A little black-bordered letter, telling its tale of grief and loss, dropped into the lap of the recipient. With a strong desire that she might send back a message of comfort and cheer instead of adding the burden of mere human sympathy to the sorrow of her friends, she sat looking out of the window and opening her heart to the allness of Life as understood in Christian Science. Suddenly a bird came into sight, then turned and flew straight away from the window. Swift and sure was its flight. The watcher at the window saw it rapidly lessen to a speck and then vanish into the bright depths of the morning sky. Looking into that calm and sunny blue, there came a quick glimpse of the immeasurable reaches of infinity, and the pitiful inadequacy of material sense.
The bright bird had disappeared, but what had happened? To him there had been no change; he had not really been blotted out against that far blue; he was still winging his way straight to his goal. The difficulty lay wholly with the one who had been watching him. Her sense of sight was so limited it could follow the bird only to a certain point and could not find him beyond that point. She knew very well that an observer with a pair of field glasses might still have been able to view the bird.
Interpreting this illustration spiritually she could gain some faint perception of the fact that when our friends seem to pass from our sight, it is only a deceptive appearance produced by our limited, material view of things. At this point there came into mind the experience of the three disciples, when Jesus was transfigured before them, and they perceived Moses and Elias talking with him. Was it not his understanding of the spiritual reality which dispelled for these disciples the unreal barriers of time and space with which material sense would limit vision? Was it not through his pure spiritual discernment that they were able to see Moses and Elias where they really are—and where all God's children really are—in the now and here of the eternal Mind? The human sense, clouded with its belief of personal loss, may cry out that it was easy for the disciples to obtain this glimpse of spiritual reality with Christ Jesus to help them. We know, however, that it was not his body of "flesh and blood" which served to uplift the disciples' thought, but that it was his spiritual identity, his likeness to God. This individuality never died, never departed. Although the fleshly body disappeared, our Master said, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."
