Gaining a balance

A TIGHTROPE walker knows the importance of achieving and maintaining a balance. Human existence seems like a balancing act sometimes. The struggle to balance income and outgo, business life and home life, physical needs and spiritual desires, may result in a feeling of pressure or inadequacy. Parents may struggle with the challenge of expressing love while exercising discipline. Young people may face the challenge of how to maintain standards without losing friendships. And nations face the quandary of how to work toward peace while defending themselves against the threat of war. World concern over such matters as trade balance is reflected in individual concern over achieving a right balance in one's own life. This Christian demand for living, as expressed by the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, is helpful in relation to the subject: ``I will love, if another hates. I will gain a balance on the side of good, my true being.'' 1 Our true being, as the reflection of God, Spirit, Love, is always on the side of infinite good, and there is, in truth, no other side. The infinite excludes whatever is unlike itself. It is the privilege and duty of each of us to more fully demonstrate that balance in every area of our lives. A life weighed on the side of good, on the side of Spirit, God, naturally includes the harmony native to man as God's image. In reality, God's creation, including man, is spiritual, perfectly maintained, eternally held in God's infinite goodness. Man reflects the order and equipoise of the one perfect Principle, the symmetry of infinite Soul. Human experience, however, often presents a decided picture of imbalance. In today's society we often see business men or women working under pressure, allowing their work to crowd everything else out of their lives--family, friends, spiritual pursuits. And, on the other hand, we see in dividuals with too much leisure time at their disposal, bored with frivolous pursuits. ``Animal magnetism''--the specific term Christian Science uses to describe the aggressive nature of evil--would like to keep us perpetually off balance, overly involved in some things and neglectful of others. It would crowd out of our lives time for prayer, spiritual study and instruction, church activity, and other progressive pursuits. Or, it would keep us overly absorbed in the letter of divine law but neglectful of its practice and of the spirit of Christianity. But when confronted with the healing

and redeeming action of divine Truth, animal magnetism is proved to be without power or substance. Christ Jesus certainly demonstrated dominion over evil's temptations. His example showed the importance of a balance between prayerful contemplation of the letter of truth and the loving application of divine law to meet the human need. When he went up to the mountaintop to pray, he returned to share his inspiration with his disciples and those in need of healing. He went into the wilderness to commune with God, and then resumed his healing ministry amid the city throngs. The term ``Christian Science'' implies a balance between the Christlike quali ties of love and the order of divine law. Mrs. Eddy writes: ``Christian Science demands both law and gospel, in order to demonstrate healing, and I have taught them both in its demonstration, and with signs following. They are a unit in restoring the equipoise of mind and body, and balancing man's account with his Maker. The sequence proves that strict adherence to one is inadequate to compensate for the absence of the other, since both constitute the divine law of healing.'' 2 Bringing balance into one's activities with everything in proper proportion may require both discipline and a willingness to be flexible. It may involve an honest reappraisal of priorities and a recognition of the value of loving one's self as well as one's neighbor. But what a wonderful feeling to gain a balance--a right balance on ``the side of good,'' our ``true being.'' 1 Miscellaneous Writings, p. 104. 2 Ibid., p. 65.{et