My son, his friend, and I were driving home recently from a Little League baseball game when we came to a slow-down and then a complete halt in the flow of traffic. Before long we learned that two sports cars and a tractor trailer had collided. (We were happy to find out that no one had been hurt.) The vehicles stretched across three lanes of traffic, so things remained at a standstill for quite a while.

As I sat in my car watching the police arrive first and then the other emergency vehicles, I noticed a thought-provoking parallel between the law-enforcement officers and what I knew of God's law expressed through the healing Christ in human affairs. Before the officers arrived, chaos reigned. But with these representatives of law and order came just that—law, or a higher authority, and order, or harmony. The obstacles (the disabled vehicles) were removed, and then came direction on how the traffic could proceed in an orderly fashion.

I thought, Isn't this similar to the role of Christ—to reveal God's harmony to us, right here where we are?

As if caught in a traffic jam, daily experience often gets bogged down with frustration, congestion, and irritation. But order and harmony are restored through God's Christ, speaking to individual human consciousness. Heeding Christ removes the obstacles of limited thinking and gives new, productive direction to thought and action.

Mrs. Eddy, who spent much of her life studying Christ Jesus' words and works and discovering their underlying spiritual laws, gives this explanation: "Christ is the ideal Truth, that comes to heal sickness and sin through Christian Science, and attributes all power to God." ^{Science and Health, p. 473.}

Power. That's such an important word. To what do we attribute power? What do we feel controls our lives? The state of the economy? The actions of others—our families, the government, an employer, a teacher? Our geographic location? Our health or lack of it? Or even the position of the stars or other celestial bodies?

The fact is that not one of these influences stands as valid in the light of God's omnipotence. There can be only one omnipotence, and the omnipotence of God, infinite good, nullifies the possibility of any other power. The Christ lifts human thinking out of its own frightened, limited sense of things and reveals the magnitude, the infinitude, of God's universal goodness. The Christ is to human thinking as light is to a darkened room. Like light, the Christ reveals hidden obstacles, but going further, the Christ, understood, removes those very stumbling blocks and restores or establishes productive activity.

As we turn our thoughts to God, we hear Christ speaking directly to us. Sometimes this comes as insights and intuitions that correct our human experience. Here's an example.

I had been reading an article in a Christian Science periodical like this one and found myself particularly intrigued by it. The author recounted a healing that had come about only after she had relinquished her original fervor for "proving" to her teen-age son that Christian Science heals, and instead sought to understand that Spirit, God, is the only power.

I pondered this message of God's all-power and then continued with my normal activities.

By the next morning something remarkable had happened. A piece of glass that had been lodged in front of my ear for over nine years had begun to come through the skin. Now, this was no small sliver. It was a remnant of a car accident, a chunk of car windshield about the size of a large pea with jagged edges, that I hadn't even known was there. It emerged gradually over about a three-week period until it sat almost atop the skin, and I merely removed it. At no time during that period was it even possible to remove the glass through my own efforts.

What did all this mean? Well, it did not mean that God knew I had a piece of glass lodged under my skin. Spirit is not conscious of material conditions. But God is fully conscious of reality, which is spiritual, and that's what Christ makes apparent to humanity. Our recognition of reality adjusts and heals the human body and experience.

Did I have to know what was wrong in order for my prayers to be effective? Obviously not. I had no knowledge of the problem. Yet a healing took place. This is instructive when we're faced with a question often posed to Christian Scientists about the necessity for a medical diagnosis in order to "know" what one is confronting.

The fact is that we don't need to know so much about a problem. We need to know more of the solution—the truth of God's presence and man's unity with Him as His perfect spiritual expression. And it is Christ that imparts this knowing. Christ, Truth, is always where we are (regardless of how difficult, unpleasant, or dangerous our circumstances may seem), revealing the tangible spiritual realities which, when accepted into thought, adjust and correct those very surroundings or take us out of them. Our need is to listen, to obey the divine command "Be still, and know that I am God." ^{Ps. 46:10.}

Power isn't something we have to get. Power is integral to God's all-inclusive nature. And this power is all good—without a shred of evil, without a trace of discord or dissension. It's present in unlimited abundance to bring good to light in every circumstance.

Then, why does evil often seem so prevalent? Here's a little story from a children's book that I've found helpful in answering this question for myself.

Two children had moved to a farm with their parents and found that on the top of a hill there was a little summer house in which they could play. While there they became fascinated by an interesting feature of the house. It had a series of colored windows, one red, one yellow, one green, one blue, also one clear window. Looking out the red window, the little girl called to her brother, "Come and see the red horse!" Catching the spirit of the fun, he exclaimed that he didn't see a red horse but a green one. (Naturally he was looking through the green glass.) And the game continued. The white horse outside took on the color of whichever pane of glass the children looked through. But when they peered through the clear pane, they saw the horse as it really was. ^{See The House with the Colored Windows (Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1953), pp. 1-2 .}

To me, this little tale illustrates the importance of our viewpoint and also shows why, at times, the unreal appears to be real. It all depends upon the mental lens through which we're looking. Human sense sees creation as material and subject to a multitude of difficulties. But Christ, imparting the pure spiritual sense of God, man, and the universe, is uncolored by false beliefs. Through this pure sense we see and know what is really present. We feel in a tangible way the power of God, Life, Truth, and Love. We come to know ourselves and one another as the radiant reflection of God. This is how we gain a spiritual viewpoint, the correct, or clear, picture of what has always been present.

This isn't shutting our eyes to evil. Rather, it is opening them more fully to the presence and power of good and aligning our thinking with this spiritual fact. We can do this with divine authority and reap the benefits for ourselves and our world. In an address before members of her Church, Mrs. Eddy once said: "Christian Science classifies thought thus: Right thoughts are reality and power; wrong thoughts are unreality and powerless, possessing the nature of dreams. Good thoughts are potent; evil thoughts are impotent, and they should appear thus." ^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 252.}

From a materialistic viewpoint the world appears so complex and intricately woven that answers for daily living often seem out of reach. But the spiritual reality is clear and direct: God is all-power. God is good only. Therefore, good alone is power. Evil, the suppositional absence of God, is unreal, therefore impotent.

Christ is continuously imparting to human thought the light of this absolute truth. By following this spiritual illumination, false modes of mortal thinking and living are removed and corrected, and human experience is elevated.

The light of Christ, Truth, reveals the presence and power of God, and in this presence mankind find peace and healing.

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.... When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

Colossians 3:1, 2, 4