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The ‘eternal noon’ of existence

Sometimes it can seem that health is like a setting sun, diminishing as time goes by. Recognizing our immortal nature as God’s children opens the door to greater freedom and healing, regardless of where we are in life.

  • By Randal Craft

Christian Science Perspective audio edition
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I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at a clock the same way again. It happened a day or two after the shift away from daylight saving time took place, when all clocks were supposed to be set back an hour. I was in my office and noticed a clock on the wall that hadn’t been changed yet and that showed the time to be about noon.

This got me thinking about the concept of an “eternal noon.” It’s an idea from the textbook of Christian Science, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mary Baker Eddy, who founded the Monitor. She writes: “The measurement of life by solar years robs youth and gives ugliness to age. The radiant sun of virtue and truth coexists with being. Manhood is its eternal noon, undimmed by a declining sun” (p. 246).

Christian Science, based on Christ Jesus’ teachings, explains that we’re made in the likeness of God, Spirit, and therefore immortal – eternally free of any material measurement of time. That is to say, the passing of time can’t dictate the condition or quality of God’s man – you and me – because we are truly spiritual, not material.

So, true manhood and womanhood are always at “eternal noon.” We forever express God’s ageless qualities of goodness, perfection, wisdom, beauty, and holiness. This spiritual nature is never subject to the passing of time depicted by a setting sun. And through prayer we can each prove something of our true being at “eternal noon” in God.

At one point, I pulled a muscle in my arm. A fellow I was talking with one day said something like, “You can expect to go through those kinds of things as you get older, and they are harder to overcome.” Well, I mentally affirmed right away that this was not true about any of us as the perfect, spiritual offspring of God. No limitations, including age-related ones, can ever affect our true being.

There is a decision we all need to make: to accept a limited, material, aging view of ourselves and others, or to acknowledge our eternal, spiritual identity as God’s offspring. I chose the latter and prayed to God, affirming my immortal, uninjured, painless identity, never susceptible to physical issues associated with states and stages of mortal life. Nothing about our real selfhood can ever deviate from our Godlikeness, because we are created as the expression of divine goodness and perfection, not as material beings.

As I continued to pray along those lines, I felt confident that healing of my arm would take place. And that’s what happened. It seemed so natural to find that I was totally free of the condition, and I was truly grateful.

Now I always leave one of my office clocks set at noon. It has come to serve as an ongoing reminder of our eternal, spiritual being in God.

If life presents us with issues that seem age-related, we can maintain a higher, spiritual perspective about ourselves as immortal and ageless – always at “eternal noon” in God – and experience the healing that results. As Mrs. Eddy states: “Life and goodness are immortal. Let us then shape our views of existence into loveliness, freshness, and continuity, rather than into age and blight” (Science and Health, p. 246).

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