Marching to Music

SOLDIERS have said that during long marches weariness has suddenly given place to strength as the band sounded forth its martial music, and they have marched on unconscious of the body.

Is not our daily activity the “march we have been called to take; and if at times it seems wearisome or long, may it not be that our ears are not attuned to the glorious music of a mighty purpose? The body glows with new health when the tones of selfless service resound through consciousness. It is a help to ask one’s self: Am I just marching, or am I marching to music—just doing my work as my duty, or seeing it as a glad opportunity to bless, and claiming inspiration and strength in the doing?

Those who are not finding new and higher ways to accomplish their work are but expressing mere motion, are just dragging their feet instead of marching to the triumphant music of Life. He who allows his work to seem an irksome problem and his thoughts to revolve around it in finite circles is becoming localized and materialized. While he who sees his work in its true relation to humanity identifies his thinking with the spiritual, the universal, the eternal. He it is who joins in the wondrous chorus of world-workers as he marches. He teaches by example; for those who watch him, turn to their work with new gratitude and zeal.

We sometimes see men who are not marching to music, because they believe that their work or their circumstances are hard, or, perchance, unbearable; and self-pity blurs their eyes and prevents them from seeing the morning star, and from hearing the Christ whispering, “Be of good cheer;” “It is I; be not afraid.”

During the World War a certain soldier proved that there is no place where God is not present to inspire, invigorate, and sustain consciousness. At the time his only shelter was a cold and muddy dugout, which was under fire. Here he wrote a letter to his friends at home. After describing the terrific sounds of the bombs as they exploded near him, he added: “Have not a moment’s sympathy. I would not change places with any one in this world, for I am where duty brought me.” He was marching to the sublime music of humanity’s freedom; and to him his place was glorious. We have the same holy aim. Then why should our place seem less illumined?

How thought is quickened when one sees either child or adult marching to music! A little boy of six years was asked by his father to bring his slippers to him each night when he returned from business. The child obeyed, but not willingly. Then came a Sunday when this little lad attended a Christian Science Sunday School and there caught the real spirit of service. On returning home he ran eagerly for the slippers, and with his face just glowing with love placed them by his father’s side exclaiming, through his smiles, “There, Daddy, that was doing it as God would have me do it.” A glorious lesson taught by a child instructor! We all have slippers to carry. Sometimes we carry them in self-pity, sometimes in the attitude of martyrdom, sometimes burdened with responsibility, and sometimes—we just carry them. But when we carry them as God would have us, a song of love rises from the heart that makes rare music in the earth.

How frozen sound the words “my duty” when spoken by self-righteous lips; and how warmed with the sunlight of divine Love are the words “my privilege,” uttered by the man of vision as he works! Of him Mrs. Eddy writes in her Message to The Mother Church for 1900 (p. 3): “The right thinker and worker does his best, and does the thinking for the ages. No hand that feels not his help, no heart his comfort.”

If our thought drops from the inspirational to the commonplace, how quickly our march seems hard, and how ordinary and uninspiring our work! But in a moment everything changes if we but rouse ourselves from the mesmeric rut and respond to the heavenly diapason of thanksgiving. How new our work appears when we keep time with such music! Every thought vibrates with its gladness. Monotony gives place to spontaneity and freshness, and we exclaim with our Leader (ibid., p. 2), “The song of Christian Science is, ‘Work—work—work—watch and pray.’ “

He who has heard the call to keep step with Life’s mighty anthem refuses to get out of step by thinking, Why should I have so much to contend with? He knows that he has a sublime and glorious reason for marching on in the courage and strength of Truth. He owes it to himself, and he owes it to humanity, thus to march; and he refuses to be halted by self-love. His acts are under the shelter of omnipotence; and he claims the support of the Almighty as he marches.

“How can I march to music?” asks the one striving to gain his healing through Christian Science from that which the doctors pronounce incurable; adding, “This idea holds nothing for me.” Oh, but it does; for the grander the incentive that inspires endeavor, the sooner will the bonds be loosed! He who seeks freedom for himself alone has a self-bound outlook, which causes him to hug his fetters. He is easily discouraged, wastes much time in thinking or asking, When shall I be healed? and watches body more than the perfection and presence of God. Thus he responds to the jarring discords of sense instead of to the healing concords of Soul; while he who has a bigger motive realizes that the illegitimate yoke of bondage which is holding him is likewise binding millions who, born of God, inherit as does he the very strength and wholeness of the Father. For their sakes he arouses his thinking to claim his heritage; for their sakes he exclaims, “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.”

Such a one marches to the health-giving strains of Love. Behold the results! He can understand the textbook of Christian Science, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mary Baker Eddy, because he studies it through the lens of universal love. Inspired by its divine message, he denounces with God-bestowed dominion the rights of disease, and silently proclaims man’s unity with limitless, fetterless Mind. Each “Oh dear!” is changed to “Dear God, present, available.” Each listless “When?” becomes a triumphant “Now is the accepted time.” Self-love, stubbornness, and disease in all its forms give way. The holy thing is done. He has felt the touch of the healing Christ and leaped into liberty, while his heart was marching to the sublime strains of humanity’s redemption.

In moments of darkened thought, when dear ones have passed from sight, we have sometimes heard the heart sob: “I am now alone in the world. I have no one for whom to live and work.” Then Christian Science whispers: “Awake! You are in your Father’s household, though you know it not. On every side are your relatives, sisters and brothers who need your tenderness, your faith, your courage, and your help. For them, live and work and pray.” The hour becomes a bridal one; for, at the altar of Love divine, affection clothed in heavenly white is wedded to humanity. The mists are lifted; the teardrops now reflect the glory of eternal morn, and holy purpose crowns the thought with bliss.

No one can truly say that he is faithful to his duty or is doing his part unless he recognizes, as he works, that only joyous service is acceptable to Him of whom the Scripture says, “He will joy over thee with singing.” To reflect, then, our joyous creator, we must manifest the songfulness, the vitality, the animation of Spirit as we work, until love becomes the substance of the service, whatever it may be.

When evil suggestions present either the froth of attraction or the fury of antagonism, he is doing a mighty thing who holds so unswervingly to his course that he can say, as did Nehemiah, “I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?”

He who has enlisted as a Christian Scientist has pledged his time, his love, his every thought to holy warfare, even the destruction of sin, disease, and darkness. He lives for a world, and refuses to be benumbed by lesser aims. As he maintains the spiritual facts that heal and resurrect, he says, as did our Master, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” And in such work he finds his satisfaction and his paradise. He that so lives to purify and bless is constantly renewed as he thinks of her who discovered the Science of Christianity. When cruel stones of misrepresentation, hate, and revenge were hurled at Mrs. Eddy, she could hear above the tumult, because her heart was beating for mankind, the holy strains of victorious Love; and with her hand in God’s, she marched on alone with steadfast step—and lo! the race was lifted up. He who follows in her selfless way cooperates with boundless being, and draws humanity nearer to the Christ. He honors God as he marches on, responding to the angelic chorus which those purified of self have heard in every age.