WHAT ARE WE BEHOLDING?
The writer read a short story the other day about a girl who on her way to the office each day studied the people around her in the bus and train with the object of giving a good imitation of them to her colleagues. She spent her time mentally rehearsing the amusing descriptions she would later give of all these people. But one day an unusual thing happened. One person, on getting out, caught her eye and gave her a sweet, serene little smile. When she turned again to the study of her fellow passengers, in some way they appeared to be different. Gradually she realized that the change was in herself, in the way she was looking at them. They had ceased to be objects of fun, for she was seeing them in a new light.
To her imagination the old woman was no longer a collection of odd garments, but she was as her son had seen her when, as a little boy waking from a bad dream, she had come to him bringing comfort, courage, and peace. The little birdlike man who had seemed so amusing to her a short while ago she saw as his family saw him, selfless in his care of them. As she looked around the bus, she realized that none of the people were any longer subjects for the exercise of her renowned sense of humor. They were not ridiculous any more. She was seeing them through the eyes of those who loved them best.
What about us, as students of Christian Science? Are we beholding our fellow men in the light that the One who loves man best sees them? Are we seeing God's man in his true, spiritual identity, or are we seeing mortal man, the corporeal and false concept, who appears as sick, sinning, lame, blind, deaf? When we meet somebody who seems to be suffering or handicapped in any way, do we quickly reverse this picture and behold the man of God's creating?
Christ Jesus' remarkable success as a healer of the ills of mankind resulted from his ability to behold what "eye hath not seen" concerning man, namely, his spiritual nature as the perfect, whole, and happy child of God. He refused to believe the discord which those around him were seeing as real. Mary Baker Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (pp. 476, 477,): "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick." Our work in healing is not to improve on what God created, but to realize the perfection of His creation. When we see as Love's reflection, we see perfection everywhere. Jesus did not attempt to correct reality, but to bear witness to Truth.
What happens when a child who has been playing falls and hurts himself and comes running to his mother for comfort? The mother holds out her arms and takes the little fellow on her knee and loves him. She does not see a grubby, grimy child, whose nearness might spoil her clean frock; she sees only her child, whom she loves. She is seeing through the eyes of one who loves. Surely this illustrates how God beholds all His children. He does not see the grime of sin or the smudges of sickness. He sees only perfection, His child, made in His own image and likeness. In this idea of Mind there is nothing to criticize, nothing to heal, for it is as perfect as its creator.
Healing in Christian Science does not involve a material process. Rather is it the recognition of God as All-in-all and of His perfect creation, wherein there is nothing to heal, but all of good to demonstrate. When we see man as God's idea. Love's reflection of itself, then and then only are we demonstrating the divine Principle of Christian Science, Love, which never fails to heal when intelligently applied to human problems. Through Science and Health the world has been given the Science of being, revealing one God, Principle, and its idea, man. This Science reveals God's eternal interpretation of Himself as All-in-all.
Surely, with the example of Jesus before us and the absolute certainty of the power of divine Truth as revealed in Christian Science, we have ample encouragement and incentive to behold the perfect man at all times. Since God, good, is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, nothing unlike God has any real existence. In Genesis the record states (1:31), "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."
Let each of us start forth today realizing that the most important thing he can do is to reflect divine Love, to be Love's witness. "Let mortals bow before the creator, and, looking through Love's transparency, behold man in God's own image and likeness, arranging in the beauty of holiness each budding thought," counsels Mrs. Eddy, the beloved Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 330).
God, Spirit, knows only the perfection of His spiritual creation, wherein all things are wholly good, as is indicated in these words from a loved hymn (Christian Science Hymnal, No. 15):
And as a mirror shows us
A likeness clear and bright,
So God forever sees His child
Revealed in radiant light.
'Twas thus the loving Master
Saw man's perfection shine,
Beheld God's child forever pure
In radiance all divine.
