Article November 24, 1980 Issue

"I couldn't leave God at home"

VIOLETTE M. LEE

My husband and I, along with another couple, were about to embark on a trip halfway around the globe to two unfrequented islands. I enthusiastically showed our itinerary to a friend. But her response was not what I'd expected. She expressed great concern over our safety and well-being in such a rugged, isolated area.

This reaction startled me. I felt doubtful and insecure about the trip until I realized that her comments were based on a mortal concept of man and his frailties, rather than on the real man—the image of God. Then I awoke to the fact that no one could influence me unless I gave my consent. I didn't have to accept her erroneous, restrictive view. I knew that we all have the God-given ability to think for ourselves and to heed His guidance.

Pondering this, I recalled my childhood study of arithmetic. Hadn't I learned that the concept of two-plus-two-equals-four is universally available? Of course. Although unseen and untouchable, numbers and their relationships are indestructible. Mrs. Eddy says, "Erase the figures which express number, silence the tones of music, give to the worms the body called man, and yet the producing, governing, divine Principle lives on,—in the case of man as truly as in the case of numbers and of music,—despite the so-called laws of matter, which define man as mortal."^{Science and Health, p. 81;} As I thought about this analogy between numbers and spiritual being, I realized that as the concept of numbers could not be limited to one locality, God, good, was present wherever I went. I couldn't leave God at home while I journeyed forth godless, mindless.

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