Testimony of Healing April 23, 1979 Issue

About a year and half after I moved into a multiracial...

Todd Hoffman

About a year and half after I moved into a multiracial neighborhood in the inner city, I was working on a film documentary about safety in the city. There was an element of mental fog that had surrounded the project, and I had tried to get a deeper understanding of what real safety is and where it comes from. I saw that it has its basis in God, who creates and governs all true existence.

One night while walking back to my apartment with a hamburger and shake in hand, I saw three guys that I suspected were after me. During the day I worked with inner-city kids, and I was fed up with any thought of coddling city crime. I wanted to nail these guys and tell them how ridiculous stealing is. This wasn't the most God-inspired response, however, and as I was planning my counterattack, they jumped me.

Once that happened, I responded in a way I never expected: calmness literally possessed me. I didn't think of any specific quotations from the Bible or Mrs. Eddy's writings. But everything I had learned in Christian Science created an atmosphere of safety and reliance on God's care that produced that calmness. I thought especially about the fact that man's true identity is spiritual, not material. I realized, in retrospect, that I had to be aggressive in knowing this spiritual fact rather than in fighting these guys back in a purely physical way.

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