Beholding the Perfect Man

“Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God’s own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick.” – Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures

This passage by Mary Baker Eddy, a Christian healer and the discoverer of Christian Science, presents an important point in Christian healing – the need to hold a correct view of man. What is the correct view of man? In the Bible in the book of Genesis it says that God created man in His image and likeness and that God saw that His creation was very good. A correct view of man recognizes that only goodness and other Godlike qualities are a legitimate part of man’s identity and expression.

I’ve shared examples in this blog of experiences I’ve had where holding the correct view of man (man created and maintained by God in His own likeness) heals sickness and injuries. Holding this correct view in thought also heals character flaws and conflicts between individuals. It is tempting to let our thought focus exclusively on another’s faults and the wrong we perceive they do, but when we make a consistent effort to hold the correct view – the perfect man in God’s own likeness – the situation is healed for all parties involved.

Let me give you an example: I took a course in digital engineering when I was in graduate school. This was a laboratory class with a couple of hundred students and a half-dozen or so teaching assistants (TAs). We had an assignment each week to design and build some digital electronic device such as a clock, calendar, or calculator. The design had to meet certain exact specifications. When our weekly project was finished, a TA would review it and either approve it and mark the assignment as complete or reject it and require that some corrections be made to the design.

Early on in the class my friends and I figured out that some TAs were more lenient than others and would accept work that was pretty good, but not perfect. One TA, I’ll call her Eleanor, demanded perfection. This was a class and field of study dominated by males and sometimes we suspected her of trying to put us in our place. She was so strict and picky that we avoided having her check our work at all.

One day I completed my project and the only TA around was Eleanor. I was sure my design was good, so I asked her to check. She examined it closely and after some clever tests found a flaw. My work was rejected and had to be revised.

I was angry! How could she be so exacting and unfair! How could I have been careless and allowed her to check my work! It would take me hours to modify my design to correct the minor, inconsequential (I thought) flaw she had uncovered! As you can see I was not beholding the perfect man of God’s creating. I had an incorrect view of Eleanor … and myself.

As I wrestled with these thoughts, it occurred to me that when I got a real job, my employer and the people that relied on my work wouldn’t want a product that was flawed. Suddenly, I felt humbled and my view of both Eleanor and me was corrected. I realized that Eleanor wasn’t being unfair or tyrannical. She was trying to teach me skills that I needed. And I realized that I didn’t want to get away with doing mediocre work. I wanted my work to be well done.

For the remainder of the year I didn’t hesitate to have Eleanor check my work. It didn’t upset me if she found and required me to correct small problems because I wasn’t satisfied either with something that wasn’t perfect. I wanted my work to be just right.

One day the last week of school, I dropped by the laboratory to turn in my last two projects. As I opened the door I saw that Eleanor was the only one in the room. Suddenly, I froze and the thought came “come back later when a different TA is here”. I was surprised by this thought, but I hesitated only a moment. Then I remembered who I knew Eleanor really was (a fair person of integrity) and who I wanted to be (a person that did good work). I said to myself, “she’s fair, and I only do good work”.

I walked in and put my projects down in front of Eleanor. To my surprise, she didn’t examine them. She merely took out the grade book and checked them off as being completed. As I stood there in puzzlement, she looked up and said, “I don’t need to check your projects because I know you wouldn’t turn something in unless it was well done.”

Wow! Not only was I witnessing what I knew to be true about Eleanor – that she was a fair person, but she was bearing witness to what I had been claiming about my identity. The tyrannical TA and the slipshod student (sinning mortal men) had disappeared from our experience. We were beholding the man of God’s creating!