My wife and I are camping at a state park in Montana on the banks of the Missouri River, enjoying beautiful views. A neighboring camper walks over to our site and strikes up a friendly conversation. He soon learns that I am a Christian Science practitioner, practicing spiritual healing. He lights up like a beacon. “I practice spiritual healing,” he declares with great enthusiasm. He wants to know more about my faith. “Why do you practice Christian Science?” he asks. “What is special about its teachings?”
“I love to practice Christian Science because it teaches me that I live in a universe of Spirit rather than matter,” I am eager to tell him. To my surprise, he sweeps his hand over the landscape and says with glee, “I agree—that matter is not reality. There is much more.” But he wonders what Christian Science teaches about matter, considering how real it appears.
“It’s all about perspective,” I reply. I share with him that matter is a finite view of infinite Spirit—that accepting matter’s existence is like looking out over the horizon and seeing an end point. Yet you know there are lands and seas beyond what the eye perceives. The same rule applies to understanding the universe. Matter is a shortsighted view of what exists in the Mind of God as infinite spiritual substance.
