Editorials

A friend of mine, experiencing severe pain, called for help from a Christian Science practitioner in the early hours one morning. My friend is a Christian Scientist, and the help she was seeking was prayer.

LEADING THOUGHT INTO THE 21ST CENTURY "We have it within us to be splendid, Dan Rather. " These were the closing words of poet Maya Angelou as she was being interviewed by the CBS news anchor a couple of days prior to the inauguration of President Clinton.

Quite obviously, if a person went around with a bushel basket on his head, the world would seem pretty dark! But who would do such a thing? It may be a twist on Christ Jesus' intended message to think of a person putting a basket over his or her head, but that's a picture that has presented itself to my thought. Of course, when Jesus said, "Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house," he was talking about his followers being "the light of the world,"   Matt.

My friend faces a dilemma every Sunday morning and Wednesday evening. Should he go to church—or to Newbury Street? Now, Newbury Street is a charming, one-of-a-kind street that many people think is the heartbeat of Boston's Back Bay.

Many people speak rather casually about immortality, as though the word rolled off the tongue as easily as an order for tomato soup. It goes without question that philosophers have long mused upon the subject.

I recall an instance, during my sophomore year in high school, when I became frustrated because I didn't think God had responded to my prayer. It was shortly after some friends had asked me if I wanted to attend a football game and I had to decline the invitation because I had no money at the time.

God is divine Love; and this Love is all-embracing, always present, consistently providing for its vast creation, including man. This basic truth remains fundamental to the teaching and practice of Christian Science, which demonstrates that Love's creation is, as a verse in the Christian Science Hymnal rejoices, "cared for, watched over, beloved and protected.

"Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. " Rom.

A friend of mine was raised in a family of six children. But she said she never felt, while she was growing up, that her mother was too busy to take a keen interest in her life or to help her find a solution to a problem.

A new year, like the next chapter of a story, isn't supposed to be more of the same. There's an expectancy, or at least a hope, that the days ahead will somehow be different; that they'll actually be better.