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In the atmosphere of Love
Many Christian Science association meetings are held all over the world once a year. Those who attend have taken a two-week course from a Christian Science teacher on understanding God and our relationship to Him. This class instruction is all about Christian Science healing.
One year, I was flying home from one of these annual meetings and there was a medical emergency on the plane. A woman came down the aisle with the flight attendants. They found a seat for her several rows behind me at the front of the plane. All heads turned to see what was going on. The atmosphere was filled with tension.
Then came an announcement on the loudspeaker asking if there was a doctor on board. At this point I was feeling the agitation and knew I needed to calm my thought and contribute positively to the atmosphere around me. It took a few minutes, but I remembered what I’d learned from class instruction, and on my association day—to trust God and let Him give us the healing thoughts we need for any situation.
I began to pray. As a fellow passenger on the flight, I decided to “cast my vote” on the side of God knowing that only good was going on in His kingdom right there on that airplane.
I knew I could not pray specifically for the woman unless she asked me to. But I could work to defend the atmosphere around me from any thought that could be other than good. Amid all the well-meaning, yet curious stares of the passengers ahead of me, I began to see man as spiritual, living in divine Spirit only. We weren’t all cooped up on a plane with little comfort and air. We were all expressing freedom of movement and a wonderful expression of efficient transportation. The very reason I could be at my association each year in another state was because I saw God’s ever-expanding sense of timelessness and space. I had learned to see there are no limits to expressing and finding Christlike ideas with which to understand God more clearly.
I affirmed that nothing was going on around us but good. The atmosphere of harmony had to prevail because it is the ever-present atmosphere of the Christ, and the Christ brings God’s loving messages to man. Harmony is the only atmosphere in which God’s idea, man, can possibly abide.
As the curiosity continued and the flight attendants bustled up and down the aisle, this thought came to me from a line in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, “ ‘There is no sensation in matter’ ” (p. 237 ). This was kind of a different angle on the quote, but I realized that “sensationalism” or human curiosity could not exist in the realm of harmony. As I pondered this thought, a girl who may have been a nurse signaled to the flight attendant and they walked by with oxygen.
I continued to pray, thinking that man breathes in the atmosphere of Love. As quickly as they brought the oxygen, they took it back unused. Then they walked down the aisle with a first aid kit, wet cloths, and drinks. Each was taken back unused. By this time, I felt completely at peace. The curious heads had stopped turning. I knew the woman was all right and always had been. The flight attendants no longer rushed down the aisle. All was well.
As I disembarked the thought came, “a small plane, a tight flight, no wonder.” But, no! God’s plan had been moving each idea with purpose, toward a destination of good, and in complete harmony. I’d just been a witness to that truth.
—Robyn Layne, Gloucester, Massachusetts, US