A lesson from the jujube

Keo Felker Lazarus

Betsy, a ninth-grader, was the oldest girl in her family. It was her job to mow the lawn every two weeks. Among the trees surrounding the lawn was a Chinese jujube that sent long roots throughout the grass. Tiny jujube sprouts came from these roots. If Betsy clipped these sprouts off carefully at the roots when they first appeared, they would cease to grow. But if she ran the lawn mower over them, only cutting off the tops, the shoots would turn into tough little plants with sharp thorns.

One day, while tossing a Frisbee with her younger sister, Betsy stepped barefoot on one of these jujube plants, and a thorn went into her toe. Her mother pulled the thorn out, but Betsy complained that the toe still hurt. "Then, we'll have to know the truth, won't we?" her mother said.

Being a Christian Scientist, Betsy knew what her mother meant. "To know the truth" means to get your thoughts straight about who God is and what this tells us of our true identity as His child. This involves prayer and study. Betsy limped to her room, picked up Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, and began to read "the scientific statement of being," which begins: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all."^{Science and Health, p. 468.} As she read, however, Betsy began to let her thoughts wander, instead of applying these truths.