“Creation continues and does not stop, because the source is unconfined.”

(1) What do you feel the word creation implies?
When thinking of the word creation, I have often thought of creativity in the arts, or of innovation. Thinking of these in terms of the first story of Creation in the Bible, it is clear that ideas come from God, from divine Mind. These ideas from Mind reflect the full scope of Life and Love, of Truth, unsullied by an opposite assumption. Creation continues and does not stop, because the source is unconfined by shape, form, matter or time. This is a big implication, but one which makes more sense to me than seeing creation confined to material objects or persons.

(2) In your own words describe your impressions of the chapter “Creation” in Science and Health.
I love and appreciate the placement of the short chapter "Creation" between the two big chapters, "Footsteps of Truth" and "Science of Being".  In reading it and living with it these last couple of months, it has been amazing to recognize how many familiar, strong statements that support practice and healing are in this chapter. At the beginning of this week, with the lesson on "Matter," I thought this would be a likely lesson to include references from this chapter.  I looked through the whole lesson, and found the two final statements from Science and Health were from this little gem of a chapter.

It was particularly moving to me to find how much several passages have come to mean to me over decades. As a teenager, when I told a practitioner I really wanted to learn more about the real man, she turned me to learning more about God: "We know no more of man as the true divine image and likeness, than we know of God." (SH 258:16)

(3) How can the increased understanding of true creation make a difference in your life?  Better yet, share with us how the truth of creation has been, or is being, demonstrated in your life.
Learning the way in Christian Science has become a focus of my practice, not just repeating phrases, but feeling the essential truth that comes from knowing God, Mind as the Creator of all, that the "fading, finite forms” of matter do not lead to God, even when they seem so real. The realness of "the permanent facts and their perfection" is not just theory.  (SH, p. 264)  Witnessing to the way these "permanent facts" appear has been helping me to continue learning the way in Christian Science. Here are some recent examples of what has been encouraging: a quick healing of a nagging cough, felt to be part of the patient's personal history (it had gone on for several days, and the healing came overnight); ribs broken in a fall restored within a week; impaired hearing became clear; mental confusion abated; quieting of pain and fear; income deficit and unemployment reversed for a woman and her husband; several healings of young children followed by uninhibited exclamations of joy and gratitude — from me, too.

I have also been learning and seeing the truth of what Mrs. Eddy writes in the last paragraph of the chapter, recognizing that "inverted thoughts and erroneous beliefs must be counterfeits of Truth… and by reversal, errors serve as waymarks to the one Mind, in which all error disappears in celestial Truth." (SH 267:19-25)  That final statement from James is encouraging. If I have to endure temptation, let me overcome it; if I must be "tried," let me be "proved faithful."(see SH 267:28)  Lots to do!