DO we sometimes say, "I don't like the look of things"? The world presents us with many pictures which tempt us to believe that the things we are looking at are discordant and need changing, and to change them seems an impossible task. But if we put it a little differently and say, "I don't like the way I see things," we shall find the remedy within our grasp, for we have indicated that it is the way of seeing, and not the object seen, that needs changing.
The foundation on which Christian Science rests is the allness of God, Spirit, and the consequent nothingness of evil and matter. Since Spirit is All, there can be no material substance or law, and any sense of matter's actuality is only a mistaken sense of omnipresent Spirit. The vision which looks out from this basis is spiritual, seeing the infinitude of God, good. As we see only this realm of Spirit, our belief in matter and in a world of persons and things subject to time and space, and therefore to depletion and death, begins to yield to the actualities of spiritual being.
On page 428 of Science and Health, under the marginal heading "Vision opening," Mrs. Eddy writes, "A demonstration of the facts of Soul in Jesus' way resolves the dark visions of material sense into harmony and immortality." Today Christian Science is demonstrating the facts of Soul, the infinite, eternal source of spiritual being, independent of material sense and its limited, physical world. As thinking detaches itself from the fetters of time and place, an entirely different view of the universe opens up, an unfamiliar vision, inexplicable to thinking based on traditional beliefs and conventions.
During a recent vacation the writer visited an exhibition of modern art. As she stood before one of the pictures, enjoying the vigorous color and form, she heard this query put to the artist: "What is it meant to be?"
"It is not meant to be anything," he replied. "I paint what I really see."
This remark raised an arresting point: Why was the picture which had been revealed so clearly to the artist's vision not clear to the observer? What did the artist see that the observer did not see?
On her homeward journey a few days later the writer found the answer to this question. As she looked from her plane at the striking facade of the air terminal, every line depicting the soaring concept of flight, she was dismayed by a sudden change. Fascinated by the view, she had been unaware that the plane had left the ground, and she received a momentary impression that the beautiful curves were dissolving before her eyes. An instant later the picture lost its distortions, and there below her lay the airport with the symmetry of the building appearing from still another angle. The impressions changed rapidly, and she was left with a final harmonious blending, a picture resembling the one in the art gallery, free from the limitations or forms fixed by time and place.
As students of Christian Science we should ask ourselves the question, "What do we really see?" Material sense always starts by suggesting that the viewer is separate from the picture and then goes on to assert that this observer is a person with a circumscribed vision caught in an external universe. The demonstrations of Christ Jesus proved the fallacy of this claim. Because he understood the infinite nature of Soul, his viewpoint was unimpeded by the limitations of material sense. To the Pharisees, looking for the appearing of an external kingdom, he said (Luke 17: 20, 21), "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you."
The Master was not merely propounding a doctrine or philosophical theory; he was stating a fact, something that his daily actions exemplified. He was urging his listeners to replace material observation with spiritual perception, to stop regarding existence from within the mesmeric dream of person, place, and thing. The disciples, and the multitudes among whom he moved, saw pictures of limitation, disease, death; whereas his vision revealed the substance and activity of Truth.
The contrast in viewpoint is indicated in this passage in Science and Health (pp. 476, 477): "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick." The Scientist looks from the illimitable viewpoint of Soul with the scientific accuracy that transcends the deflections of material sense. The vision of the Christ can behold only reality.
Christ Jesus' constant identification of himself as the Son of God, one with the Father, made it possible for him to see only God's own likeness and brought the qualities of God into his experience.
A striking example of his recognition and demonstration of the facts of Soul, when others beheld dark visions of discomfort and lack, is found in the incident of the feeding of the five thousand, as related in the fourteenth chapter of Matthew. The desert place, the far-spent day, the hungry multitude, appeared as solid facts to the disciples, but the Master perceived a different picture. In the Saviour's vision the multitude was embraced with such love that all evidence of lack disappeared.
Neither time nor process was required for the manifestation of abundance; no penalties were imposed by an unproductive environment. "Send the multitude away, that they may . . . buy themselves victuals," said the disciples, overwhelmed by the material evidences of insufficiency. But the Saviour, perceiving the comfort and affluence of ever-present Love, commanded the people to sit down on the grass, and then these qualities were manifested in the concrete form of loaves and fishes to satisfy the immediate need.
Mrs. Eddy says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 373), "Neither material finesse, standpoint, nor perspective guides the infinite Mind and spiritual vision that should, does, guide His children." The influence of reality becomes delineated in daily life as we reject the temptation to interpret events through the material senses and consistently adopt the Christly viewpoint of the Saviour.
Like the artist who desires to paint only what he really sees, we have to rid our viewpoint of the misconceptions and prejudices that would cloud our vision—suggestions that time and place are against us, that opportunity is delayed or past, or that our environment is sterile or exhausted.
One insidious suggestion is the belief that many persons are competing with each other for a share of limited resources. This enslaving belief, fearfully observing the evidence of material lack, made the disciples want to get rid of the hungry multitudes. It was not lack of food but lack of love that prompted this reaction, for under the same circumstances the Saviour, perceiving the reflection of Love, said (Matt. 14:16), "They need not depart; give ye them to eat."
As we allow spiritual perception to replace material observation, we discover that what we really see are the actualities of being, the facts of Soul. The recognition that the viewpoint of Mind's infinite idea is infinite enables the picture to appear as a continuous unfoldment of beauty, freedom, and joy.
