Looking back on experiences of divine help and healing, one can't help being in awe. Often the seemingly impossible has become possible, the insurmountable has been surmounted.

When one finally yielded to Spirit, or Mind, the "solid" impossibility was simply gone, like smoke or mist. In its place, for example, was health that was natural, or business obligations completely taken care of, or improved human relationships where there had seemed to be not the slightest possibility for them.

Perhaps the lesson one keeps learning is that the outcome of prayer is just not determined by material circumstances. Prayer that turns thought wholly to God, Spirit, is going to receive its answers wholly from Spirit. These answers are not going to be fitted in like pebbles between the boulders of human circumstance. Instead these spiritual intuitions bring with them a new view, a different landscape as it were.

Those who followed Christ Jesus, listening to his teachings and seeing his works firsthand, were constantly brought face to face with this different "landscape." Their previous assumptions about what was possible and natural were not Jesus' conception. Before the hungry multitude the disciples argued for the evidence of a few loaves and fishes. In the storm on the lake they were afraid. "But," they may have said, before the healing of Jairus's daughter. "But" was undoubtedly said before the raising of Lazarus. We can easily identify with their feelings.

However, we have the advantage of retrospect. We can look back across the centuries and across the three years of Jesus' ministry. We can see that these so-called miracles express a consistent pattern—and the pattern must have been determined not by the particulars Jesus was confronting but by the nature of his prayer.

Christian Science emphasizes this point. It teaches that by leaving the material basis for the Christ, or Truth—the spiritual idea—we are enabled to practice Christian healing and follow Christ Jesus. Mary Baker Eddy observes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "The way through which immortality and life are learned is not ecclesiastical but Christian, not human but divine, not physical but metaphysical, not material but scientifically spiritual." ^{Science and Health, pp. 98-99.}

A matter physician naturally thinks and works from the basis of material existence. But a student of Christian Science does not. He is a Christian metaphysician. His approach is necessarily spiritual and mental. He knows that the prayer which quiets fear and makes him conscious of God's closeness and supremacy is also his means of healing.

Like anyone else he is sometimes pulled by the gravity of the material senses and tempted to estimate his present state of affairs on this basis. Yet breaking free from this material basis of thought, one is able to be much more responsive to the powerful uplifting of Spirit. It is an all-important point.

How do we break free? By deepening our trust in our inherent spiritual sense. This spiritual apprehension is nurtured by meekness, love, and moral obedience. It is not subject to the magnetic downward pull of material sense and the conclusions drawn from it. Science and Health explains, "The metaphysician, making Mind his basis of operation irrespective of matter and regarding the truth and harmony of being as superior to error and discord, has rendered himself strong, instead of weak, to cope with the case. ..." ^{Ibid., p. 423.}

Irrespective of is a potent phrase. It means "regardless of" or "without consideration of." As used in the statement from Science and Health the phrase conveys a feeling of totality, of strong turning away from matter and its myriad adverse factors. This obviously doesn't mean turning away from human need. But so long as we are mentally submitting to the dominance of material sense we are prevented from responding to the infinite presence of Spirit, or divine Love, which can meet the need.

If, for example, we are including the factor of age and its effect in our estimate of someone's eyesight or hearing or health, we are not thinking "irrespective of matter." If we are considering heredity, supposedly nervous personality, weak physical constitution, sensitiveness to environment, or the authority of medical diagnosis as key factors in health, we are not making divine Spirit and Love our basis irrespective of matter. Divine Love has made man with love and perfection and would not create imperfect man.

The question may arise, But can an ordinary person see this? How can I take a position irrespective of matter when I seem to be material and everything around me seems material? If everything were indeed material, you couldn't. But the fact is that what seems so material is essentially a conception or thought of things as material. Therefore it is possible for anyone to begin to leave an unreal, material basis of thought for thinking more from the standpoint of divine Spirit and its perfect expression in man. And this is a fundamental working premise of Christian Science, expressed in hundreds of different ways, including the concise "scientific statement of being" found on page 468 of Science and Health.

The Gospel of Mark records that Jesus prayed, "Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee." ^{Mark 14:36.} As our prayer rests more purely on this basis, which is irrespective of matter, we'll have more of the healing works that Jesus promised would attend those who believed and followed him.

The change from an earthbound sense of having to respect every bodily symptom of discord or disease, to trusting in the spiritual nature of man in God's image is releasing and inspiring. We see that we don't have to measure our hope or possibility for harmony in accord with the complexity or "seriousness" or length of duration of material circumstances. We have a new basis. Our "expectation is from him," ^{Ps. 62:5.} as the Psalmist says.

Allison W. Phinney, Jr.

In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed: deliver me in thy righteousness. Bow down thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: be thou my strong rock, for an house of defence to save me. For thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for thy name's sake lead me, and guide me. ... O love the Lord, all ye his saints. ... Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.

Psalms 31:1-3, 23, 24