Article April 20, 2009 Issue

CADDYING WITH LOVE

BY COLBY BERMEL

A couple of years ago, I decided to become a caddy at a local golf course because I love to play golf, and I thought it would be interesting to see the game from an entirely different perspective. A caddy carries a golfer's bag of clubs while the golfer is playing. Part of the job is to clean the clubs, tend to the flags, help rake the sand traps, and do other tasks as well.

Although I'm athletic and participate in many sports like lacrosse and running, I was a bit concerned about my duties as a caddy. I would have to carry a 20-pound bag for four hours at a time while walking up and down very steep hills. Sometimes, I would even have to trek through the woods and wade through water to find my golfer's ball.

A week into this job, I started to experience painful shin splints. At first I thought they'd go away in a few days. I didn't really pay too much attention to them. But I realized later that just ignoring a problem isn't helpful. As a Christian Scientist, I'd seen how useful and effective prayer was, whether in healing an injury or when taking a difficult test at school. As far back as I can remember, I've been living the ideas from "the scientific statement of being" in Science and Health (see p. 468). It reminds me that every person, no matter who they are, is spiritual, not material. So after a few days of putting up with the shin splints, I began to pray as I'd learned to, in order to find healing.