The Unlimited Unfoldment of Holy Thoughts

                                           (By John Robert Howell)



Prudential Insurance, smartly co-opting a powerful Christian symbol, reassuringly offers us "a piece of the rock" (for a price of course).  As Christian Scientists we all would like our own comforting piece of the rock--Christ, Truth.  But do the specifics of how to individualize what can seem like solidly monolithic Truth get lost in a muzzy fog of timorousness and uncertainty?  How can one uniquely express infinite God?

We can start by realizing we express God's qualities.  A small piece of the rock has all the qualities of the whole rock, except, of course, size, but we are not trying to be God, but to reflect Him.  Nevertheless, when we get down to the nitty-gritty of our own individual expression, the vastness of the Original can be dauting and overwhelming.  We must then claim our oneness with infinite Mind, all-intelligence.  Doing that, even imperfectly, should enable us to realize that nothing can limit our ability to understand and express God.

Anton Diabelli, a music publisher and minor composer, sent to a number of contemporary composers a little waltz tune of his own composition, asking each to submit a variation on it, which he would collect from all and publish.  One of the composers he included was Beethoven.  At first the irasible genius disdained the publicity ploy and the trite waltz as well, calling it a "Schusterfleck", a mere cobbler's patch.  But even though he tossed it aside, the tune apparently gestated in that great musical mind, and the result was perhaps the finest set of variations ever written:  the 33 "Diabelli Variations", a 50-60 minute masterpiece.  My point, long in coming, is that if Beethoven can do this with a humble cobbler's patch to start with, shouldn't we be able to realize unlimited unfoldment in our own contemplation of God and the truths of Christian Science?  It can be done, and must be done if we are to put off the old man and demonstrate the complete spiritual selfhood of the new man.

If need be, we should see and think of ourselves as artists as well as Scientists.  Did not Mary Baker Eddy call all of us sculptors and if sculptors, then artists?  I quote:  "We are all sculptors, working at various forms, moulding and chiseling thought."  (page 248 of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures)  And as sculptors moulding and chiseling thought, I like to think of our working with the pliable in our consciousness as well as the resistant.

Mrs. Eddy continues on the same page:  "We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives.  Let unselfishness, goodness, mercy, justice, health, holiness, love -- the kingdom of heaven -- reign within us, and sin, disease, and death will diminish until they finally disappear."

We cannot be content to merely think about the truths that come to us, but we must wrestle with them like Jacob until our thought is blessed by an uplifting angel message.  With all we have in Christian Science, how can we entertain the slightest inertia or feeling of limitation?  There should scarcely seem enough hours in each day to ponder all the angel thoughts which our loving Father is sending to us continually.