A Student of Christian Science was a passenger on a transcontinental plane. He was resting, half asleep, when he was awakened by the voice of the pilot, announcing over the loud-speaker that if the passengers would look down to their left, they would see Memphis, Tennessee, on the banks of the Mississippi River. With great expectancy the student looked down to his left, but was disappointed to see nothing but miles of patchwork fields—no river and no city.
He began to reason, "The pilot would never have announced such a spectacle unless it was there. I am sure that I was not fully asleep and just dreaming that I heard the pilot's invitation."
Suddenly, as he reasoned, the answer came to him: "My point of view is wrong. I am sitting with my back to the pilot, and therefore I am in a reverse position from most of the passengers. I must look to my right in order to see what the others are seeing." He crossed the forward compartment, looked down to his right and saw the winding river and the city.
The student began to ponder the lesson in what had just occurred. He first thought of the fishermen who were catching nothing and were queried by Jesus, "Children, have ye any meat?" (John 21: 5.) When they answered in the negative, he said to them, "Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find." The result of their obedience was that they were not able to draw the net "for the multitude of fishes."
The familiar Bible account took on new meaning for the student. He realized that Jesus was not telling his disciples how to catch fish but how to change their point of view so that spiritual qualities would be evidenced in their experiences.
The student thought of some of his previous experiences when he had looked in the direction of matter for a physical healing but had found no relief until he had turned to Spirit as Christian Science had taught him to do.
He thought of how he had tried to remedy lack by seeking to earn more money and of how lack had not been overcome until his gaze had turned in the direction of the divine economy. There gratitude, expectancy, joy, and hope—all of which are spiritual—provided for him what he really needed.
He was reminded of how he had tried to work out problems without the aid of Christian Science by attempting to make adjustments where the problem seemed to be. There are many who are trying this same approach and finding it futile. He thought: "What if I had not changed my point of view when I looked out of the plane and saw patchwork fields instead of river and city? How futile it would have been to have tried to rechannel the Mississippi River and rebuild Memphis upon its banks!"
He began to renew his gratitude for Christian Science. He was reawakened to the fact that God never changes, and he was grateful that he had learned this in his study of Christian Science. Just because he had looked where the city and river were not did not change the fact of where they were. All he needed to do was to change his point of view, and the fact became apparent.
Mrs. Eddy, in Science and Health, describes in clear language just how Christian Science is awakening those who study it to the infinite good which exists. She says (p. 264): "As mortals gain more correct views of God and man, multitudinous objects of creation, which before were invisible, will become visible. When we realize that Life is Spirit, never in nor of matter, this understanding will expand into self-completeness, finding all in God, good, and needing no other consciousness."
The writer's six-year-old son was climbing a tree one day at play. A branch broke under his hold, and he slipped toward the ground. As he did so, he caught at the main trunk of the tree with his bare arms, thus scratching them severely. He returned home in tears and could not seem to get himself under control. His mother placed him upon his bed and sat down beside him. The picture of the arm was as painful to him as was the injury, and soon it was agreed between mother and son to cover the arm with the clean sheet in order to keep it from their view.
At first these two Christian Scientists were caught in the error of talking about the accident, deciding its causes and wondering how it might have been avoided; but the pain and crying continued. Finally, the mother asked her son if he did not want her to call a Christian Science practitioner for help, and he consented.
As the mother left the room to make the call she could see a change taking place. This change was in the youngster's point of view, for he was declaring to himself that since God did not know of torn-up arms or of accidents, he did not either.
When the mother returned from making the call, the boy was sound asleep. When he awakened, there was no mention of the condition. In a week's time all evidence of it had disappeared.
Every time that we as Christian Scientists turn away from the material sense of existence to the spiritual, we are blessed. In contrasting our Lord's Last Supper and his last spiritual breakfast with his disciples, Mrs. Eddy says that Jesus' gloom had passed into glory and his disciples' grief into repentance. She goes on to say on page 35 of Science and Health: "Convinced of the fruitlessness of their toil in the dark and wakened by their Master's voice, they changed their methods, turned away from material things, and cast their net on the right side. Discerning Christ, Truth, anew on the shore of time, they were enabled to rise somewhat from mortal sensuousness, or the burial of mind in matter, into newness of life as Spirit."
Without the reminder of pain or sorrow, each of us can examine his approach to Christian Science and change it if it is wrong. He can classify as hopeless any approach based on matter and turn to the method based on Spirit, because this method is full of hope and is always rewarded with happiness. The simplicity of this is astonishing for, as in the case of the passenger on the plane and in the case of the young boy, the healing takes no longer that it takes to change our point of view from matter to Spirit.
