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Your view: it's worth protecting
When Jim, my husband, retired and we moved to Florida 12 years ago, I was reluctant to leave the Northeast, where our four children and their families lived. We were leaving a large home with lovely views from every window upstairs and down, for a small home with no views at all. I remember thinking of a statement my mother had once made: “Be sure to protect your view!” I had always assumed she meant the view from our home, and I thought to myself, “Now I’ve done it. I wasn’t paying attention and lost my view!”
We did eventually create a charming view within our house, and then with landscaping and lighting created a lovely lush view on our patio. The pool, which we did not want when we were looking for a home, became the focal point of this space and also afforded lots of fun for our children and grandchildren when they came to visit.
But I didn’t care for tropical plants. I loved the big trees up north, majestic and strong, and the smaller ones with flowering branches. In my garden I’d had flowers that were gentle, sweet, fragrant, colorful, and varied. When people in Florida would ask me the names of the tropical flowers, though I was a member of a garden club, I wasn’t able to tell them.
Then I began to do flower arrangements for our local Christian Science church, a large neoclassic “Greek temple.” I felt it demanded large-scale tropical flowers such as what you might see in Greece, and certainly here in Florida. I began studying these plants and using palms, ginger, and other local materials. And in the process, I suddenly realized that the view my mother warned me to protect was not the physical view, but the spiritual view, for with each arrangement I had to let go and love more. I had to listen to Mind’s direction. I began to love those spiky plants, because they allowed for strong design and some were even fragrant. I totally yielded to this new way of expressing beauty. Furthermore, I had painted for years and enjoyed it, but now I found I was sharing my art with our congregation and realized that my expression of beauty was being received with joy.
Why is it that we resist the unfoldment of growth and hang on so desperately to what’s familiar from past experiences? Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, wrote in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “The effect of this Science is to stir the human mind to a change of base, on which it may yield to the harmony of the divine Mind” (p. 162 ). This was a valuable lesson for me, as I saw the blessings that come from embarking willingly on new adventures, keeping in mind something else Mrs. Eddy wrote: “. . . mental and moral chemistry changes the material base of thought, giving more spirituality to consciousness and causing it to depend less on material evidence” (Science and Health, p. 422 ).
Later, I also entered some local flower-arranging competitions and won some blue ribbons—further evidence that yielding to divine Mind not only leads to spiritual satisfaction, coupled with surprise and delight at Mind’s directing, but also spreads joy to others in our community by bringing qualities like beauty and freshness to the fore. How grateful Jim and I are to witness this growth in thought, as evidenced by the harmony all around us!
—Susie Ballantine, Palm Beach, Florida, US