Reality breaks through
It is hard to stand before the glory of a rose and label it nothing but the result of a series of cosmic accidents. Such a thought offends one's sense of the inherent rightness of things. Just what was Jesus driving at when he said, "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these"? n1
n1 Matthewm 6:28, 29.
The physical senses can glimpse no more than a fraction of the glory that is really here. Wasn't Jesus showing, through simple metaphor, the way in which infinite, creative Mind, or God, fathers everything that really is and constantly expresses it?
The message of Christian Science to tired, despairing humanity is also simple: Let your spiritual sense of things come to the fore. Look to Spirit, God, instead of to your mortal, fallible senses, and let the sublime beauty and spiritual substance of all things appear to you. The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, in her major work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,m writes, "Nature voices natural, spiritual law and divine Love, but human belief misinterprets nature." And she adds, "The floral apostles are hieroglyphs of Deity." n2 It is easy to catch a glimpse of the true substance, or spiritual idea, flowers represent.
n2 Science and Health,m p. 240.
What of ourselves? If we listen with the inner ear of spiritual sense, we will hear everlasting Mind, divine Principle, tenderly telling us, in ways we can understand, "I am, and you reflect the glory of My Being."
Looking at a rose, we may glimpse what appears as an all too brief expression of a beautiful, spiritual idea. Suppose we could see the idea itself in all its eternal, unwitherable glory. What a day that would be! Now look at the human self. Even that is a marvel of symmetry, coordination, precision, usefulness, and much besides. But it's a limited mortal view of the divine, immortal idea, man, who, as the author of the first chapter of Genesis discerned, is, in fact, the spiritual likeness of his creator, God. Christ Jesus' teaching and Christian Science, which explains it so fully, constantly urge us to open our inner eyes to behold this real, spiritual man and the abundant inheritance that belongs to each one of us through divine law.
Herein lies the wisdom and the necessity that we love each other as Jesus commanded so earnestly. We must try to see and love in others this same perfect man we would know ourselves to be. Otherwise we will continue to stunt our own spiritual development with the fears and hatreds that blind us to the true nature of God and His creation, man. Love for man and God keeps our inner eyes, our spiritual sense, unclouded.
With Clear perception of life, not as it seems to be but as it really is, Mrs. Eddy tells us: "In the order of Science, in which the Principle is above what it reflects, all is one grand concord. Change this statement, suppose Mind to be governed by matter or Soul in body, and you lose the keynote of being, and there is continual discord." [*]
[*] ibid.
As we begin to understand the perfect Principle, God, behind the beauty of the rose and the beauty of man, we will have glimpsed reality, and in some measure we will enjoy its boundless beauty. DAILY BIBLE VERSE Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. Proverbs 3:13
