I have faced each day anew after good study and prayer, but it just seemed that not enough progress was occurring. But then one day the idea of dropping “mental swaddling clothes”, progress taking off “human shackles”, and the “perpetual demand of Truth and Love”, opened up in a new way.  

This time, however, I clearly saw that it was an aggressive mental suggestion trying to take over my thought, rather than a physical reaction inevitably taking over my body.

I was asked to teach a class of five teenagers in the Sunday School of the Christian Science Society in Kigali for a few weeks.  I shared the reference on p. 63, of Science and Health with them.  “In Science man is the offspring of Spirit. The beautiful, good, and pure constitute his ancestry...Spirit is his primitive and ultimate source of being; God is his Father, and Life is the law of his being.” 

It felt like I was in a shark feeding frenzy - and I was the bait. And equally as shocking was that there was no defense from my niece. I withdrew from the site, and from her mentally. I shut her and her friends out of my heart. But over the years, I did pray on the situation - seeking to forgive. And there was softening but I still mentally held my niece at “arms length” and felt a distinct divide.

Recently, my neighbor invited me to a birthday dinner.  That afternoon I started having chest pains and thought I couldn’t possibly make it and if I did I certainly couldn’t eat anything.  So, I thought about my kind neighbor and how she was looking forward to this special dinner with her husband, another neighbor and myself for a long time.  I started to rethink what was the truth in this situation – what was really going on.  

I love the true sense of creation that waits on God and works to perceive and understand what He has already done—and seeing “that it was good”.  Science and Health, by Mary Baker Eddy states, “The Scriptures are definite on this point, declaring that His work was finished, nothing is new to God, and that it was good.” (SH 206:22)

This chapter woke me up. I remembered that I am perfect. When someone asks me how I am, and that happens daily with business contacts, I have the opportunity to declare what is true, if not out loud at least to myself, that I am perfect. Reading and studying the chapter has renewed me.

Reading through this chapter, I can recall so many of the ideas which have been demonstrated in my life – for instance, “Would existence without personal friends be to you a blank?” (SH 266:6) 

When I think about creation as it relates to “now” I think about being an idea pioneer.  The ideas are already complete I just need to discover them! 

Next we read about body (and putting this off) and I love the inclusion of the story of the actor (p. 261).  My notes about this part of the chapter: “speaking about the body thoroughly and forgetting about it!”  Then a focus on good and its value, availability and our willingness to strive for it (SH 261:32-5).

"Creation" has long been my favorite chapter in the textbook, Science and Health, by Mrs. Eddy, which is saying a lot considering that the book as a whole is the "final revelation" of Truth.

How do I let go of what my eyes claim they see, what my ears hear? The only way I know is to acknowledge, and work to further understand, what I have seen in glimpses and heard in fragments thus far. What I have been given to perceive in the midst of an ongoing, unfolding struggle to let go of what claims to be our material sense of God's creation.

The chapter is leading and demanding the way to a better understanding of the infiniteness of God, and to limitless Mind and its limitless idea.

Are these little things? Yes. But the light of beauty that breaks through in thought during our walks is definitely not little. It’s like Love preparing a table before us, feeding us, in the presence of enemies.

It is difficult to state this impression in my “own words” without pulling quotations from the text. Mrs. Eddy firmly denounces outdated doctrines, refutes the concept of a personal Trinity, declares that man is spiritual, and that matter is a false belief. Repeatedly we are told to “rise higher” and “rise above” materiality – to leave material consciousness for spiritual Truth and its healing power.