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Global TeamWhat is contagious is my gratitude for God
by Mark Swinney
People aren’t required to just mindlessly swallow all of the news reports, whether lately about the economy or, more recently, about contagion. That’s not a new concept. As a Christian Scientist I’m used to questioning what the news media is telling me and thinking about the underlying cause of a given situation.
Now there are lots of headlines about the swine flu. And I’ve been thinking about something Mary Baker Eddy wrote. She said, “At a time of contagious disease Christian Scientists endeavor to rise in consciousness to the true sense of the omnipotence of Life, Truth, and Love, and this great fact in Christian Science realized will stop a contagion” (My., p. 116).
You’ve heard people talk about how a person’s joy can be contagious. For me, what is contagious is my gratitude for God. I make no mistake about the fact that God is the only presence, the All-in-all, the only power—and, as a result, am deeply thankful. This gratitude is prayer and, because God’s law of good backs such prayer, its effects cover and bless the earth.
As an example, one time I had been working closely with several people, including two or three in the group who were suffering from a newer strain of flu. Because of my contact with them, I was all too familiar with their symptoms. After a few days I began to display identical symptoms. Some people even commented on this, telling me, “You don’t look well” and “Now you’ve got it, too.”
Instead of treating my incipient symptoms on a physical level, I took a cue from what I’d been reading in Science and Health and addressed my beliefs and opinions about this sickness. At that point I apparently believed, along with my friends, that this strain of flu was powerful, and that it was inevitable that I would be incapacitated.
Even though that was what I was believing at the moment, I knew from my exploration of the Bible and Science and Health, that neither God, nor what God creates (including the real, spiritual me), included flu. That sounds radical, maybe even strange, yet I didn’t feel that it was just some sort of philosophical or theoretical hypothesis out there in the distance. The presence of God and of God’s law of good was tangible to me, and I yielded to it. I allowed God’s power to overrule what I was believing about the progression of disease. And as I yielded to God, I felt myself recover at that moment. All symptoms disappeared immediately, and in the next few days, whenever I was reminded of that illness, I recalled what I’d perceived of God and of myself, God’s creation. There were no recurring symptoms. Best of all, that was the end of the flu for the whole group!
It’s so encouraging to know that people don’t have to be manacled to physicality and its laws. I love how it’s God’s power that annihilates debilitating thoughts and beliefs. It brings real and lasting freedom to us all.
Rae Says:
I like reading about your quick healing. But what about the people who died from this flu? What would you say to them? Or their families I guess.
Mark Swinney Says:
Thanks–I see your point. I think that that quick healing hints at something bigger than just a freedom from illness. It points me in the direction of seeing something of people’s completely spiritual identity. The more that I study the Bible and Science and Health, the more I’m realizing that every identity that God creates never is matter; it’s always idea. “The divine Mind, not matter, creates all identities, and they are forms of Mind, the ideas of Spirit apparent only as Mind, never as mindless matter nor the so-called material senses” (Science and Health, p. 505).
“There is but one creator and one creation. This creation consists of the unfolding of spiritual ideas and their identities, which are embraced in the infinite Mind and forever reflected. These ideas range from the infinitesimal to infinity, and the highest ideas are the sons and daughters of God” (Science and Health, p. 502).
I love this: everyone’s identity, no matter what, is “embraced in the infinite Mind and forever reflected.” That gives us all another thing for which to be deeply and humbly grateful.