Article October 10, 2005 Issue

GOOD DECISIONS RIGHT NOW

By Stig Kiaer Christiansen

THE FAMILIAR DANISH WORD PARATVIDEN TRANSLATES LITERALLY AS "ready knowledge," and means having knowledge at your fingertips. According to the Danish Language Council, paratviden first appeared in print in 1967, but the human faculty of knowing something at the very moment it is needed is timeless. The concept is played out every weekday in many countries on Jeopardy!, the television game program on which contestants must quickly come up with questions to match answers in a given category. And it always amazes me how young people can hear only a few notes of a popular song and name the tune and the performer or group.

The phenomenon of ready knowledge also has metaphysical, or scientifically spiritual, aspect. A theologian or a serious student of the Bible may not know the whole Bible by heart, but he or she knows how to find almost instantly what's needed by opening a Bible concordance. Anyone who has read the Sentinel over time knows how often writers have told about facing a serious challenge—say, a traffic accident or a sudden illness, some occasion that called for immediate right thinking—and having thought of, often instantaneously, the exact spiritual idea that met the need. Perhaps through daily study of the weekly Bible Lessons (found in the Christian Science Quarterly), they felt ready at that moment and were not caught unprepared and helpless.

I have had several healings that have occurred in just that way. For example, as a lawyer in the National Tax Tribunal in Copenhagen, my work would take me a couple of times each year to Arhus, the second largest city in Denmark. Any time I traveled there, I always visited the local Christian Science church for a Wednesday meeting, and would let one of the members know when I would be in town.