Article June 11, 1984 Issue

Raindrops on my head

J. DARROW KIRKPATRICK

One morning as I was shaving, I realized I was humming a line from a popular song: "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head."^{In Burt Bacharach and Hal David, The Bacharach and David Song Book (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970).} I wondered what had caused me to start humming it. After a moment I realized that it was the rain falling softly on the roof of the house.

For a few seconds I was amused. Then I felt as if I had been struck in the face with a cold, wet washcloth as I realized the startling significance of this fact. My taking in the thought of rain unconsciously, which then caused me to start humming a song about rain without my conscious knowledge, seemed harmless enough. But how many times had I unconsciously accepted an adverse human condition or thought, and let the mental picture influence my thinking and actions, without realizing it? How many times had I unwittingly taken in a concept, picture, or sound of sin, disease, or death, which subsequently had influenced my thinking and bodily functioning without my recognizing what was happening?

As I pondered this situation, I was reminded of a statement by our Leader, Mrs. Eddy. After explaining that only the mind of an individual can produce an effect upon his body, she writes, "The belief that produces this result may be wholly unknown to the individual, because it is lying back in the unconscious thought, a latent cause producing the effect we see."^{Christian Healing, p. 6.}