Anger effaced, toe healed

John Kohler

One night about a year and a half ago, a fellow across the street decided to practice his trumpet-playing in the lovely night air of his front porch. Only problem was, he wasn’t very good, it was around midnight and midweek, and my wife and I were trying to sleep.

After about five minutes of this, I went out on the porch in my pajamas and had some words with him. I wasn’t in the best of moods and no doubt wasn’t as Christian as I would have liked to have been. This happened twice, and as I was coming in the second time, our cat sneaked out the front door.

We don’t usually let her go outside, so I dashed off after her in a pretty foul mood, down the porch steps, along the sidewalk and into the driveway. I believe I caught her by the tail and hauled her back in the house. But in the process, I skinned the front of one of my big toes pretty badly. At my request, my wife, a Christian Science nurse, lovingly got up and cleaned it off and bandaged it. I went into the living room to pray. By then it was throbbing in pain. I have to say it hurt like heck!

As I tried to pray, I realized I was rather worked up about this neighbor’s behavior. But then I also realized that that anger wasn’t really my nature or any part of me. I saw that the truth of my being was wholly spiritual, as was the source of my goodness and joy—and that this was true for my neighbor, too.

Over my years of studying Christian Science, I have come to learn that all mankind reflect divine Love, so these are spiritual, eternal qualities and not just human nature. In answer to the question “What is man?” Mary Baker Eddy writes, “He is the compound idea of God, including all right ideas; the generic term for all that reflects God’s image and likeness; the conscious identity of being as found in Science, in which man is the reflection of God, or Mind, and therefore is eternal; that which has no separate mind from God; that which has not a single quality underived from Deity; that which possesses no life, intelligence, nor creative power of his own, but reflects spiritually all that belongs to his Maker” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 475).

Within minutes of my realizing that anger was no part of me, the pain simply vanished. The next day I took the ten-mile hike I had planned up Mount Monadnock and back, in stiff hiking boots, with no pain or hindrance from the toe. It took a couple of days for the toe to heal fully, but during that time I was joyous, had total freedom of movement, and no pain. Today I couldn’t even tell you which foot it was.

I am always grateful for the lessons learned with healing. As a friend says, with each healing comes revealing. I should add that there has never been any negative effect on my relationship with my neighbor. Once in a while he pulls his trumpet out to the porch to play, but never at midnight.

John Kohler
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, US

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