Closing those doorways into matter

Nate Talbot | from The Christian Science Journal

Matter just isn’t what it used to be! Or so we might believe, in light of evolving views within the world of physics. It wasn’t that long ago we were all taught that matter was a fairly substantial thing.

Recently, while talking with a physicist in England, I was confronted with the casual comment that matter is more a mathematical probability than simply the thing that looks and feels so definite. And then a friend in California who is an astrophysicist explained that when I push against the wall, well, I haven’t really made contact with something solid. I’m just getting a little push back from some resisting electrons. And of course, quantum physics raises questions about just how much of a role the observer may actually be playing when he thinks he is seeing an independent object across the room!

OK, maybe matter isn’t what we always assumed. But I’ll bet these guys, who are redefining what we’ve all felt pretty sure about over the last couple of hundred thousand years, pull those material covers up to their chins on a cold winter night, just like I do! And like the rest of us, they will depend on what seems a fairly substantial spoon when having a bowl of soup.

Most folks assume we’re stuck in a world of matter.

And yet I’m not really a believer in matter. In fact, from a very elementary perspective, I don’t believe that matter is authentic substance at all. Most folks accept the view that we’ve all been born into matter. And because of the original actions of our parents, we assume we’re more or less stuck in a body of matter, and even a world of matter, until we die out of it.

Some time ago I offered the view in a Christian Science Journal editorial (“Withdraw your consent,” January 1982) that we ourselves may be more responsible than our parents for being born into matter. After these many years now, I’m even more convinced. Maybe it’s because my doubts about the reality of matter have grown. And because they’ve grown alongside my conviction that Spirit, instead, is substance.

The way Christ Jesus destroyed conditions of matter, such as disease, has certainly given me pause about mindlessly accepting matter’s reality. After all, is it actually possible to destroy reality? Jesus surely destroyed disease. Mary Baker Eddy has come to my rescue, explaining in her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures that Jesus destroyed false beliefs about reality instead of reality itself. He destroyed the belief that disease was reality. And ultimately, he destroyed the belief that matter itself was his reality. In fact, I believe he ultimately proved that real and lasting substance is always spiritual instead of material.

Jesus no longer viewed himself as material.

This understanding brought him out of the grave. And soon after, it moved him into a different kind of reality. What the Bible calls his ascension means to me that he was so spiritually-minded, a material perspective could no longer recognize him. A matter-based view held by those around him could see only a material sense of substance, and Jesus no longer viewed himself that way.

This scientific thinker, who understood true sonship with God, didn’t stop existing. But those who didn’t keep up with his immense spirituality lost sight of him. He just didn’t think of himself as a mortal. And matter is a form of mortality. He saw himself from the standpoint of life or immortality, instead of mortality or death. It’s like St. Paul’s description of what mortality and immortality, life and death, are really telling us when he said that to be spiritually-minded is life and to be materially-minded is death (see Rom. 8:6). Jesus relinquished all material-mindedness, while others held on to it.

So, what does all this have to do with us today? A lot, I believe. To the extent we relinquish material-mindedness, we are, in effect, refusing to enter into matter—yes, we are even refusing a kind of ongoing birth into matter. To the extent we live spiritual-mindedness, we are entering into Spirit. It’s a kind of rebirth or discovery of our true light.

Matter is a way of viewing things.

For me, it’s too simplistic to say that our parents brought us into a thing called a body of matter. Matter isn’t so much a thing as it is a way of viewing things. It’s a “darker,” less enlightened way of seeing reality. Materialistic mentality is made up not only of hopes and aspirations, but also of doubts and fears, ignorance and anger, hopelessness and resentment. Such a mixture of thought is the substance of a matter- or mortality-based sense of existence. There is a dimness to this view, and finally it flickers out. A more spiritual mentality, made up purely of innocence and goodness, joy and affection, peace and justice, illustrates permanent substance, the life and immortality Paul was referring to. It is the glow we find throughout the Bible.

In a sense, we make daily,even moment-by-moment, decisions about whether to enter into less light, into matter—that is, being birthed into discord and limitation. All through the Bible, and in the most profound sense in the life of Christ Jesus, we are being taught how to avoid marching through those doorways of matter. The Sermon on the Mount (see Matt., chaps. 5–7) is filled with wonderful examples that show us how to avoid a material way of thinking about existence—a restricted, vulnerable, and imperfect way.

Resist ways of thinking that draw us into matter.

For example, when Jesus instructs us not to react—to turn the other cheek—he is helping us resist a way of thinking that would draw us into matter, that is, into mortality, imperfection. Pause and reconsider before you enter! When he calls on us not to look on someone with lust, he’s alerting us to another dangerous doorway, just as frustration, grief,apathy, or envy are various portals. This material mentality or mortal-mindedness can sometimes be alluring, enticing, even beautifully compelling, yet it always leads us down the pathway of defining our identity as matter. But when Jesus reminds us to be perfect as God is perfect, he is pointing to a threshold of Spirit.

John’s revelation of the Christ light is so reassuring, “I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it” (Rev. 3:8). Jesus proved, both symbolically and literally, that matter could not stand in his way when he walked through closed doors before his ascension (see John 20:19, 26). For him, matter didn’t even have the substance of electrons that, for us, may offer to push back.

We avoid a measure of death when we choose spiritual-mindedness.

Matter-based concepts such as birth and death are generally seen in a far too superficial way. We can be birthed a little bit into mortality every time we decide to enter a darkened doorway. On the other hand, we are avoiding a measure of death as we choose a more divinely lit vestibule, spiritual-mindedness, instead of material-mindedness.

Matter isn’t really the substance we suppose it is. Mrs. Eddy grasped the very heart of matter by describing it as “a false form of mind” (Unity of Good, p. 32). Christ Jesus called on us to repent, to change our thought. Have you ever considered repenting of matter? That could be a call to change from a false, or materialistic, way of thinking to a spiritual, or God inspired, way of seeing life and existence.

As we close off those corridors of thought that lead right into matter, we’ll find ourselves increasingly conscious of a matterless, but far more concrete and permanent, reality. We’re discovering that materiality wasn’t reality after all. A mistake about reality? An illusion of reality? From an entirely Spirit-based reality, matter isn’t any of these. It isn’t any kind of reality. In other words, from a fully awakened, infinite, perfect, and spiritual consciousness, there never is a limited, discordant, matter-based reality.

Christ Jesus showed us the way. His life was the Way. We can, step by step, close off those darkened doorways into matter and walk into the light, a kind of daily rebirth that shows us who we really are, spiritual and always the child of God.