A “single-eyed” view

Six thousand thoughts —that’s how many some experts say we think each day. So it’s not surprising if we sometimes find our thoughts drifting when we start to pray. And in today’s tech-heavy culture, distractions are more numerous and persistent than ever.

There is a solution, and it’s a simple one: the single eye. In his Sermon on the Mount, Christ Jesus says, “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light” (Matthew 6:22). Clearly, he is talking about much more than the physical faculty of sight.

What does it mean for the eye to be “single”? The Glossary of the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, defines eyes as “spiritual discernment,—not material but mental” (Mary Baker Eddy, p. 586). Might not having a “single” eye mean keeping our focus on what is true, on what God made? If we are distracted—one meaning of the prefix dis being “the opposite of”—we’re not being attracted to Spirit, God, the cause and creator of all that really exists. We let our attention jump from one material impression or concern to another and may even become worried and anxious.