Article July 15, 1985 Issue

The sunshine of prayer

MARGARET CAMPBELL

What a glorious way to think and to live—with the joy, warmth, and cheerfulness of sunshine in our hearts! This is possible through prayer. For prayer, based on the teachings of Christianity and Christian Science, brings divine light and healing. It enables us to know God, to feel deeply the warmth of our relationship to Him, to experience daily the love God has for each of us and for all creation, and to share this great love joyfully with all mankind.

Prayer begins with the acknowledgment of God and His relationship to man and the universe. This influences how we feel and think. It can determine whether we feel the light and love of God's presence or the doubt and discouragement of mental darkness. Christ Jesus taught us: "The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness. Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness."^{Luke 11:34.35.}

The eye that Jesus refers to, Christian Science explains, is not a material organ but inner perception; not the physical faculty of seeing but the spiritually mental faculty of seeing. In the Glossary of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy gives the spiritual definition of "eyes." The first paragraph reads, "Spiritual discernment,— not material but mental."^{Science and Health, p. 586.} True sight, therefore, is the discernment of the universe and man from a spiritual standpoint—that is, through spiritual sense.