"Eh ! You do look bad!" was a British comedian's catch phrase, and it used to make people laugh. The same comment could be made about much of the world today, but no one could possibly laugh.

Nationalistic power struggles, anger, injustice, hatred, as well as political, cultural, and religious intolerance—these constrict humanity's outlook and possibilities. It's rather like being in a narrow street with tall buildings all around. The view is obstructed. The light is restricted, and there is no sight of the next street, the parks beyond, or the countryside beyond them. Even high mountains may be hidden from view. And yet they are there.

A materialistic outlook on the world cannot see beyond itself, but there is another view, differing from the worldly perspective. Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy describes how we gain this view: "The rays of infinite Truth, when gathered into the focus of ideas, bring light instantaneously, whereas a thousand years of human doctrines, hypotheses, and vague conjectures emit no such effulgence" (p. 504). This light-filled viewpoint gives hope and healing to the world.

The Bible shows us that Saul found a new and spiritual view as he walked on the road to Damascus (see Acts, chap. 9). He had strongly rejected the spirituality taught by Christ Jesus and his followers. In fact, he was going to Damascus with letters of authority that allowed him to bring back as his prisoners followers of Christ—both men and women. Even though his religious zeal was great, he was ignorant of God as infinite Love, caring for each and every individual. Saul's view of God was so overpowered by years of human doctrine, he couldn't see anything outside his own obscured thought.

As he went, "breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord," suddenly there shone a light around him—the light of Christ, the light of Truth. He fell to the ground, and he heard a voice whose message struck to the heart of his acts of persecution. Humbled, Saul rose up and continued his journey, blinded. Three days later, as he had been promised in another vision, he was healed by Ananias, a follower of Jesus' teachings. One might say his eyes were opened to see the love of God present.

Saul began to preach Christ in the synagogues, and he took a new name, Paul. He had become a new man, new in thought and deed, with new views and higher concepts of Love. The restrictions had been removed; the walls of a material view of God and man had been demolished.

The identification of man as God's child, as His image, expressing only what is Godlike, gives us a clear, infinite view, free from limitation or lack. As we pray "Our Father," we are identifying ourselves and others as the children of God, of divine Love. Man can never be without the love of God, for as the image of God, man is the activity of Love—Love expressed.

When I was a child I was diagnosed as having an eye problem. After many visits to opticians, as required by English law, my parents were given a prognosis that if an operation was not undertaken, I would go blind. It appeared I was being bound by a material viewpoint. Through the study of Christian Science my family had learned to turn to God in time of trouble, and they knew that there was higher view of God's creation. This view reveals man as the idea, or reflection, of God, and shows that all God has made is perfect and whole.

Because of this, we were not influenced by the views that produced the prognosis. We recognized the infinite, divine creator had made the universe, including man, complete and that they abide in Principle. God, as the Principle of perfection, produces perfection; as the Principle of harmony, He produces harmony. The perfection and harmony of Principle are expressed in the wholeness and permanence of right action. An all-loving, all-wise, all-acting power could not produce blindness.

One day, when visiting another optician, my parents were told that I needed a wider, unrestricted view. He told them to take me out into the countryside and to let my eyes range across the whole panorama. What he said symbolized to my parents what they had already acknowledged in prayer—the infinite goodness of God's grand creation, or as a hymn says, "the wide horizon's grander view" (Christian Science Hymnal, No. 218). With an understanding of God and of man's relationship to God, our family felt embraced in the Principle of perfection and the harmony of right action. We felt the presence of Love and the light of Truth. I was healed.

The Scripture says of God, "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil" (Hab. 1:13). This pure, unrestricted view is needed to see beyond mortal conflicts. Evil, as seen in inhumanity, is not God's view. A limited, inflexible outlook, clouded and restricted by past events and human opinion, can be dissolved by Truth's light. Are we looking from a limited viewpoint? or are we imaging forth God and His pure seeing?

We can increasingly see creation as God sees it—good and whole. We gain this higher ground by making sure that our thoughts are pure, leading us to God, and by rejecting any thought that would influence us to believe that man can be less than perfect, harmonious, and loving. As we work in this direction, we grasp the fact that there is one Mind, God, and that Mind is the only true influence on us and the world. This brings to light a clearer understanding of true, compassionate brotherhood. The affirmation of these spiritual facts is prayer, and in prayer the rays of Truth come into focus for us and bring us into harmony with God. Science and Health states, "The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God,—a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love" (p. 1). Communion with divine Mind reveals the clearer, wider view to consciousness—and we recognize the completeness of God and man, all the glory of God and His image, and all that is good and caring as created by the all-loving God.