In today's world, it's easy to feel unheard, and we may feel we have little influence on events. Yet we're not insignificant. The fact is, we don't have to be inactive observers in the arena of human thought or in shaping the world's progress. Instead we can be moment-by-moment participants. But how do we participate in helpful ways? Just thinking of our lone voice against the influential thunder of so many political, social, or business interests might leave any of us feeling ineffective and unheard.

A Biblical lesson on light is helpful in this regard. It comes from Christ Jesus' instruction to his students, who were going into a world needing spiritually inspired thinking. Jesus urged his disciples to see the significance of Christlike living, of being "the light of the world." He implied that it was natural for Christians to realize the unlimited beneficial influence that their pure thoughts and lives could have in the world.

The range and influence of thought are still largely unexplored territory. It's becoming increasingly apparent, though, that we need to recognize the kinds of thoughts that are holding sway in our world—whether corrosive or beneficial—thoughts that may influence our own lives. And it's important that we respond appropriately.

To be truly helpful to ourselves and others, we need to be more than keen observers, as Jesus pointed out. When fearful expectations, harmful intentions, or acts of ignorance seize our attention, an appropriate and always helpful response is to turn in prayer to the supremacy and tender, constant care of God. As we do, we can become conscious of His universal law in operation, conscious of the divine presence that dispels fear and divisiveness, that inspires direction, and that awakens humanity to the rightness of honesty, unselfishness, and compassion. In short, we can discern the spiritual influence of Christ, Truth, which has always been present to bring healing to people's lives. Our work in this direction, as it relates to specific concerns in the world, can actually help to impel change for the better, even if such change isn't readily apparent.

Of course, our influence for good grows as we comprehend more of the infinitude, power, and goodness of God, the divine Mind, and of our own inseparability from this Mind. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes, "To understand that Mind is infinite, not bounded by corporeality, not dependent upon the ear and eye for sound or sight nor upon muscles and bones for locomotion, is a step towards the Mind-science by which we discern man's nature and existence."

Our prayers for humanity are also strengthened as we realize that because man's actual nature is the likeness of divine Spirit, forever unrelated to mortality, he cannot slip away from his original, spiritual perfection and become fleshly or fallen or in need of repair. The intelligent, all-loving Mind does not behold its spiritual idea, man, as a frail mortal, helplessly separated by time, space, or experience from the harmony of being. Man's perfection is a God-established fact. "In him [God] we live, and move, and have our being," St. Paul said.

As we learn more of man's relationship to God through prayer, and through study of the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health, we can apply the truths we are learning to all that we're seeing and hearing in the world around us. And clearly, this demands more of us than merely thinking about another person or a particular situation and simply hoping for the best. It involves realizing the power of divinity in our effort to correct harmful, materialistic impressions of life. It means consistently turning our thoughts to the perfect, spiritual status of man and the universe; acknowledging the goodness, wisdom, and unity of God's government and denying the supposed validity of whatever would oppose His government.

None of this suggests we naively ignore evil. Rather, our realization of the spiritual truth of God and man, as it applies to a particular situation, is the very thing that can help reveal a solution. Our prayers do bring light to the darkness of personal loss, moral confusion, economic uncertainty, regional conflict.

Prayer can start with a heartfelt desire to feel in our own lives the genuine goodness that the material senses insist is missing. This will inevitably lead to a spiritual strengthening, a greater certainty that what may have seemed unsolvable does have an appropriate answer. As a result of this purifying of our thoughts, we are letting our light—or lives—so shine that others will see our good works.

Each of us can contribute significantly to the well-being of hungering hearts everywhere. Can we, then, simply consider ourselves well-meaning spectators? Or will we commit ourselves to the meaningful work of bringing to humanity what we see it hungering for—the spiritual, healing light of scientific Christianity?

Russ Gerber