Article July 10, 2017 Issue

How we can help fulfill the Monitor’s purpose

Jane Hickson

When Mary Baker Eddy founded The Christian Science Monitor, she gave it the purpose “to spread undivided the Science that operates unspent” and the object “to injure no man, but to bless all mankind” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 353). As a reader of news, I take this as a call to approach the news as Christ Jesus approached the multitudes. The Bible tells us that “when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion” (Matthew 9:36). So my job is to love as the Master loved, specifically to express “that Love, divinely near, / Which chastens pride and earth-born fear” (Mary Baker Eddy, Poems, p. 6).

When I read the news, I find it helpful to look beyond the words on the page, to ask, “What does God want me to know about this?” or, “What is God seeing?” Many times, an inspired thought comes immediately. When it doesn’t, I turn to the Christian Science Bible Lesson and read it with a specific article from the Monitor or a world event in mind, and listen for God’s message. Often I find a healing thought right in the Lesson. Sometimes after reading the Bible Lesson in this way, I am led to research specific ideas in Bible reference books or the writings of Mary Baker Eddy.

When I read the news, I find it helpful to look beyond the words on the page, to ask, “What does God want me to know about this?”