Seeing ourselves as God made us

Have you ever dreamed that you could fly, where you have the ability to take off, soar over and look down on scenes below?  I had such a dream recently and it was quite wonderful.  I could move sideways and up and down.  I could push myself off the ground and shoot into the air as if I had a personal rocket strapped to my back.

This dream, together with inspiration from the weekly Bible Lesson on “Substance”, helped shine some light on the area of human disability and dysfunction.  The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 mandated that buildings, public transportation, housing, employment – sectors that had previously been mostly inaccessible - would need to be made accessible to those with disabilities, that accommodations would need to be made for their needs.  This act raised awareness in the rest of society of the obstacles and challenges faced by those who could not move about freely and independently, which was a good thing.  Such awareness can be a double-edged sword, however, allowing entrance into thought of the notion that disability is a fact that can limit being or action, for others or ourselves.  For me, there has been some acceptance that there will be a gradual loss of mobility as one ages or that joints may be stiff and painful.

In Christian Science, as the lesson on “Substance” made clear, we are learning to see ourselves as God made us – painless and free, unencumbered by what the material senses might report about our bodies or minds.  From Science and Health, these sentences were striking:  “It is a false supposition, the notion that there is real substance-matter, the opposite of Spirit” (p. 278) and “Substance is that which is eternal and incapable of discord and decay” (p. 468).

Neither Christ Jesus nor Mary Baker Eddy accepted disability when they encountered it.  Both of these great healers met claims of paralysis, insanity, deformity, blindness, even death, with absolute confidence, knowing that the power of God, Spirit, was fully capable of rectifying and restoring what seemed to be abnormal or absent functioning (see the gospel of Luke, chapters 5, 7, 8, 13, and 18 and Mary Baker Eddy, Christian Healer, index, pages 610-613). 

Since, as we learn through our study and practice of Christian Science, our outward experience mirrors what we hold in consciousness, I’ve realized that what I accept about others, I’m accepting about myself and that what I affirm for myself, I’m affirming for everyone.  To be a Christian disciple and healer means continuously acknowledging limitless being as the spiritual fact for everyone.

Issues of an aging or disabled body - or a violence-prone, out of control world - are set aside with the realization that we are capable of soaring above and beyond the limitations of human sense and reasoning, denying and defying whatever would suggest that we are less than the perfect reflections of perfect Mind, God:  harmonious, peaceful, blessed.

Marilyn McPherson