Do you know those times when you're looking for something you haven't seen in a long while and you have to dig into closets or trunks that haven't been touched for months? Well, every once in a while, when I'm on one of those searches, I come across a school yearbook from junior high school days. And my search is usually halted for a few minutes while I flip through the pages and take another look at long-ago friends and classmates.

There's a recurring experience that fascinates me each time I look at the pictures of those youngsters. I remember, when I was with them in school, there seemed to be such wide divergence in their appearances. Some seemed much more handsome or pretty than others. There were gentle people and then there were the "tough" ones. The differences seemed all-important and just as formidable (and, at times, as threatening) as high, well-guarded walls. One's own social position in school often seemed tenuous and frequently just on the verge of assault—either emotionally or physically.

But now, when I look through those pictures from a position of greater experience, parenthood, and understanding—with the fears long removed—I am amazed at how gentle and innocent and nonthreatening nearly every youngster looks to me. Yes, I know kids can do crazy and harmful things at that age, and I know the threats we often felt to our own well-being and happiness were not all imagined. But I know that if I could have seen something more of the goodness I now see in those faces, I would have been in a much better position to confront the challenges of those years.

In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes about a strong, abiding affection that sees or discerns things unseen to unaided material sight. She writes: "Love never loses sight of loveliness. Its halo rests upon its object. One marvels that a friend can ever seem less than beautiful." And then she goes on to draw a profound conclusion: "Men and women of riper years and larger lessons ought to ripen into health and immortality, instead of lapsing into darkness or gloom. Immortal Mind feeds the body with supernal freshness and fairness, supplying it with beautiful images of thought and destroying the woes of sense which each day brings to a nearer tomb." ^{Science and Health, p. 248.}

Spirituality is an inner quality. It's an undeniable, innate ability to know God. We all have it, even if it has been uncultivated or as unthought-about as an old school yearbook that has lain buried beneath the minutiae of daily life. Spirituality grows out of love, love for God and a will to realize man is His image and likeness. It is something we can awake to and hope for and actually be drawn to feel.

Of course, in human life we know there are many things that would bury such life-giving hope and healing. Neglect of spiritual things, spending much of our time caught up in the harsh competition that is common to the world—these can cause us, at least temporarily, to lose sight of spiritual affection.

All around us there are new inventions, new sensations, maybe even a subtle though pervasive feeling that the Bible, Christ Jesus, Christianity, church, hint of ancient history and things not so relevant today. Such feelings can hide for a while the deep, inevitable longing men and women have to know God. Yet, once we begin to sense this spiritual awakening, it causes us also to want to feel love and to give love—the kind of love that endures and doesn't wear out when novelty loses its shine.

This is the point at which Christian Science reaches us, really reaches us, and begins to play upon the chords of spirituality that lie within us. Christ Jesus taught how this symphony begins to come together, in parables like that of the prodigal son who finally "came to himself" ^{Luke 15:17.} and who discovered an undeniable longing to return home. Or, for example, in the parable where a "certain Samaritan" was moved so deeply by tones of compassion that he came to the aid of a man who had been beaten, robbed, and left for dead. ^{See Luke 10:27—37 .}

This is the stuff out of which our lives are, or eventually will be, renewed. The promise of spirituality is that no man or woman will be forever unconscious of God's kingdom. In fact, Science shows us that as we begin to look upon man as God has actually already created him—wholly spiritual and good—we'll hasten the process of discovery in daily life. The fear, the ignorance, the sin, that argue so persistently against spirituality will grow dimmer and less persuasive in their claims. Until, eventually, the thrusts of sin and materialism will become mute before the omnipotence of divine Life and Love and Soul—the very real God of our lives.

Funny, isn't it, when you begin to see—sometimes in the most unexpected ways—how spirituality enters into our lives? Even sitting in a closet, going through an old yearbook, looking back and forward at the same time, we realize what we can do now to look into the faces of our fellowman and begin to see—as Jacob saw—the very face of God. Remember how Jacob described it to Esau, his brother, from whom he had been long estranged? "I have seen thy face," he said, "as though I had seen the face of God, and thou wast pleased with me." ^{Gen. 33:10.}

All of us, "men and women of riper years and larger lessons," can really expect "to ripen into health and immortality." Such development comes because of the native spirituality that we have. It endures and outlasts the temporal appearances and claims of materiality. And to know this is so, even now, begins to shift our trust and energy and hope to brighter, promising spiritual accomplishments. Out of such living, Christian and spiritual healing and healers evolve.

Michael D. Rissler