On the surface, the genuine value of something may not be readily apparent. For instance, I recall watching a child choose between a shiny new penny and a crumpled one-dollar bill. She grabbed the penny and went off to play. Being just a preschooler, she hadn't learned the value of the wrinkled piece of paper she left behind.

To place a true estimate of worth on something, we need to consider more than appearances or even monetary value. An old family photograph, for instance, is probably worth very little to others, yet it may be very precious, even priceless, to members of the family. In a way, isn't it what's behind something that determines its value?

That's one important way of appraising this magazine. Behind the colorful dressing are rich spiritual insights and the often hard-won lessons of people all over the world who are practicing Christian Science. How do you measure the value of a healing experience someone has shared, or of what a reader can gain—finding hope, gaining strength, being healed —through the Christian Science periodicals?

What these have is spiritual value, the value of spiritual good. That's immeasurable. It's something that material appearances can, at best, only intimate. And something that the human mind, seeing value essentially in material terms, often has difficulty accepting.

Yet all of us have the God-given ability to discern spiritual good, to grasp its value, and to express it. It's our spiritual sense, as Christian Science explains, that enables us to do this, to comprehend and treasure all that comes from Spirit, God.

It helps us, in thinking about the nature of God's provision of good, to remember that He is omniscient Mind and that He is Love—all Love. What He provides is always the wisest, always the best. We receive His spiritual ideas; these ideas reveal the source and government of man to be spiritual, to be the one good and perfect God. As His offspring, man can't actually be the recipient of anything that would lose its value or become useless. Quite the contrary. Those who seek genuine good, and who acknowledge Him as its source, see the evidence of good at work in their lives. What we receive from Him contributes immeasurably to our well-being and progress.

When it came to identifying the real worth of her periodicals and of her Church, Mary Baker Eddy saw their value to humanity in spiritual terms. She said: "The systematized centres of Christian Science are life-giving fountains of truth. Our churches, The Christian Science Journal, and the Christian Science Quarterly, are prolific sources of spiritual power whose intellectual, moral, and spiritual animus is felt throughout the land. Our Publishing Society, and our Sunday Lessons, are of inestimable value to all seekers after Truth" (Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 113–114). One can see, in the light of this statement, why Mrs. Eddy considered it both a privilege and a duty for members of her Church to subscribe to these periodicals.

We should take the opportunity to think more about these "systematized centres of Christian Science," to think about the daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly provision of "life-giving" truths they provide. And in doing so, we must stand up to any temptation to believe we've become too busy with other activities, that we're either too new or too advanced in Christian Science to find them beneficial. Such thinking certainly doesn't have its source in God, because it would tend to discount or flatly shut out the very truths that originate in Him, that come from Truth and care for us, and which permeate the Christian Science periodicals.

Each one of our publications, whether in print or broadcast form, has a specific job to do, a metaphysical mission to fulfill (see "Something in a Name" in The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany by Mrs. Eddy, p. 353). The most significant way we can support and benefit from them is to recognize clearly the divine intelligence behind these publications and their purpose. And to subjugate any sense that would devalue them or would deny our need of their spiritual message. By our spiritual perception, we not only glean the truths that make an article, interview, or testimony valuable to us but we also learn what would produce even better articles, clearer spiritual thinking, more effective healing. There's always something valuable to be gained, something valuable to be learned.

What an encouragement it is to know that mankind has these fountains from which to draw the truths that give and sustain life. Each of us can find in them, in the darkest or brightest hours of our lives, something of the good that God freely gives to man. The more we see our periodicals in the light of their true value, the more the spiritual insights and inspiration gained by both readers and contributors will speak to us; we'll be helping these indispensable publications be on the cutting edge of their healing mission to humanity. We'll find them opening our thinking to the realization of the inestimable good encompassing our own lives and all God's creation.

Russ Gerber