Questioner: Young people today long for adventure. But there are so many exciting things going on—the space program, overseas travel, the Peace Corps—that they don't see any place for religion. And they ask what place religion has.

Speaker: Why do you think all these things you mentioned are exciting to young people?

Questioner: Well, these things are exciting to me because they involve working with and helping people. I think young people today leave a church edifice having heard fine ideas, but these seem to lack relevance to what they see when they walk outside. They see people in need, perhaps people who don't have jobs, and they want religion to be related to people. They want to work with people.

Speaker: Yes. This I can well understand, and just think how dynamic the teachings of Christ Jesus were! The whole of his ministry was dealing with people. He healed those who turned to him for healing. He reformed lives. He had an exciting time, as you can tell.

Questioner: But the young people today want to be, as the phrase goes, where the action is.

Speaker: Wasn't Jesus right where the action was all the time? His whole work was redeeming, helping, inspiring, and healing people. This was truly being revolutionary in a very humanitarian way. And humanitarian in a revolutionary way.

And, you know, the same is true of vital religion today. What can be more full of adventure than helping people to see something very wonderful about themselves, something perhaps they've never seen before? And this something is their true nature as ideas of the one divine Mind, which is God.

Questioner: What is this something about himself a student never saw before? You know, I could tell a dull student that he's really leading an exciting life or that he's capable of it; but this would not necessarily be true.

Speaker: I think it's much more fundamental than that. It's more a case of helping the student to discover who he really is, what his true nature is as the man of God's creating. And to know what's true of man, we've got to start by knowing what's true of God. We can turn right to the Bible for this. We find that God, who is infinite Spirit, divine Life, is always active; and He's always unfolding good to the whole of His creation.

The Bible says that "God is love" (I John 4:16). As divine Love, God is the source of joy, happiness, love, well-being, and so on. Because man is made in God's likeness, as the Bible says, his nature contains boundless love, limitless intelligence; no lack of energy, wholeness, or health; man is complete already.

The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, puts it this way in one of her writings (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 158): "We live in an age of Love's divine adventure to be All-in-all." Now, Love in this context means God. So we live in the presence of God, and to recognize this is indeed a divine adventure. What more exciting thing could there be than this?

Glimpsing the spiritual nature of man enables us to lift ourselves and those we're helping above the limited view of man—the mortal, poverty-stricken, delinquent view of man—to see something of man's spiritual nature that's there all the time.

Questioner: Religion to you, then, seems to be something that you can do any place, any time, not just a particular place and a particular time.

Speaker: Most certainly. This is why religion to me is such an exciting adventure. We can prove day by day our growing dominion over material circumstances, whether the circumstances are disease, unhappy relationships with people, or situations of abject poverty. We can deal with such situations by realizing that God, divine Love, is caring for each individual we meet and by understanding his perfect, spiritual selfhood. We read in the Bible (Isa. 43:10), "Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen."

Questioner: Well, a witness testifies. Is this what you mean by working in a practical way with people?

Speaker: Yes, and let's take up this example of a witness. As I think you know, I was working in the legal profession before I came into the practice of Christian Science. One thing that's important to remember is that before any evidence can be given in court there must be a witness there to give it. Just so, we are needed witnesses of God's presence. As we bear witness to God's presence in all the situations we meet, certainly we're having a wonderful time. We're having an exciting, thrilling time.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself in the legal profession. The work I was connected with was a general family practice, and I was involved with people. Everyone who came had something different to tell me. They were in different circumstances, and the majority of them, of course, needed some help.

Questioner: If you enjoyed the legal profession so very much, why did you ever leave it to devote your life to religion?

Speaker: The work in the legal profession was helping people adjust to and correct difficult situations. But I found that through the healing ministry of Christian Science lives were changed. A complete transformation came over people's experience. I've seen polio healed, mental illness healed, and human relationship problems corrected—not only lived with but overcome.

Through Christian Science we don't merely adjust to difficult human situations; but by learning more of the nature of God, we find them completely overcome. This is why the practice of religion to me is so much more exciting than the practice of law.

This could perhaps be summarized by saying that we can take this new view of ourselves and others, this view of man as God's perfect image and likeness, with us wherever we go, whether we go into the Peace Corps, work in space industry, or teach underprivileged children.

Questioner: I think that's what young people today basically are looking for—an improved sense of what people really are.

Speaker: As this is put into practice, we find ourselves expressing more kindness, unselfishness, enthusiasm, and health; and we do this because we're not looking to a person to help another person in a situation. If we're bearing witness to God's presence, we're basing these good qualities on divine facts. We're seeing that God is the source of all that's good. Strength, kindness, and understanding are certainly good; and so they have their source in God.

To accept God's presence is to accept the source of good as being with us all the time. Doing this, we not only help ourselves but certainly can go out and help people to discover this spiritual perfection for themselves. We can work patiently with them, help them to understand their true nature, and persistently encourage them. This will quite naturally bring out their untapped talents and help them to recognize their God-bestowed potential.

Now, this isn't theory. This is practical, operative Christianity. And this is why religion to me is such an adventure. It's being what we are. And as we live what we know we are, our whole experience is broadened, is more enriched and more exciting too.