Article September 24, 1990 Issue

Ducks, decoys, and spiritual healing

When we're facing sickness, sin, or any form of evil, the way to victory is to maintain our spiritual altitude and not be decoyed into believing a lie.

Susan Mack

Answers to our prayers can come in creative and even humorous ways at times. One day my answer came as the mental image of two ducks flying side by side.

But let me backtrack a minute to tell you what my prayer was all about. You see, a friend had called me for prayerful help in Christian Science to overcome depression and flu symptoms. As I prayed to see God's allness and direction in this situation, it became clear to me that the problem was actually a temptation to my friend to believe that God, good, was not omnipotent. It was a decoy, in effect, that would sidetrack my friend and me from worshiping only God. I saw the powerless unreality of depression and contagious illness in the presence of God's omnipotent tender love for and delight in His creation.

But even as I began to see God's power and allness, I was still very impressed with how tenaciously my friend seemed to be holding on to this mistaken view of himself. What I prayed for was direction from God that would inspire me to see how to break through this false view in my thinking—that someone could believe in the lie of an inharmonious life in matter, separate from God. Here's where the image of the two ducks came in. I suddenly had this picture of one of the ducks descending to the water's surface to inspect some wooden duck decoys that were floating there. The fake quacking from the hunters in their blind could be heard loudly. The other duck was much wiser and recognized the decoys, but he was very distressed by his friend's response and became so mesmerized by watching his friend that he failed to realize he too was descending along with him. Before long, both ducks were within range of the hunters.

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