"Press on, press on, ye sons of light"

                                          (By John Robert Howell)


        An understanding of basic mathematics (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) will satisfy the daily needs of most of mankind.  But one would have to be daffy to expect these basic skills alone would somehow carry him through to a degree in quantum physics.  So it is with the understanding of a few basic truths in Christian Science.  Mrs. Eddy tells us that Truth is so powerful that even a small understanding of it will produce salutary results, but what many of us need to oppose and overcome is the all-too-human desire to loiter in the placid vale of a few familiar and comforting truths because we have a chicken in the pot, a comfortable sofa, and our bills paid.

        Those aspiring to achieve "awakening" in Zen Buddhism take it for granted that long hours of meditation are essential.  Christian Scientists must see the parallel need of unrelenting prayer for themselves, their neighbor, and the world.  Because the sincere and honest Scientist is less caught up in the web of materiality than most people and because he knows something of Truth, his life is doubtless less stressed by the aggressive mental suggestions of mortal mind, but if he is not vigilant he can vegetate in the delusion that a dime's worth of prayer will always result in a dollar's worth of blessing.

        The ante needs to be upped, and greatly so.  Our understanding of the metaphors, parables, and truths that provided growth and support at an earlier stage of our experience needs to be deepened and transformed, else our thoughts become little more than ossified comforts like insects imprisoned in amber.  Psalms, Christ Jesus' sayings and parables, and the writings of Mrs. Eddy are a most welcome refuge and comfort, but we can't graze peacefully beside the still waters forever.  We must grow spiritually and Scientifically and increase our spiritual sense of Truth--if necessary, by geometric strides, not just arithmetic babysteps.

        Some might employ that tired old cliche, "we need to think outside the box".  The brilliant idea of adding stages to a rocket, which solved the problem of getting heavy objects into the earth's orbit and even out of earth's gravitational pull, was thinking outside the box for sure, but the genius required to do it was still an extension, however complex, of existing rocket technology.  What is needed is that a completely new mental state be experienced, a putting off of the old man and a putting on of the new and learning more and more what that means metaphysically.

        It is not a process of somehow doing a better job of mentalizing familiar metaphors, parables, and truths, piling them up into a multi-stage rocket, which may really be nothing more than raising the extension on one's mental ladder a few rungs.  What is needed is ever new and fresh levels of thought, ongoing revelations of Truth.  It takes--and how loath some of us are to give it--hours of quiet prayer, the kind of prayer Mrs. Eddy teaches us in "Prayer" in Science and Health.  But if we are humble, trustful, patient, and diligent we can achieve glorious experiences such as the woman in that wonderful testimony in "Fruitage" in Science and Health ("Born Again", pp. 667-69).  Christ Jesus, Paul, and Mary Baker Eddy aren't bad exemplars either.