Article September 30, 1967 Issue

Concerned About Your Image?

WARREN G. LUEDEMANN

To be understood of men seems to be the aim of much of mankind. The teacher wishes to be understood by the pupil, the legislator by the constituent, the salesman by the customer, the employer by the employee, and vice versa. Even when the best human methods of communication are available, there often remains a basic concern about being correctly understood.

A word that often crops up in descriptions of this concern is "image." It is a word that has come, in this usage, to refer to making an impression, good or bad. It denotes one's identity in the thoughts of others.

For over a century Christian Scientists have been using this word "image," but in a far different connotation from the above. They have been using it the way the writer of the first chapter of Genesis did when he described spiritual creation, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him: male and female created he them." ^{Gen. 1:27;} Here the word "image" has to do with man's being an image in Mind, God, not with a human being's projection of an image on the minds of persons. In her elucidation of this Biblical verse Mrs. Eddy writes: "The world believes in many persons; but if God is personal, there is but one person, because there is but one God. His personality can only be reflected, not transmitted." ^{Science and Health, p. 517;}