Article October 21, 1985 Issue

Look for the sun dollars

ADA E. SAUM

In some places people speak of bright disks of sunshine flickering among the shadows cast on the ground by the foliage of trees or shrubs as "sun dollars." My curiosity as to why they are always round was answered in a film I used in my art classes in public school.

In the film a well-known artist showed ways to paint tree shadows, including the interlaced spots of sunshine. He demonstrated his explanation by means of a cardboard in which he had cut out small holes of various shapes. Some were rectangular, triangular, or hexagonal, some square or star-shaped, but none circular. When he held this before a lighted candle on a table, the beams were of the same shape as the openings. But outdoors, when he held the cardboard up to the sun, the beams cast on the ground were all circular. The artist explained that the sun projects its own image through the holes. He added that during a partial eclipse, all the shapes are crescents.

As a student of Christian Science, I was especially interested in the fact that the sun projects its own image through any small opening in foliage, regardless of the shape of the opening. Examples from nature were sometimes used by Christ Jesus in his teachings, to illustrate the presence and power of God. And Mrs. Eddy includes similar allusions in her writings. In the Glossary of Science and Health, in which she gives the spiritual sense of Bible terms, she defines sun as "the symbol of Soul governing man,—of Truth, Life, and Love." Science and Health, p. 595. (These four capitalized words are synonyms for God.) What a joyful reminder of the presence and activity of God the sun dollars can be! Even though the false evidence of the material senses may be casting a dark shadow of loss or despair, it cannot totally obscure the evidence of man's Father-Mother God, infinite Spirit, who forms, constitutes, and governs man and the universe.

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