapted from an editorial in The Christian Science Journal.