Being Good

In Retrospection and Introspection, page 86, Mary Baker Eddy writes, “There is but one way of doing good, and that is to do it! There is but one way of being good, and that is to be good!” One of the great lessons I have been learning at Plainfield is what it means to do and be good, based on the Bible and the teachings of Mrs. Eddy.

One day in preparing for a Plainfield class, I happened to look up the word “good” in Webster’s 1828 dictionary and found the following: “honest, uncorrupted, valuable, useful, moral, right, benevolent, kind, highest worth, perfect, beneficial, virtue, firm, not weak, complete, opposed to wicked, wholesome, faithful, fidelity, wise, calm, abundance, satisfied.”

For years I have struggled with the concept of what it means to be good. Reading this definition made me realize that it was how I defined the word that caused me confusion and problems. I thought that what I had to do to be “good” and be “nice” was to please the people around me. It often felt like an impossible task and left me exhausted and unhappy because it demanded me to be compliant, conceal the truth, tolerate errors, not wanting to “rock the boat,” and to allow wrong to rule the right, suppress feelings, and to conform to others’ demands. I found it hard to say no, and pride made me fear making mistakes. I realized that not one of those qualities is in the definition of “good.” Actually, I was not being “good” at all, according to the true meaning.

This false sense of doing good led to a state of self-deception, believing I was good when I wasn’t; and this state of thinking has been hard to break through. What I was doing became a human effort at goodness rather than godlike consciousness. I am learning if I would abide in good, I must do more than long for or strive to attain it with human will or blind faith. I am learning that this is not personal characteristics, dependent upon my mortal moral fiber that is fighting against evil. Rather it is to gain a love for good by obeying God’s laws and removing all that is in the way of pleasing God.

I see now I was on an impossible mission in trying to be “good” by human effort and standards. It has been a relief to be learning that only God is good. By getting a better understanding of the Bible and Mrs. Eddy’s writings, it is helping me learn how to live a life of integrity and how to reflect God’s goodness by relying on Him to direct my actions.