Original in Spanish

In a series of documentaries for television in our country, called History of the Secret Argentina, the quiet corners of our people's lives and history are shown. In one program the person being interviewed was a young man, seated before a landscape of mountains, forests, and a lake. He drew and painted birds of the place. And he said that he came periodically for the purpose of feeling part of the surroundings, taking part in the beauty and harmony of nature. He went on to explain that he believed harmony and perfection were the state of our natural being because he felt that the paintings he accomplished while at work there were complete through his becoming conscious of the innate perfection of what he was painting.

One can ask himself, What is it that leads us to yearn for harmony and to recognize spiritual perfection—to feeling good, and thinking about it, living it, and carrying it out in different ways? Isn't it good itself? Isn't it ultimately that our real, natural being is good? Otherwise, how would we recognize harmony as so desirable and so satisfying?

A few years ago, when I was preparing to spend a holiday with my family at the seashore, the vacation time was reduced to only a few days because of a project at work in which I was asked to participate. On returning to the city, I needed to go out on the street one afternoon, and the heat began irritating me. Then when I was carrying out transactions, many ended in difficulties. In addition to these challenges, I began to feel ill.

I returned to the beach, but there the feeling of illness increased. At night I even became delirious with a high fever. The next day I was able to return to the city, though by then I was having difficulty with my hearing. I spoke on the telephone with a Christian Science practitioner and asked her for help through prayer. When I heard her tell me that she would happily pray for me, this gave me confidence and I rested in the power of God as good.

The fever began to diminish as I put my trust in God, divine Principle, as unchanging good. I saw God, too, as the origin of me as well as of the business people I'd had trouble with. This began to calm me. I felt that I must see the good, spiritual, sinless qualities of each one.

I knew, through my study of Christian Science, that by seeing good in each person, I would be seeing the reflection of God, who is sinless good itself. The deep, patient affirmations of Truth by the practitioner and my own daily study of the Bible Lesson from the Christian Science Quarterly supported me. I held fast, rejecting the insistent suggestions about "bad people," replacing them with the truth of God's pure and total goodness and of each individual's perfect likeness to God as His image. This brought an awakening in thought, and the aggressive symptoms in the body began to disappear.

One morning I thought of the harmony of the dawn among the gardens of the city and amid the foliage in the open places. The harmony was so real to me that I felt gentle, innocent, pure. The quiet chirping of the birds, the silence of the new light of day, were a tender reminder of the spiritual understanding of man's oneness with God. I felt truly well and happy. I knew I was healed. Later, on reentering my daily routine and facing clients and co-workers, I readily saw them as innocent and Godlike.

Christ Jesus demonstrated the true idea of God as pure good. He lived this idea called the Christ, which is Truth. It is the power, the spirit, and the Science or knowledge of God, good. Jesus' example of the real man is seen in demonstrations of spiritual power and healing, and in his mercy, humility, obedience, patience, and integrity. As we focus thought on good and on growing in an understanding of good, we reflect more conscientiously the qualities of God, which make up the only man.

The Christian Science textbook, Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, says in the chapter "Science of Being," "Continuing our definition of man, let us remember that harmonious and immortal man has existed forever, and is always beyond and above the mortal illusion of any life, substance, and intelligence as existent in matter." And in an earlier chapter Mrs. Eddy writes, "The admission to one's self that man is God's own likeness sets man free to master the infinite idea."

If we come to recognize that by keeping thought in harmony with the truth, we experience good—we experience well-being and satisfaction—it isn't difficult to recognize that when malaise or trouble or depression becomes part of our experience, in whatever way or place, it is essentially because thought is absorbed in what is contrary to the truth, contrary to good. Yet we can know too that sadness or heaviness in reality isn't ours, because it doesn't come from God. God, the infinite good in which man truly lives, includes only well-being, never malaise.

The demonstration of spiritual riches in qualities such as contentment and well-being and harmony is only possible by focusing thought on what is true. Christ Jesus, in his mission to redeem human weakness by overcoming sin, sickness, and death, left us a guide in the parable of the prodigal son. In that story the lost young man began to find his way home when "he came to himself"—when in obedience, recognition of and gratitude for good, and in humility, he saw the man that he truly was, his father's loved son, and returned home.

Mrs. Eddy dedicated her book Science and Health to such seekers of the Father, or seekers of Truth. Through her discovery of Christian Science, we can find the man—God's man—that we really are. And we can know that the growing understanding of this man, or our real identity, will bring forth abundant rewards and enable us to use our talents widely for mankind.