UPFRONT February 28, 2005 Issue

ON AN UPWARD PATH

MAIKE BYRD. CHILDREN'S EDITOR

What I remember most about Lydia was her zest for learning and for helping people. She never stopped wanting to discover new things about life—which to her was eternal and infinite, the very expression of an infinite God. Lydia was my husband's grandmother. She had been a Christian Science practitioner for over half of a century when she passed on in her 102nd year.

Lydia's life journey had not been without struggle. In fact, she'd had to endure many hardships, among them poverty, racism, marital abuse, and the loss of a child. But once she was introduced to the healing Science of Christ that is explained in the book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, she found herself on an upward path. And she never turned back.

I've often asked myself what it takes to live and mature gracefully. Medical science and genetics hold out promises of future times where people can enjoy longevity without some of the physical or mental decline that is often seen as unavoidable with advancing years. Those promises are generally based on attempts to make the material body live longer. An alternative, spiritual approach focuses on the mental condition of the individual—to living life fully as described in the Bible where the prophet Jeremiah said: "Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit" (Jer. 17:7, 8).

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