One Universal Journey

All mankind is believed to be taking the same journey. Material sense says it is a journey from the cradle to the grave; and all are supposed to have similar experiences along the way, some pleasant, some otherwise—but generally otherwise! The journey is said to be an inevitable one, although it is believed that all have entered upon it without their own consent, and are being carried along its pathway, willy-nilly, without the right or ability to say or do anything in refutation of certain demands that men are taught they cannot and should not understand. Ignorance is the one companion always in evidence, and there is much stumbling in the blindness that ignorance always induces.

How different is the universal journey of which Christian Science speaks! This journey is, to be sure, inevitable, since all must sooner or later take it. It, however, immediately begins to blot out belief in the one which material sense talks about, for it is exactly the reverse of the latter. This journey which Christian Science reveals leads from death to Life, from the ignorant, lying arguments of a temporal existence in matter, attended constantly by evil and its outrageous claims, to the intelligent understanding of unending life in God, who is Life itself, where good and good alone exists. Christian Scientists welcome with joy the possibilities of turning from a journey so closely entwined with evil to one which they know is to lead them continually into closer association with good. They know that Jesus traversed the entire distance in a glorious, triumphant manner, and that his whole journey was marked by blessing not only to himself but to all with whom he came in contact.

On this pathway from sense to Soul, instead of the shadows and darkness cast by ignorance, there is always the light of revelation, the light which divine intelligence sheds all along the way. This light first of all reveals the one perfect goal—the goal of universal good and of man’s perfect unity therewith. In “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” (p. 426) our Leader writes: “The discoverer of Christian Science finds the path less difficult when she has the high goal always before her thoughts, than when she counts her footsteps in endeavoring to reach it. When the destination is desirable, expectation speeds our progress.”

Mrs. Eddy was so divinely wise that she never failed to keep her gaze fixed on the goal of perfect good, which she knew must be won for all men. She herself obeyed the God-inspired instruction which she gives us in Science and Health (p. 492): “For right reasoning there should be but one fact before the thought, namely, spiritual existence. In reality there is no other existence, since Life cannot be united to its unlikeness, mortality.” “But one fact before the thought, namely, spiritual existence”! And this spiritual existence is all good! This is the light which is to illumine all our pathway. This is the truth which, if demonstrated every step of the way, will make clear the solution of every problem—will prove that “the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth.” What freedom, what peace, comes with just the thought of it!

Our necessity, then, is to walk continuously with God, good; to keep the possibilities of good ever before our thought; to see that we can reach our goal only through knowing and proving the omnipotence and omnipresence of good. This demands that we relinquish the lies which tell us of a life separate from God, good; that we drop every earth weight and silence every human belief.

Another wonderful thing about this goal is that we never have to go anywhere in order to reach it. It is always at hand! There is no going or coming in this heavenward journey, since all good is always right here. As the Psalmist said: “If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.” All the attempts to run away from error, all the efforts to seek good in some other place, will never advance us an iota on our journey. Our journey must be traveled by the demonstrations we make of the power of good to vanquish evil, by our own proving the nothingness of evil and the all-inclusiveness of God, good. As our beloved Leader tells us in Science and Health (p. 192), “The good you do and embody gives you the only power obtainable.” This individual proving of man’s unity with God, good, is therefore the one universal journey.