SENTINEL WATCH March 19, 2007 Issue

LET'S NOT GET INTO A FLAP

TONY LOBL

FOR VARIOUS REASONS, I've recently been contemplating the idea of not getting excited. I don't mean avoiding enthusiasm about seeing a good movie, or getting a nice gift, or seeing a friend or family member I haven't seen for a while. Rather, I see a need not to let my thoughts get stirred up over scenarios for dangerous events down the line—such as the threat of a pandemic or some natural disaster.

The word excite can mean "to stimulate." And I feel it might well have been in this respect that Mary Baker Eddy used it in Science and Health, when she wrote that when it comes to disease, "The predisposing cause and the exciting cause are mental" (p. 178). Clearly, if what's in our thinking can predispose us to disease or stimulate it, we want to be watching our thoughts carefully. We wouldn't want to get "excited" in a way that brings on sickness.

Yet how easy it is to get into a flap when something is front and center in the news night after night, as was the case recently here in the UK. Infected poultry was found—and culled—on a heavily populated turkey farm. Along with daily reports about practical steps being taken to contain avian flu, we were subjected to animated visuals of the supposed virus which, it has been feared, could mutate and threaten humans. There's a case of how exciting stuff can cross the threshold of one's thoughts in the worst possible way!