Article August 4, 2008 Issue

WHAT IT MEANS TO LEAN

BY SUSAN MACK

"To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings." This is how Mary Baker Eddy began her major work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (p. vii), and I can say that this precious promise has come back to me so many times through the years that I've been a very grateful reader! Leaning on God has become the essential starting point for me in every prayer I pray.

Growing up, I found it helpful to think about "leaning on the sustaining infinite" as releasing myself from a personal sense of responsibility, moving toward a more complete trust in God. I would picture myself learning to swim, laying my head back in the water and feeling how the laws of buoyancy supported me so effortlessly and perfectly. I didn't have to create the laws of buoyancy because they already existed. The one thing I did have to do, though, was to trust those laws and relax into them in order to swim around freely.

It seems logical to me that Science and Health begins with a reference to leaning so readers realize that no matter how little they feel they know about the spiritual laws that govern the universe, or divine Science, they can always experience healing just by surrendering more completely to those laws.

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August 4, 2008
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