THERE'S A SCIENTIFIC lawfulness that undergirds and structures the art of healing spiritually. And art in its purest, spiritual dimension animates the divine Science of healing called Christian Science.

Healing as this Science teaches it involves both reason and revelation. Through prayer, the practitioner is quite literally helping the patient, in the words of Mary Baker Eddy, "to work out the problem of being" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 262)—to discover more of God's presence and supremacy, and what it means that we're each made and maintained by an all-loving Parent. Both the letter and the spirit—both systematic proving of divine law and spontaneous compassion—are essential in this healing.

The unity of art and science in healing can be likened to the image of an acrobat performing on a high-wire. The acrobat's performance unites the science of balance and the art of improvised movement. And the effect? Pure, liberating joy. Similarly—through life-experience as artists or viewers of art, or truly, as practitioners and patients—we come to trust the certainty of Divine Science and love its free, and freeing, expression.

And yet, the practice of Christian healing is neither a scientific "miracle show" nor performance art. Scientific Christian healers demonstrate the absolute Principle, or God, and His healing power, but not in the literal sense of a public or classroom display, in which a theory is proved in order to teach its principle.

In several places in her writings, Mrs. Eddy, who discovered Christian Science in 1866, described Christ Jesus as "the great demonstrator" of Truth, of God and His divine laws. A profound lawfulness informed everything he said and did. "Jesus of Nazareth," she wrote in Science and Health, "was the most scientific man that ever trod the globe. He plunged beneath the material surface of things, and found the spiritual cause" (p. 313).

Jesus' instinctive grasp of the spiritual cause or law of life in God enabled him to raise the dead. Understanding the law of God's omnipresent intelligence—the divine Mind that creates neither distortion nor disease—enabled him to heal mental illness. God's law of limitless good, understood, was what inspired and impelled Jesus' changing of water into wine at a wedding feast in Cana and the multiplying of a few loaves to feed thousands in the wilderness. And because these were acts of spiritual lawfulness and not mysterious interventions, they still inspire and impel our spiritual healing practice today.

But wasn't "the most scientific man" the world has ever known also the most artistic man who ever walked this planet? "Our of the amplitude of his pure affection," Mrs. Eddy wrote of Jesus, "he defined Love" (ibid., p. 54). His healing artistry lifted holiness out of the realm of personal piety and power, to conscious awareness of divine Love's wholeness—demonstrating Love in every place, at all times, in every heart.

But even Jesus had teachers. A friend of ours has said that while the ancient Greeks worshipped the holiness of beauty, the Hebrews worshipped the beauty of holiness. As a result, Hebrew thought had, for centuries, advanced the art of healing, turning seekers to the Father-Mother God who creates, shapes, harmonizes, and beautifies all life and being. Empowered by his oneness with the Creator's wholehearted love for all creation, Jesus went on to practice the supremely fine art of restoring health and wholeness. And the touch of pure affection healed the sick.

Today, those who have experienced instantaneous healing through prayer sometimes describe the moment as one of feeling totally, unconditionally loved. They talk about sensing the all-space-filling presence of divine Love. That's the beauty of wholeness made visible. That's also the reality for each one of us right now.

If you feel that your gifts in life cluster on the side of reason and problem-solving, and you yearn for more intuition, spontaneity, grace, and tenderness in your healing practice, then you can rightfully claim to be defined and moved by the God who is both Principle and Love.

If you feel plenty of compassion for the sick and brokenhearted, but don't believe you understand enough of Christian metaphysics to heal effectively, you can reject that notion as a lie about Creator and creation. God evenly imparts intelligence. We are divine Mind's very thoughts and qualities made tangible—beautiful and capable.

The art of Christian healing may relate most closely to God as Love. And God's nature as Principle bases the divine Science of healing. But healing's artistry, and its lawfulness, are never actually separate or unequal talents, any more than the one God is ever two or more entities. We have the right to prove their unity.

By Love's art warmed and moved; by Principle's laws structured and ruled. There's our wholeness in all its beauty, and the integrity of our healing work. CSS