Anyone who has spent much time praying soon concludes that prayer is more an attitude than a particular formulation of words. We are at peace with our prayers—that is, we feel we've truly become prayerful—when we are released from the all-too-usual mental involvement with a small human self and its circumstances and we come into the comforting recognition of the actual presence of God with us.

Christian Scientists refer to the specific prayer that heals sickness and sin as "treatment." Like other forms of prayer, treatment has the goal of opening up thought to take in the great meaning of God's being good and being everywhere. It assuredly is not something we busily do for ourselves without God, while God's power waits to come to bear at the end of the process. So, effective treatment is not just reasoning about God but as much as possible responding to His immediate presence.

Probably most people would agree the only logical standpoint regarding God is that He is already all He should be and He has made man and creation with the greatest of spiritual beauty, wholeness, and perfection. Christian Science treatment starts from that position.

When we give treatment we are affirming God's omnipotent law of good in specific terms in regard to sickness or any other human distress. Because God's goodness must in fact be present, expressed in His man, treatment necessarily denies power to what appear to be the conditions and laws of a bad situation. This affirmation and denial help us yield to spiritual truth, to stop dreaming that God is absent and see that divine Love is the only cause, law, and substance of our being.

God is supreme. He is governing man with love and perfection—now, not just at some later time; here, not just elsewhere. These spiritual facts are a description in part of what Christian Science calls the Science of being, that is, the ultimate, underlying truth of all things. This Science indicates that remarkable goodness must really be the character of life. Christian Scientists choose to pursue an understanding of this infinite goodness, instead of holding on to the old unrewarding, insistent picture of evil.

Since God exists, there must be thoroughgoing perfection of God-created life and substance to discern. Where disease seems to be, for example, there is a wholeness and health to everything about spiritual man and creation—a wonderful rightness that can be known as thought is uplifted. But some level of consistency in seeing everything in the light of God's perfection begins to come naturally only by our living in accord with Spirit, God—by obedience to Christ. After all, the life we live is our most basic prayer.

Because God's creation, including man, is good, we affirm in treatment the spiritual fact and we deny the material senses' lie. God is not only Spirit and Love, He is Truth, defining all reality. Mary Baker Eddy explains the method of Christian Science treatment when she writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "We treat error through the understanding of Truth, because Truth is error's antidote. If a dream ceases, it is self-destroyed, and the terror is over." ^{Science and Health, p. 346 .}

But what if we don't feel we're fully understanding divine Truth in the course of treatment? Is it dishonest to affirm it? No, it is not. What is dishonest is the world's suggestion that no one could have any real conviction of spiritual truth. Again and again we find that when we press on with truth the momentary sense of not knowing is proved illegitimate. It is found to be an imposition, not even a correct estimate of our own experience of spiritual facts and of previous healings. But Mrs. Eddy does offer this comforting advice: "Truth has a healing effect, even when not fully understood." ^{Ibid., p. 152.}

Probably many have been tempted with the impression of treatment as sending truthful statements out toward a material target, hoping to hit it with sufficient force to make a difference! The explanation Mrs. Eddy gives in her writings, based on her own years of experience in healing practice, makes a great deal more sense. She explains that all mortal life is the same single dream or mistaken thought of living without God, though this dream is peopled with differing "minds." So, when Truth is seen in even a little of its glory, and there is some degree of release from the dream, the patient also feels the influence of Truth and there is healing. Truth does the work, accomplishes the healing, not the words of the treatment. But we know this divine Truth that makes free in proportion as we are actively working out our salvation, consistently obeying the moral and spiritual demands of Christ's Christianity.

The reason we can expect treatment to heal in the first place is that God is All. If He were not, no amount of articulating thoughts about Him would help. But because He is, treatment based on divine Truth destroys the error of limited physical perceptions, with healing result.

Contrary to the suggestions of the human mind about what a treatment constituted of prayer must be like, treatment is not laborious. It is refreshing. As we utilize Christian Science treatment in the way it is meant to be used—with humility before the Christ, Truth, which is showing us the new world of God—we are inspired beyond anything we might have supposed feasible.

Spiritual affirmations and denials become much more natural —flowing out as a response to God's rich giving. Our inherent spiritual sense is stirred, and we feel the unquestionable actuality of what we are affirming. We realize that the illumined comprehension which spiritual sense is affording is entirely accurate— more to be trusted than any evidence of eyes and ears. When we are willing to leave all and trust this light of Christ, we find healing. In the terms Christ Jesus once used, we find "living water ..." "a well of water springing up into everlasting life." ^{John 4:10, 14.}

Further references for study on this subject could include: Science and Health 410:22 through 430:12; 493:9 through 495:24; Rudimental Divine Science 8:7 through 13:22; No and Yes 4:5 through 6:28; selected "Questions and Answers" from Miscellaneous Writings, chapter 3.

ALLISON W. PHINNEY, JR.