From the Editors March 24, 2014 Issue

Look up and around you!

The Editors

Last year, readers of the editorial page of The New York Times said goodbye to a columnist whose rural life they had shared for almost 16 years—teacher and author Verlyn Klinkenborg (“Farewell,” December 25, 2013). They had sat with him beside his wood stove while he explained that the only crops on his farm were his “thoughts and feelings and perceptions”—some annual, some perennial.

“But perhaps the most important thing I learned here, on these rocky, tree-bound acres,” he concluded, “was to look up from my work in the sure knowledge that there was always something worth noticing and that there were nearly always words to suit it.”

Someone else who consistently saw beauty “worth noticing” around her and readily found words to express it was Mary Baker Eddy, founder of this magazine. She once wrote: “Arctic regions, sunny tropics, giant hills, winged winds, mighty billows, verdant vales, festive flowers, and glorious heavens,—all point to Mind, the spiritual intelligence they reflect. The floral apostles are hieroglyphs of Deity” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 240).

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