Article September 3, 2007 Issue

Love—THE CRUCIAL COMPONENT in healing

BY MARY TRAMMELL

I make strong demands on love,
call for active witnesses to prove it,
and noble sacrifices and
grand achievements as its results.
Unless these appear, I cast aside the word
as a sham and counterfeit,
having no ring of the true metal.
Love cannot be a mere abstraction,
or goodness without activity and power.
—Mary Baker Eddy, Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896, p. 250

EVERY COOK knows it—there are some ingredients you just can't do without. If you're making a sweet potato casserole, for instance, it's well nigh impossible to do it without some form of sweet potato yam. You could spare, or find substitutes for, most of the other ingredients—salt, butter, cream, the marshmallows on top. But leave out the sweet potatoes themselves? Not unless you want to end up with a dish that looks and tastes like a failure!

Farmers say the same thing about water—it's the one indispensable element in raising corn, strawberries, rice, or just about anything else. Without irrigation, crops shrivel up and die. And it's that way with an orchestra—a conductor may have a full complement of instruments and performers, but without a music score to play ... there's silence.

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