The preponderance of medical thought

Yesterday, I received a glossy, professionally produced booklet in the mail from one of three hospitals in my community. No expense was spared in the production of this brochure.

As I glanced through the stories and figures included, I was stricken by how deeply embedded into my community fabric the activities of this hospital had become.

On top of the $245,000,000 in assets they own, and the large facilities and sponsored clinics being built near and far, they claim to serve 175,000 patients annually and have 1500 workers on their payroll. Many of these employees are highly paid professionals, hundreds being doctors and nurses.

My community is not very large! Richland has around 50,000 residents. The region boasts 175,000 residents or so, but there are two other hospitals nearly as large as this one in the area.

I am grateful for the care, love and interest the hospitals have in alleviating suffering and helping people find better health. My family certainly was blessed to use their services in the delivery of our children.

What alarmed me was the huge quantity and preponderance of community thought and attention being focused on seeking medical relief, as opposed to finding help through spiritual means.

Christian Science is all about finding strength, health and well being in Spirit. Faith in matter works against faith in Spirit. The student of Christian Science has to actively guard his or her thought from the influence of matter-based thinking to succeed in spiritual healing.

Mary Baker Eddy understood the downward pull of matter-based thinking and its detrimental effect on spiritual healing when she wrote,

The universal belief in physics weighs against the high and mighty truths of Christian metaphysics. This erroneous general belief, which sustains medicine and produces all medical results, works against Christian Science; and the percentage of power on the side of this Science must mightily outweigh the power of popular belief in order to heal a single case of disease.

With 1500 doctors, nurses, aides, and administrators daily working in my little city to promote and advocate medical procedures, prescriptions and methods for my neighbors, a student of Spirit-based healing may feel a bit out numbered!

But numbers mean nothing in Science. The number One is all that counts, and that means one God, one Mind, one power.

One with God is the majority. But to experience the spiritual benefits of being at-one with God, one must fervently and vigilantly defend his mental space from antagonistic intrusion and not be unwittingly or unconsciously pulled in the opposite faith-sapping direction. It can be a very subtle temptation to lose faith in Spirit because of feeling other people's faith in medicine all around.

"Come out and be separate," Paul counseled.

Christian Science is the best healthcare system on planet earth today!