To the mentally ill whose daily existence seesaws between boredom and the agony of nagging fear, the promise of complete healing may seem incredible. But Jesus said, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."1 The God who is omnipotent Love waits to bless each one of us with a tenderness unspeakable. Such Love is worth getting to know. We know and actually feel this healing Love when we learn to see ourselves as God has made us—in His image, the very likeness of Spirit, not matter. When we realize this truth of our identity, we find freedom from mental anguish.
"It is impossible to lose your mind!"
These startling words were spoken to me by a Christian Science practitioner following a disturbing medical verdict by three doctors who had reviewed my case. I was a night fighter pilot in the United States Marine Corps. My record to this point showed a promising aviation career in both Canadian and United States forces, as well as with a major commercial airline. And now here I was, a complete washout, mentally and physically a wreck. Of thirteen pilots who had returned with me to American forces following Pearl Harbor, one other was left alive.
One minute I was fearful I'd be the next to go and, the minute after, that I'd survive with the memory of it all. The United States Navy Medical Board commented simply, "Prolonged periods of stressful duty without relief," and diagnosed my case, "Operational fatigue, psychoneurosis." Not only was my aviation career over, but I was told I'd never be able to earn a gainful living again. I was to be supported by a government pension the rest of my life.
To be told by a Christian Scientist at this point that God's love for me could completely set aside this official medical judgment seemed a cruel joke. I was pondering suicide as a possible relief from mental agony beyond description. But the practitioner's calm, confident assurance persisted, "God is Mind. There is only one God, one Mind, and you cannot lose your mind because you cannot lose your God."
A flicker of hope crossed my thought, though at first I could not conceive of a love so great as to overlook the life I had been living. I was certain God had forsaken me because I had forsaken Him. The world had gone mad in its violence, and I seemed about to join it. But the practitioner spoke of God's great love for me and gently pointed to Jesus' illustration of the unlimited nature of Love in the parable of the prodigal son. He also went over the twenty-third and ninety-first Psalms with me, calling attention to the ever-present love of God for His son. The love and compassion of this wonderful practitioner so touched me that I promised I would study the parable and these psalms carefully.
Each day I walked some distance into the woods near the Naval hospital and sat on a log to read from the little vest-pocket books (the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy) The Mother Church had given me when I joined the service. I hadn't spent much time with them, because I felt my problem was much too real to be solved by books. Now, in my extremity, and guided by Love's touch, I read and pondered the parable of the prodigal son, line upon line. It was as though the very hand of Love reached out to steady me.
"Just imagine!" I thought. "Here was a man whose thinking had taken him so low that he was eating with the swine. And yet 'when he came to himself,'2 none of that had any power to hold him!"
I began to come to myself, too, to realize that man is the spiritual son of God, and that the belief in life as material had been the source of all my trouble. I began to see that matter or material circumstances could not control God, who is Life, so it could not in any way control me, His spiritual image and likeness. Thinking still of the prodigal, I saw the result of his awakened thought, his decision to return to his father, and his father's running to receive his son—joyfully, without condemnation! I wept with joy. A feeling of release and a calm and buoyant peace flooded over me for the first time in two years.
For several days after that, I walked into the woods to sit and read from the Bible and from Science and Health. I was deeply impressed by the account of Christ Jesus' telling the materially successful Nicodemus he must be born again in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. How desperately I had been clinging to a material concept of life, here today, gone tomorrow! In Science and Health I read: "Every agony of mortal error helps error to destroy error, and so aids the apprehension of immortal Truth. This is the new birth going on hourly, by which men may entertain angels, the true ideas of God, the spiritual sense of being."3 It was apparent to me I was experiencing a rebirth of the unchangeable sonship and dominion God had given me. It was exhilarating to consider God and my identity in the words of Job: "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee."4
For escape, I had taken up heavy drinking; now the desire for strong drink was gone. Drugs had been given me regularly so that I could eat and sleep; now I stopped taking them, and sleep came naturally. "When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet."5 Within weeks the medical decision was reversed. Because the war had ended during the same period, I was simply allowed to resign my commission and return home. I joined a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, and continued to grow—free, except for a monthly pension check.
That check started to arrive when the United States Veterans Administration reviewed my medical history and decided I must be declared at least partially disabled. The money seemed very helpful to a young veteran with a wife and small child. But then, to my dismay, the nightmares and mental anguish began to return! Back to the books I went. Like airway beacons Mrs. Eddy's words stood out: "Only through radical reliance on Truth can scientific healing power be realized."6
"Radical reliance"! These words spurred me to mental and then physical action. I went to the offices of the Veterans' Administration and firmly stated I had been healed in Christian Science. Since I was no longer a disabled veteran, I requested the pension cease at once. The authorities were very kind, though it was apparent they had not had a situation like this before. I signed some forms and left. The old devil, mental dis-ease, left too.
That was twenty-seven years ago. My mental and emotional faculties have been such that I progressed steadily up the executive ladder of a major corporation for eighteen years, and later served as chief executive of another national organization. I have worked strenuously over long periods and on difficult assignments throughout the world. I have passed comprehensive medical examinations for insurance and for a civilian pilot's license without any difficulty.
"You have simply to preserve a scientific, positive sense of unity with your divine source," writes Mrs. Eddy, "and daily demonstrate this."7 This blessed woman demonstrated the truth of this statement in her lifework, discovering and founding Christian Science, which enables any sincere seeker of Truth to work out his freedom from even the most desperate limitation or distress. The weekly Lesson-Sermon presented in the Christian Science Quarterly and including correlative passages from the Bible and Science and Health shows the way each day.
When one comes to realize that God, Spirit, divine Mind, alone is Life, and that matter simply has no life, no mind to surrender, then one is no longer impressed by the physical event called death. Actually, Life goes on unaffected, because Life is God, Mind, and one cannot lose one's Mind or Life because one cannot lose God. One's goal is not the indefinite maintenance of the human body but the definite maintenance of one's conscious spiritual identity as a son of God. This consciousness of one's true identity governs the entire bodily experience, and is the law of healing.
So there is an answer to the boredom and anguish of mental illness. There is an answer for everyone, whether it is the veteran just back from war or the man or woman who feels forgotten in the local mental hospital. Complete healing is always possible, and it can be worked out through Christian Science. "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."8