Christian Science Canberra   Promoting Health, Wellbeing and Spiritual Healing in a Scientific World

The first time I saw artist René Magritte’s self-portrait “Perspicacity,” I was completely captivated by it. He portrays himself sitting at his easel, studying an egg, yet painting a graceful, fully grown bird in flight. What a powerful depiction of imagination and creativity!

Over the years, I’ve come to realize how Magritte’s painting actually presents even more than that. To me, it illustrates what’s possible when we turn our perception away from mere surface appearances toward more discerning views.

In one dictionary “perspicacity” is defined as “acuteness of discernment or understanding.” I like to think of it as uncommon sense – the ability to rise above the conventional and customary view that would look at an egg and then, well, paint just a replica of the egg.

The teachings of Christian Science encourage the spiritual seeker to consider a sense of reality that is different from – deeper than – what the physical senses present. Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered this Science, describes throughout her primary work, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” how a spiritual perspective has a practical impact. For example, she says: “A knowledge of the Science of being develops the latent abilities and possibilities of man. It extends the atmosphere of thought, giving mortals access to broader and higher realms. It raises the thinker into his native air of insight and perspicacity” (p. 128).

I’ve often seen how understanding God can and does meet our needs by inspiring thought to appreciate and apply the extraordinary spiritual concepts that God is constantly communicating to us, such as the idea that as divine Love itself, God is the source and sustainer of harmony for all of us.