Developing an eye for Truth

                                           (John Robert Howell)


I was looking at some Magic Eye pictures recently, and realized they offer an excellent example of how Truth can operate in our thought and thus be expressed in our lives and bodies.

As you may know Magic Eye pictures are what appear at a glance to be nothing more than random patterns of color or colored shapes.  But if one stares at these pictures in the right way a three dimensional picture will suddenly appear.  The 3-D image was there all the time; it merely had to be allowed to come into focus.  For some viewers seeing the hidden image the first few times may be frustratingly difficult.  And, significantly, it can't be forced.  On the contrary, to stare too intently or too long only makes it impossible for the 3-D image to appear.  When it comes, it comes unforced and often with surprising ease.

So what does all this have to do with prayer and healing?  What Magic Eye pictures illustrate is a basic truth in Christin Science, that no matter what or where affliction seems to  be, Truth, spiritual reality, is already right there.  When, through prayer and seeing spiritually instead of materially, the truth snaps into focus, it operates in our consciousness effortlessly and decisively to overcome and displace any problem or obstacle we may be facing.  And, just as with the Magic Eye pictures, once we've succeeded in seeing and applying Truth it becomes easier and more natural each time we repeat the process.

But just how and why does this happen?  Picture yourself for a few moments as a math student trying to solve a complex problem.  Your repeated attempts to find the correct approach to the problem  have led only to dead ends.  You then study again the relevant mathematical principles and rules which apply to this type of problem.  You ponder how to apply them.  Then, suddenly, you see how to go about working out the solution.

Once the correct approach is seen and the problem solved, where did all those dead-end attempts go?  They obviously didn't go anywhere, for they never had any reality.  The failed attempts were only an inability to see the correct approach, which was there all the time.  It just needed to  become apparent.

Your physical and personal problems and challenges, no matter what they are, can be approached and solved or healed in just the same way using divine Science intead of mathematics.  When we pray, we ask God to uncover the ignorance or misunderstanding in our thinking and show us the way to a solution.  As omnipotent Mind and Truth, God provides the answer to any problem we face.  Like the math student we too will probably need to review and ponder relevant truths from the Bible and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy.  But if humble, sincere, and patient, we will be shown the answer, which will be right where the problem seems to be.  And at the instant of unfoldment, the illusion of discord will simply vanish into its inherent nothingness.

Why?  It should be obvious that in the case of a problem in mathematics, no dead-end approach or incorrect solution has any power to prevent or obscure the discovery of the correct approach to and accurate computation of the right answer.  Because infinite Truth, the correct answer to any human need or problem, is God, omnipotence, it instantly and automatically displaces any lie of sickness, disease, fear, failure, or insecurity which may confront us.  Truth is always present, real, and powerful.  Error, evil, and affliction are always illusory, unreal, and powerless.  That is why they disappear the instant God, Truth, becomes apparent to thought.

Christ Jesus never saw or acknowledged mortal, material, sick, sinful, or limited humanity.  Had he done so he would have been unable to heal and help them as he did.  His keenly developed spiritual senses and understanding saw only the man of God's creating--perfect and whole--right where others saw only an afflicted man or woman.

At some point in our spiritual progress we will need to do some spiritual wresting with and take a firm mental stand for the Truth revealed and taught to us by Christ Jesus, but if prayer for ourselves should become a kind of pointless, unavailing trench warfare and bitter, hand-to-hand combat with a problem as if it were a powerful reality, we are not letting Truth come naturally into view and win the day for us.  When David confronted the fearsome Goliath he said to him:  "...the Lord saveth not with sword and spear:  for the battle is the Lord's, and he wil give you [Goliath] into our hands."  (1 Samuel 17:47)  The subsequent human victory over Goliath was almost anticlimatic, the nearly effortless flinging of a single stone.

David obviously listened prayerfully to God and followed His instructions with natural and unlabored obedience.  Nothing was humanly forced or won through desperate and uncertain conflict.  We too can gain and experience this unwavering reliance on God through study of the Bible and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, prayer, and practice.

Remember how the 3-D image in the Magic Eye pictures was said to appear right where the random pattern of colors seemed to be?  Healing as well can be understood as seeing only God's whole, healthy, spiritual man right where a sick, sinful, or afflicted man seems to be.  In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy puts it this way:  "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals."  (p. 476:32-2)

When we thus see ourselves as God always sees and knows us, the problem, no matter what it is, must and will disappear.  The metaphysical poet George Herbert (1593-1633) pointed to this seeing through error when he wrote in his poem "The Glance":  "What wonders shall we feel when we shall see/Thy full-eyed love!/When Thou shalt look us out of pain,/ And one aspect of Thine spend in delight/ more than a thousand suns disburse in light,/ In heaven above."

So the coming of healing and hope need not, and should not, be the result of an exhausting and fearful struggle, but the sudden, comforting appearance of light, truth, where there seemed to be only darkness, suffering, and confusion.