2. 487 : 27-1
The understanding that Life is God, Spirit, lengthens our days by strengthening our trust in the deathless reality of Life, its almightiness and immortality.
This faith relies upon an understood Principle. This Principle makes whole the diseased, and brings out the enduring and harmonious phases of things.
From Notes from a class as taught by Laura Sargent:
Understanding: This is substance. True substantiality is effulgent, translucent, non-resistant. This non-resistance of Spirit constitutes its irresistibility.
From the 1828 Webster’s:
Effulgent – Shining; bright; splendid; diffusing a flood of light;
Translucent – Transparent; clear.
Non-resistant – Making no resistance to power …
This idea of non-resistance being the key to understanding rings true to me. Being non-resistant to God is an active process, as far as I have learned here. In the time that I have been a member of this church, I have begun to put off the limitations I held due to identity, age, heredity, nationality, old theology, etc. At each stage, as I have learned to handle those claims, my usefulness for church has increased. The less I have fought God’s reality, the less I have felt lost and useless. The more I trust my spiritual sense, the more my life and work have been full of blessings. As I learn to put aside pride, imagination, and whatever else mortal mind would place in the way as resistance, Christian Science has felt clearer, and God nearer.
When I think back on how I was before Plainfield, I was practically all resistance! Not surprisingly, I had no understanding of God’s good creation, and my place in it.
I am so grateful for this Science, this church, and for regular practitioner support. What I have gained is, bit-by-bit, bringing “out the enduring and harmonious phases of things” that were happening all along, but only recently has become visible to me. Thank you!