Article July 31, 2000 Issue

What to look for if something's missing

By David A. Greene

My Son's Friend , who was visiting our home, lost the keys to his car. The two of them had roamed all over the place, in the woods and on the property next door. As we looked for the keys, we returned to all the places where the two had been—even to the woodpile where they had been splitting wood—but to no avail.

All this searching wasn't getting us anywhere. There had to be a better way. I had heard of lost objects being found through prayer. So I decided to call a friend who is in the full-time practice of Christian Science healing. As I talked with her, I could see that she wasn't worried about something missing. Her approach didn't center on our retracing our steps, or on placing lost-and-found notices. It was, instead, a metaphysical approach. She encouraged me to think less about the lost keys, and more about the idea that they represented. She suggested that I resolve "things into thoughts." That phrase is part of a comment from Science and Health, a textbook about spiritual healing. It says: "Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul.

"These ideas are perfectly real and tangible to spiritual consciousness," the passage goes on to say, "and they have this advantage over the objects and thoughts of material sense,—they are good and eternal" (p. 269). I prayed to understand that the qualities the keys represent are always present.

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WHEN MY CAR WAS STOLEN