Comfort in times of grief
Michelle Nanouche | from the Christian Science Sentinel
Beyond mere coping, Christian Science shows a way out of grief and death here and now.
Beyond mere coping, Christian Science shows a way out of grief, devastation, and death. This applies to us all. We are created by God, who is divine Life itself.
In her primary work, theologian and Christian Science healer Mary Baker Eddy explained: “Man is immortal, and the body cannot die, because matter has no life to surrender. The human concepts named matter, death, disease, sickness, and sin are all that can be destroyed” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 426). Prayer that exchanges the human notion of one’s vulnerability for a greater understanding of this spiritual reality brings to light that we and our loved ones are immortal and free from risk.
In order to prevent or surmount grief, we have to understand that death is an illusion.
In order to prevent or surmount grief, we have to understand that death is an illusion. This is something I became more deeply aware of on a recent transatlantic flight. I’d been shaken from a deep sleep by turbulence. Soon it became jolting, and I heard odd noises coming from the plane. I turned to the window when my grandmotherly seatmate told her daughter, in the seat behind us, that the lights on the wing had gone totally black. There were more strange sounds, and the general atmosphere became charged with fear. Then the plane suddenly descended. We were near Iceland, I figured, and doing an emergency landing, but the plane keeled hard. It seemed we were going down fast. Everything was chaotic around me. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and felt the intense pull of gravity.
Three things flashed into thought as I prayed: First, that God was my Life; therefore, my individual expression of life, consciousness, and identity was eternal. Next, I hoped my husband and daughter wouldn’t be crushed by unnecessary grief; I felt glad that I’d often told them I loved them, because that expression of love lasts forever. Last, I thought of the first line of the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father which art in heaven,” and realized that regardless of the circumstances, my family and I and everyone on board that plane were already in heaven—the spiritual consciousness of good. We were safe with God. However this situation played out, nothing was going to change that eternal fact.
Then I opened my eyes. The grandmotherly lady was, in fact, not next to me but sitting in the seat behind me next to her daughter, reading a book. My own seatmate was dozing. The plane was moving forward, steadily and smoothly. It took me a moment to realize that I’d been sleeping the entire time. The turbulence, noise, and intense fear had all been part of a dream.
That experience has become a profound illustration to me of death’s illusion. “Death is but another phase of the dream that existence can be material,” says Science and Health. “Nothing can interfere with the harmony of being nor end the existence of man in Science” (Science and Health, p. 427). My “near-death” experience had been a dream. Yet, unlike my usual ephemeral dreams, this one had been so vivid that it stayed with me—not the fear, but the three points of my prayer.
Because we reflect the Life that is God, our true being is spiritual and indestructible.
Christian Science provides insight into the spiritual truth that arms us to defeat, through spiritual understanding, what the Apostle Paul called “the last enemy.” The Scriptures point to the eternity and safety found in God, who is divine Life: “O bless our God, ye people, and make the voice of his praise to be heard: which holdeth our soul in life, and suffereth not our feet to be moved” (Ps. 66:8, 9). Because we reflect the Life that is God, our true being is spiritual and indestructible. Real identity is completely spiritual, never at risk of dying or disappearing. On the contrary, matter is both destructive and destructible, which precludes it from having any part in the allness of Life. The material body isn’t the holder or controller of life. Christian Science demonstrates that “mortals have a very imperfect sense of the spiritual man and of the infinite range of his thought. To him belongs eternal Life. Never born and never dying, it were impossible for man, under the government of God in eternal Science, to fall from his high estate” (Science and Health, p. 258).
Mortality refers to limitation, destructibility, pain, sin, sickness, vulnerability, grief, and death. Not an actual state or condition of man, mortality involves a limited perspective of humanity, springing from the misunderstanding that God made a flawed and finite creation. The mortal illusion misstates our indestructible existence as the image of God (see Gen. 1:27). Our real existence is a spiritual reflection of the gentleness, compassion, and strength of divine Love; the substance, presence, joy, and vitality of divine Life; the intelligence, support, innocence, and invulnerability of divine Mind.
So, the material sense of anyone’s life as ending in death is from first to last a limited view of his or her actual uninterrupted expression of the Life that is God.
Christian Science reveals humanity’s ability to come out from under the dream of death. It teaches the prayer that looks beyond the material illusion of existence, full of starts and stops, to see divine Life as all that we can manifest. This is the understanding that ends grief.
The Christ, the divine message of good from God, can touch the heart with lasting comfort and healing.
I remember a particular day soon after my first husband had passed on. I was driving, and usually I felt free at such times to let loose feelings of sadness and loneliness. Consequently, I often had a private cry out on the road where no one could bother me or try to help. When we’re passing through the deep waters of grief, words—however well intentioned, compassionate, and true—can sometimes be tough to take, particularly if we’re questioning our own faith in God. But there comes a point in our grief when we long to reach beyond fear, pain, or sharp remembrances, to feel that good can’t really be lost. At such moments, the Christ, the divine message of good from God, can touch the heart with lasting comfort and healing.
That day, as I began to slide into that familiar grief-stricken blur, a tender thought came: I could certainly cry if I wanted. But it was time to deal with the belief that death had taken control of my life. This wasn’t an appeal to simply buck up. It was a spiritual turning point for me. It was an invitation to let go of the dream of death as a stopping point for life and love—mine or anyone else’s.
I appreciated that I could continue to cry if I wanted. And in fact, I did cry. But when the tears dried, I realized that this was the last time I’d do it. I was willing to “grow on”—to be awakened to the reality that God was Life, and that therefore my husband’s existence and mine were indestructible. I didn’t need to foster the illusion anymore that he’d lost life and I’d lost love. Divine Life, through the Christ-message, was talking to me right there in my car.
Everyone has spiritual sense—the built-in capacity to understand God and experience heaven, or spiritual reality, right here.
Mary Baker Eddy wrote: “Through spiritual sense you can discern the heart of divinity, and thus begin to comprehend in Science the generic term man. Man is not absorbed in Deity, and man cannot lose his individuality, for he reflects eternal Life; nor is he an isolated, solitary idea, for he represents infinite Mind, the sum of all substance” (Science and Health, pp. 258–259). Everyone has spiritual sense—the built-in capacity to understand God and experience heaven, or spiritual reality, right here. This is true no matter what we face. Spiritual sense isn’t a special talent for a limited few. If you’ve ever been moved by the splendor of a sunset, the sudden spray of ocean mist across your face, or the giggle of a baby, you’ve felt the irresistible pull to open yourself to something simply and profoundly good. These are small evidences of the Christ-power.
Not everyone is dealing with death or grief every day. But we all have a contribution to make by seeing our fellow men and women as spiritually sensitive enough to feel the presence of heaven, to hear the voice of the Christ, the promised Comforter, right where they are. This is prayer, and it is powerful.
“The ‘still, small voice’ of scientific thought reaches over continent and ocean to the globe’s remotest bound,” wrote Mrs. Eddy. “The inaudible voice of Truth is, to the human mind, ‘as when a lion roareth.’ It is heard in the desert and in dark places of fear” (Science and Health, p. 559). The voice of the Comforter is heard when we sleep. It is felt when we are awake. There is absolute hope of overcoming grief and death here and now. The spiritual understanding of divine Life leads us out of the mire of suffering and loss to the joy of unlimited being, full of love and free from risk.
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