UPFRONT August 27, 2007 Issue

Good at every turn

INGRID PESCHKE, MANAGING EDITOR

This week's Sentinel prompted me to think back on some of the transitions I've experienced in my life—ones not unique to me. There were the welcome changes, such as going off to college, getting married, having children, starting my career. But, as Channing Walker points out in his article this week (p. 8), some transitions happen seemingly out of the blue and against what we may think we want—perhaps an unexpected layoff, or a separation from a loved one. And sometimes it's all too easy to compare our next steps to the ones we had before, as Inge Schmidt discovers in her article, "Life-lessons at graduate school" (p. 12).

Whether the change is one we've anticipated or not, I've come to think of transitions as no less a part of God's infinite plan than the next chapter in a good book, or the prospect of visiting a new destination. "Each successive stage of experience," wrote Mary Baker Eddy, "unfolds new views of divine goodness and love" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 66). The scenes and circumstances may change, but not the main characters. Love and Love's idea will never be separated. God guarantees fulfillment, satisfaction, joy, and protection at every turn.

Four years ago when my family embarked on a cross-country move, many factors could have kept us rooted where we were: an active church, wonderful friends and neighbors, a relative who had just moved closer to us, and the new home we'd recently built. But our decision to leave was based on prayer—the same prayer that had consistently showed me that my home, church, even friends were spiritual, and thus "movable," concepts. They were not limited to place, space, time—or even person. They represented the ever-varied expression of Soul and the outpouring of God's goodness that can't possibly dry up.

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