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| Eva-Maria with dear friends on a hike |
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| Eva-Maria |
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| image by Gisbert Rentmeister |
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| image by E-M |
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| painting by Eva-Maria Our true identity, loved and practiced, gives us spiritual strength and to overcome fear, sin—i.e., any irreverence for good. |
Innocence—man's true
heritage
He cried bitterly. He had been caught stealing. At the police
station, the boy spoke of his childhood: When his mother went to the outdoor
market, she balanced a basket on her head and carried him in a pouch on her
back. Passing stands piled high with food, she would bend down to look at some
items. That's when the little boy picked up whatever he fancied and threw it
into the basket. Unaware, his mother paid only for the food she had selected. The
child's wrong behavior was not corrected and continued as he grew up. He
excused it because he was poor.
When I heard of this incident, I knew how important it was for
the boy to acknowledge his wrongdoing and not to repeat it. But I thought,
"Didn't his tears speak of his rebellion against dishonesty? Didn't his
spiritual innocence call out to be recognized?"
The Bible tells of an occasion when tears especially signaled a
deep yearning for change. Luke reports that Christ Jesus was a guest in the
house of a Pharisee, called Simon. "And, behold, a woman in the city,
which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's
house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him
weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the
hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the
ointment" ( 7:37, 38).
Commenting on this event in Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy
raises the question "Did Jesus spurn the woman? ... No! He regarded her
compassionately." Further on Mrs. Eddy asks, "Had she repented and
reformed, and did his insight detect this unspoken moral uprising?" ( p. 363).
The Master's purity enabled him to see what others did not, and he could say to
her, "Thy sins are forgiven" ( Luke 7:48).
The Science of Christ brings to light man's true nature as
innocent—as the spiritual idea of the one pure Mind, God. This real identity,
loved and practiced, gives one spiritual strength and to overcome fear,
sin—any irreverence for good. An insight into our spiritual nature initiates
moral transformation by denying evil a base of operation—and so begins to
regenerate thought and life. We recognize infinite Mind as the exclusive cause
of man therefore as the source of his purity. We realize that because Mind's
innocence is by reflection man's innocence, man's innocence is intact.
Humanity's struggle to be free from evil, and yearning for something better,
testify to the inherent innocence of man.
Man as God's image and likeness couldn't any more be guilty of sin
sickness than could God Himself. God's man is the unblemished, conscious
expression of Love. And unconditional Love doesn't withhold from man a capacity
for good; pure goodness is man's heritage. As God's offspring, man is the
evidence of flawless good.
Mankind's desire to cleanse itself of disbelief in innocence can
be answered through obedience to God's law as found in the Ten Commandments.
This obedience abates strife and unites and strengthens families, neighbors,
and nations. Individuals discover that the most natural place for them to
be—where they find peace and safety—is in Mind's innocence.
As a child, I learned to listen to the ever-present prompting of
innocence. . . . . Our neighbor,
for instance, had a garden. I would go to help her with chores, and the dear
woman would reward me with a slice of bread and jam. But on one occasion she
forgot. On the way home, hungry and disappointed, I decided to go back to
remind her. Walking into the open house, I looked for her in the kitchen, and
through the window I could see her working in her garden. As I was about to leave, I spotted on a
shelf a row of jars filled with jam.
After a moment of hesitation, I jumped up on a chair, took down a jar,
opened it and with one hand filled my mouth with the sweet, sticky jam.
The pain of hunger I had felt before was nothing in comparison
with the misery and shame I felt then. Returning home, crying all the way, I
forgave the woman for her oversight, and I knew that never again would I find
an excuse to be dishonest. Even so, it wasn't easy to go back the next day and
tell the neighbor that it was I who had put my fingers into her jar. She didn't
make a big fuss, wasn't angry or harsh. In fact, from then on whenever I did
some work for her, she would share her meals with me, and sometimes she would
bring my family a basket of vegetables, eggs, and some bread. Seeing the
incident more clearly now, I realize I learned a bit more of the sustaining
power of Truth . . . that
innocence is present before we may even be aware of it. As we claim our purity,
we find that divine Love gives spiritual riches that take care of all human
needs.
As we feel the reassuring, healing presence of divine Love, the
erroneous, material sense of self gives way to a spiritual understanding of
man's God-derived nature. To demonstrate our spiritual innocence requires moral
courage, and it means honoring God and acknowledging Him as fully in control of
our life. Realizing that Love's irresistible power and purity are governing our
thought, we will practice our spiritual innocence and uphold the innocence of
our fellowman as the spotless image and likeness of God.
Eva-Maria Hogrefe
An excerpt from EMH's article in the May 29, 1995
issue of the Christian Science Sentinel
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. ...
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew
a right spirit within me.
Psalms 51:7, 10
The
Lions and I
Those of prejudice minds were persuaded
To throw me into a lion’s den--a calculated
Torment by unscrupulous men—to make me
Fear a cruel and damaging blight.
But innocence my natural state, a faith
In God’s control, and in Truth’s
Destruction of evil designs—the kind of certainties
Daniel * had, that biblical visionary man
Who knew, God would send His angel
To shut the lions’ mouths, this spiritual insight
Was his strength, as it is mine through Christ.
Daniel resisted devilish abuses, and so do I. It
Freed him, and frees me too, as I let not hungry
Lions me pursue but live in indefinable Mind.
DANIEL 6
--Eva-Maria
My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions’
mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocence was found
in me . . .
– The
Bible, Daniel 6:22
Jonathan Swift
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| Garwhal Himalaya |
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| Valley of the Flowers in the Himalayas |
If you believe in
and practice wrong
knowingly,
you can at once
change your course
and do right.
--Mary
Baker Eddy
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| an excerpt from an oil painting by Eva-Maria |
Yet, not
understanding one’s good intention, in some way or at some step in one’s
efforts to help another, as a general rule, one will be blamed for all that is
not right but this must not deter us from doing our duty [our best], whatever else
may appear, and at whatever cost.
--Mary Baker Eddy
With love,
Eva-Maria
