Some years ago, I got the idea to sit quietly by a window before dawn and write down when and how light first appeared outside our home. Each morning I took care to notice the precise instant a tree took form, the sky blushed pink, the iris turned lavender. Documenting these moments, I came to recognize how gently and inevitably the features of the landscape assumed their true color and shape. The trees, the woodshed, the rocks, the field, were complete already. But as dawn unveiled them, I witnessed them—not as old and dark, but as vibrant, finished, and beautiful.

Through studying Christian Science, I’ve seen something similar—but much more profound. I’ve learned how dedicated watching for spiritual light makes all things new. I’ve seen how an understanding of God, the source of all light, lifts shadowy material beliefs about me and others, revealing radiant, pure, spiritual views. The Bible identifies this spiritual light as the Christ—the Truth that Jesus embodied and reflected, by which one’s identity and existence are illuminated as limitless, safe, loved, and purely good.

The Christ calls us to look beyond the perception of human existence as a bleak, destined-for-death experience and recognize that we actually live in a larger sense of life—divine, infinite Life, or God, which is always lovely, fresh, continuous, and new.