We had just finished our midterm exams in Milan. My roommate and I used our three-day weekend to visit the Swiss Alps. The destination was Grindelwald to see the legendary alp, the Jungfrau. It was November. The Alpine green of the hills had faded and the season of snow-covered villages hadn’t arrived. Mountains and town were blanketed in fog. On our walk up the hill to an inn from the train station, there wasn’t an alp in sight. After a visit with the innkeeper, we slept.

At dawn’s light, I awoke. Defying the season, the sun shone, and right outside my window was a magnificent alp piercing the sky—the Jungfrau. The mist had lifted. Rather than feeling diminished by the magnitude and proximity of the mountain, I felt lifted up to it and its near-limitless dimensions.

This experience has frequently come to thought when the mist of mortal limits shrouds my experience at work or church, and it is perfectly expressed in the following statement from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by the Discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy: “Corporeal sense, or error, may seem to hide Truth, health, harmony, and Science, as the mist obscures the sun or the mountain; but Science, the sunshine of Truth, will melt away the shadow and reveal the celestial peaks” (p. 299).

Remarkable how apt every statement in this book is to our life experience. I hadn’t known the above line at the time, which made me wonder what other inspirations in Scripture and Science and Health—together, our impersonal pastor and cherished companion—could bring more substantive meaning to life’s experiences. Such meaning comes from divine Mind to individual consciousness when we let go of distractions and turn to Mind expectantly, trusting the innate goodness of God that is ours to experience, even if not yet seen.

One such application occurred early in my career. As a recent law graduate, I expected to work in a law practice of some sort. And I did for a while. But the mental environment in this firm seemed mistrusting of clients and fellow professionals. It felt dark.

Love’s abundant grace and Truth’s clarity are at our side—even if in that moment they seem unseen and unfelt.

I left without the next opportunity in hand, and with some fear in having a very young family to support. My job became preparing every morning to practice—not law, but study of the pastor, often at a local Christian Science Reading Room. It seemed my livelihood depended on it, which it did. The study resulted in sensing Spirit lifting off a false image of what a young lawyer “should” be doing, in order to reveal God’s present provision. Willingness to step sideways into a different type of work was freeing, not demeaning. 

A résumé doesn’t define any individual. As a compound idea of infinite Mind—encouraged by Mind’s endless capacity, and not bearing witness to a boxed-in mortal—I could move in this direction without loss of substance or stature, both of which were my Father’s business. I could trust that I would see the way out of the valley of worry and fear of the future, toward the peaks of present endeavor.

The position wasn’t one that many of my law classmates might have undertaken. But it led to a ground-up understanding of the business in every function, which supported subsequent work in the law. Broadened admiration for the diversity of coworkers, and a joyful heart, were “peaks” of this diversion. This was the beginning of an ascent in understanding about the ever-established career for each of us—expressing and seeing each individual truly, in a less limited and more spiritual depict, here, now. This was a Jungfrau experience—the light-revealed, mist-lifted view of what one’s lifework could be.

It has never ceased. Witnessing more of the “faith-lighted peaks of Spirit” (Edith Gaddis Brewer, Christian Science Hymnal, No. 287), through God-led listening and putting aside the “corporeal sense” of career that often wanders in the mist, continues. It isn’t that the mist doesn’t float into consciousness at moments, but I have seen the peaks and know they are there—assurance that God’s clear direction is present at every turn of our experience.

Why do we doubt the power and presence of God? Because of the mist—because of the appearance to our thought of a diminished, depressed view of our life or others’ lives, built on human, not spiritual, assumptions. This might even apply to our sense of church, when we are caught in a haze of human rules and fears right where the expression of Love’s abundant grace and Truth’s clarity are at our side—even if in that moment they seem unseen and unfelt. 

But it is the Science demonstrated in and supported by our true sense of Church—the love of God lived in our hearts for the healing of mankind, seen in the lives of the earliest Christians and the pure example of the Master, Christ Jesus—that lifts the mist and reveals the spiritual peaks right where we feel challenged to appreciate our fellow congregants and to rejoice in their triumphs over disease, lack, sorrow, or doubt. We can embrace the warming sense of spiritual light scattering the clouds of limited discernment to uncover what is true: a gathering of earnest workers sharing the Cause of Christian Science to the best of their understanding and experience, guided by the ever-uplifting Christ. 

Seeing our engagement with church in this light reverses beliefs of decline, isolation, division, or burden and sets us on an ascending path—one filled with promise, inclusion, unity—walking together in Spirit.

When the mists of corporeal sense lift, we can rejoice with this Psalm and realize, “As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth even for ever” (125:2). 

Rich Evans
Member of the Christian Science Board of Directors