ANNOUNCER: What is the meaning of "involvement"? To some, it simply means to be included. To others, it might suggest entanglement in trouble, difficulty, danger, a complicated state of affairs. But for today's youth involvement may mean playing an active part in the cure of the world's ills.

QUESTIONER: There does certainly seem to be a growing spirit among young people today to want to be involved in something important to them. We see many of them signing up for organizations like the Peace Corps, doing social work in city slums, and participating in civil rights' activities. How do you feel about this kind of enthusiasm of our youth?

SPEAKER: Well, I welcome it. Much of it is a good example for all of us in showing that we must participate in meeting the world's problems.

The most important point, though, is to understand the spiritual basis of involvement, which will really transform world problems.

QUESTIONER: What do you mean by the "spiritual basis"?

SPEAKER: What do we find in the Bible as to this basis? I think Moses is a good example. He first expressed only a human sense of involvement when he saw the plight of the Hebrew people. In one account he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave. And Moses certainly became involved; he killed the Egyptian. But what was the result? He had to flee the country; nothing was achieved. But as he became wiser, as he increased in his spiritual understanding of this true meaning of involvement, he began to see the presence of God in what he was doing. And that enabled him later in life to lead the Hebrew people right out of captivity.

You see, the spiritual basis of involvement is the recognition of man's true nature as God's expression. God isn't subject to enslavement, injustice, lack, or ugliness. And therefore man, His image and likeness, can't be made subject to them.

If we agree with the Bible statement that "God created man in his own image" (Gen. 1:27), then we've got to see man as whole and free. The spiritual qualities are present in the spiritual nature of man as God's image.

Let's say that I visited your home on a foggy, misty day, and I looked out of your window; but all I could see was fog. However, you know what it really looks like, and you could explain to me precisely what that view is. Obviously, I'd believe you because I know you've seen it. I wouldn't disbelieve you simply because all I could see was the mist.

QUESTIONER: So you feel that young people going to needy situations might go expecting these God-like qualities?

SPEAKER: Yes. And as they realize that what one sees humanly is simply a hint of the spiritual perfection that's there all the time, then they begin to see it; they begin to acknowledge it. And that greater understanding of the presence of that spiritual perfection is the finest and the greatest way of becoming involved.

What I'm saying is this: if these young people have this greater awareness of the true spiritual facts of a situation, they're going to be able to do far more to help to transform it. As they become more aware of the fact that man is the true likeness of God, then they begin to see through the mist; they begin to see through this morass, sometimes, of insuperable difficulties with which they're faced. And they begin to see the presence of God right there with them.

QUESTIONER: How do you discover more than can be seen with your eyes when coming to a poverty-stricken area?

SPEAKER: How would I bring to your home the true view from your window?

QUESTIONER: Well, you wouldn't bring it.

SPEAKER: Exactly. It's there all the time. And as the sunlight melts that mist, the view becomes more apparent. What these young people can do is to become more aware of what is there all the time; namely, the spiritual basis, the spiritual perfection of God's creation.

QUESTIONER: How can you apply this understanding to the practical need of the uneducated, the poverty-stricken, the oppressed peoples?

SPEAKER: Well, let's be quite clear about this. In Christian Science as we learn more of the nature of God as divine Love, then that understanding finds expression in our human experience. We don't just sit at home and think good thoughts. We go out and let those good thoughts find expression in helping others.

The Christian Science church sends Field Workers to prisons, to mental hospitals, and to hospitals which care for ex-servicemen and women. And individual Christian Scientists take part in these and many other activities. For example, I've been in a group which took part in filling sandbags to build up dikes where the sea had got in and flooded the land.

You see, the love of God is made manifest in our experience in these practical ways; but with this practical of Love is this deeper spiritual understanding of the nature of God and man's true relationship to Him.

So we're not talking down to people who seem to be in an unhappy situation; we're working with them to see their inheritance as sons and daughters of God, to claim the dignity and the freedom that this involves.

QUESTIONER: I can see that that would make for a different state of mind on the part of a person who was in a slum situation or who was struggling for his civil rights!

SPEAKER: It does, indeed. The greatest help for him is to see himself as the spiritual image and likeness of God. As he does this, he comes to realize that freedom, integrity, and dignity come to him from God, not from men or any government.

And such understanding on our part is true prayer. In the measure that we awaken to man's God-given identity, our actions in helping others are based on a knowledge of their true selfhood and not mere human zeal.

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy describes "zeal" in two contrasting definitions (p. 599). One is: "The reflected animation of Life, Truth, and Love," Life, Truth, and Love, being names for God in Christian Science. The other definition is: "Blind enthusiasm; mortal will."

You can see that there's a big difference between those two definitions. On the one hand, there's blind enthusiasm, which is very often willfulness in helping others. Although it's well-meaning, it can often complicate problems, making them appear more real, more stubborn. On the other hand, the spiritual nature of the first part of that definition brings God's presence and power right to the human scene.

If zeal is based on "the reflected animation of Life, Truth, and Love," then that zeal will bring full reward and full freedom as it did with Moses, who brought the Hebrews right out of bondage.

Whatever young people are doing, whether it's helping build a schoolhouse under the heat of the African sun, working with children of poverty in a slum area of a large city, crusading for civil rights, spiritual zeal can transform the thought and experience, not only of those giving the help, but of those receiving it.