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Just turn

As sunflowers naturally turn to the sun, so we can naturally soak in the healing, comforting light of God.

  • By Elizabeth Mata

Christian Science Perspective audio edition
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My eyes take in the sunflowers,
emblazoned in jaunty rich gold. Angling
perfectly in one direction, turning
naturally, they reach for the sun
whose name they evoke.

Following the sun – no distraction
or deflection – they, strong and
stunning, soak in the light.

I think of how You, God – divine Soul,
the light of life – have created each
of us as Your serene child, spiritual,
unshadowed by fear, violence, destruction.

Turning to You like the sunflower
to the sun, we stretch toward the
shining truth of our spiritual nature.

Then we take hold of Your warm
outpouring of love that softens hearts,
heals, comforts, promises good.

Standing together, each of us drawn
irresistibly to the same spiritual light,
may we turn as one – emboldened – all
drinking in equally Your big blessedness.

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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