"People today need a purpose above acquisition of material objects," a statesman pointed out in a television interview a while ago.

How can we focus out any blur from our picture of our life purpose? By tying our thinking to life, living, man, as they're defined by Christian Science. As we do so, one thing that will emerge—and will make a huge difference to our outlook—is this: getting material objects, just being a material success, is not what life's really about. The Discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, tells us, "Christian Science presents unfoldment, not accretion; it manifests no material growth from molecule to mind, but an impartation of the divine Mind to man and the universe."^{Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 68;}

What does this imply? Mortals, in their own belief, grow from an embryo. Man, in Science, unfolds from divine Life. Mortals, in a greater or lesser degree, turn to matter to be sustained. The real man is upheld and satisfied by divine Life. To live a life the only aim of which is to accumulate material items is to have and have not! On the other hand, to give a high priority to appreciating spiritual ideas, and to honing spiritual insights, is to realize and prove that man has all because man reflects the All that is God.

Christian Science doesn't simply sermonize or moralize about life or show how we may live more contentedly on a higher mortal plateau. It upends our whole sense of life as organic and gives us the conviction that Life is God and that man is Life's idea. Science successfully challenges every claim that life can actually be meaningless or impermanent. Real life is the outpouring of divine Life.

To devote all our effort to merely trying to enrich mortal life is a drab and sad pastime. So, what is it that elevates humankind? Not dedicated self-concern. Not the products of industry of themselves, even though so many of these are constructive and drudge-saving. "The spirit of Truth is the lever which elevates mankind,"^{The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 130;} Mrs. Eddy points out.

We move that lever each time we realize that Truth, divine Life, is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent. We move that lever when we realize that man is not a small mortal being peering out through the physical senses at an inexplicable cosmos of matter. We move that lever when we know, with deepest conviction and humility, that man is the immortal reflection of the great I AM, God.

Don't look for meaning and permanence in matter. We can't find it there. But we do find life's meaning—and its eternality—when we search for it in divine Life. We are falsely believing that there is meaning in matter when we imagine that achieving esteem in some particular profession, winning respect in our community, wielding power on an important committee, are of themselves ultimate goals. These ends won may illustrate our understanding of the vitality and intelligence of divine Life. But in some cases these aims may involve exercises of human will that blur our real sense of purpose; and if we ride the fractious horse of human will, we are liable to be thrown at any time.

That which has spiritual purpose will always have purpose. Man's purpose—the real purpose of everyone—is to be Life's emanation. This purpose can never be lost. Age cannot rob man of purpose, for man is immortal, unaging. Unemployment cannot rob man of purpose, because man is always engaged in being Life's idea. Retirement can't terminate man's purpose, for man never ceases to manifest God.

Life blossoms in meaning when we not only recognize the real spiritual nature and purpose of man, but when we realize that we are that man right in this moment.

Christ Jesus had a profound sense of purpose and an abundantly rich and constructive life. Why? Because he identified himself as the Son or outcome of God. To him, real being was blazingly vivid, unchangeably complete, and perpetually demonstrable. His career and teachings open to us in the twentieth century horizonless vistas of purpose. Infinitely more than a religious figure who lived two thousand years ago, Christ Jesus was the unique spiritual luminary of all history.

We can turn to his life and his sayings if we should ever be tempted to feel that life has gone stale for us. Whether discouragement is facing us like an overwhelming flood or like an irritating dripping tap, a review of Christ Jesus' career in the light of Christian Science can't help giving us hope. He understood the Science of Life, was a pure transparency for it. He once announced, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."^{John 10:10.} His sense of life was divine and not human. He is our model, and as our human sense of life is replaced by the divine, we find ourselves more and more successfully warding off any claims of boredom or failure, purposelessness or lethargy.

Looking for purpose and meaning? It is right here because divine Life and its idea, man, are right here, and nothing else can be present, ever.

Geoffrey J. Barratt