There is an outcry in society today for transparency in human affairs—in personal relationships, businesses, governments, financial institutions, and in religious organizations. This desire for openness is nothing new. Whatever is not in the best interests of everyone always seeks to hide so that it will not be found out. Transparency, on the other hand, brings whatever is wrong to light so that it can be corrected for the benefit of everyone.

In this regard, experience has shown me that the light most needed is spiritual—light from God that purifies human consciousness and redirects human actions. And if we want to see more transparency in society, we need to start with ourselves. We need to let divine Love’s spiritual illumination work its purifying effect in our own lives. 

Christ Jesus told his disciples that they were the “light of the world” and that they should not hide that light “under a bushel” (Matthew 5:14, 15). His teachings reveal man’s true nature as found in Spirit, which is all goodness and light; no evil, no darkness, can hide there, or even exist there. The Apostle Paul wrote, “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25). We need to let our lives be transparent enough for God’s goodness to shine through for everyone’s benefit.

I caught a glimpse of what it means to live this kind of transparency some years ago when I needed to visit a friend in a hospital. I prayed to have a clear enough spiritual consciousness so that instead of getting weighed down by my friend’s difficulties, my visit would actually contribute to her recovery. The thought came to me that the sun’s rays aren’t affected by what they shine on; they simply shine out from their source and shed light on everything in their path. I saw a connection with the teachings of Christian Science—that God, Spirit, the divine source from which our true being shines, fills all space, and that there is no disease or any other kind of unpleasantness in Spirit or Spirit’s expression.

So as I prayed in preparation for this visit, I realized that I needed to acknowledge Spirit’s presence, yield to it as the source of my and everyone’s true being, and trust Spirit to shine through me on everything and everyone in that hospital. My friend and I both felt God’s healing love during that visit. And that insight about the correlation of the sun and its rays to Spirit and its light has been, and continues to be, a wonderful aid to me in my practice of Christian Science healing. 

Just as nothing can come between the sun and its rays, nothing can come between Spirit and its purifying light. And everyone’s true identity is that light—the light of divine Truth and Love. Nothing can come between Spirit and its light, man. But in order for spiritual light, and its healing effect, to be seen in human experience, the human mind must become transparent enough for that light to shine through. And that is something we can each give our daily attention to.

If we want to see more transparency in society, we need to let divine Love’s spiritual illumination work its purifying effect in our own lives. 

This passage in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy with the marginal heading, “Goodness transparent,” has been especially helpful to me: “The manifestation of God through mortals is as light passing through the window-pane. The light and the glass never mingle, but as matter, the glass is less opaque than the walls. The mortal mind through which Truth appears most vividly is that one which has lost much materiality—much error—in order to become a better transparency for Truth. Then, like a cloud melting into thin vapor, it no longer hides the sun” (p. 295).

It’s a wonderful thing to realize that we truly are inseparable from God—are actually the light coming from God. But that fact needs to become clearer and clearer to us day by day, because to our material senses that is not at all what we seem to be. To think of our consciousness, however, as a windowpane through which the light of divine Truth—our real spiritual identity—can shine, can inspire us to let that windowpane become as shiny clean as possible.

It’s clear that a windowpane cannot clean itself. Neither can we keep our own consciousness spiritually clean without God’s help. It is divine Love that brings spiritual purification, healing, and reformation into human thought and lives. The role for you and me is to consent to Love’s cleansing activity—to humbly yield to God’s power to expose and remove whatever resides in our consciousness or character that is unlike God. God’s love does this work in the way light always displaces darkness.

Some material beliefs and tendencies within us—including how we think of others—may seem stubbornly resistant to being exposed and removed from our consciousness. But they can’t resist Truth and its expression, man—our true being—because man in God’s spiritual likeness is not only light, it is the solvent, the solution, that dissolves whatever would cloud our consciousness and hide Truth. In proportion as we willingly and joyfully consent to what God, divine Love, is revealing to us of our likeness to Him, sickness, disease, and sinful tendencies are displaced.

We all want to live in a world where transparency is lived—where selfish, harmful thoughts and acts cannot hide. Progress in this direction comes by letting Spirit’s cleansing love shine more brightly in and through our own consciousness and character. Daily study of the Bible and Science and Health, earnest prayer, and patient efforts to “walk in the Spirit” in which we truly live enable the cleansing light of Spirit to do its work of healing in us, and to shine out with healing for the world. 

Barbara Vining
Editor