“Revision”—Not an author’s or student’s favorite word, especially if it means one’s best shot at an article or paper needs to be rewritten. Maybe totally rewritten!
But after revising more drafts than I could ever count over the years, I can honestly say I’m not afraid of the word revision any more. Veteran editors have helped me see that revising something just means gaining a fresh vision of it. A re-vision! Hopefully a clearer vision, with more spiritual lift-off. One that lights up the subject with more love and healing insight. The results are win-win for everyone.
That’s a little like what a new year nudges us to do (though it can happen any time)—to gain a fresh, God-centered perspective on our lives, our spiritual practice, our church, our world. And maybe to make some course corrections to walk more faithfully in Jesus’ footsteps. Mary Baker Eddy urged this kind of ongoing life re-visioning. “The human history needs to be revised, and the material record expunged,” she wrote in her autobiography Retrospection and Introspection (p. 22).
New perspectives abound in this issue, with the launch of two special series: one offering “a fresh look at the Manual of The Mother Church” (see Christine Driessen’s cover story, “The Christian Science Periodicals: Our Continuing Education,” p. 25), and another focusing on “What Membership in The Mother Church Means to Me” (p. 38). And Margaret Rogers takes a creative view of the Arab Spring in her editorial, “The Power Calling Us Together” (p. 64). So let this Journal refresh you—and inspire you to do your own re-visioning this year!
