Article March 5, 2007 Issue

UNALTERABLE TRUTH

REBECCA ODEGAARD

I leaned back in my airline seat, comforted, and comfortable, and accepted the fact that God is the only Cause and He causes only good.

As I was sitting at the breakfast table one day, I scanned the room and suddenly noticed a large dark spot on the sofa. Our teenage children were home for vacation, and that very morning the street we lived on had been resurfaced with oily tar. It was possible one of them had come in from the street with tar on their shoes and stretched out on the sofa, leaving the stain. I immediately began to wonder how to tackle this. Should I go to the drycleaner? Try a stain remover? Call in an expert? While considering these options, I examined the stain up close. To my astonishment, there was no stain at all! It was merely the angle of the light from where I'd been sitting that created a large, dark patch on the couch. When I moved, changing my perspective, I saw it differently. With this new viewpoint, my thought easily shifted from what had seemed a slight annoyance, to the happy realization that nothing needed to be done at all.