Article March 24, 2014 Issue

When the inevitable, isn't

Kaye Cover

I recently enjoyed a long conversation with a fellow Christian Scientist about what is real (spiritual truths) versus unreal (fear, envy, and other errors). Following our talk, I thought about how error sometimes seems so real and natural that it goes unnoticed and unchallenged as part of day-to-day life. For example, it’s generally believed that a common cold will persist for a certain amount of time and that particular symptoms will follow in progression. There are even times when good results seem so unlikely that we hold out little, if any, hope of healing—or perhaps times when we’ve grown accustomed to a “chronic” condition and its recurring challenges. A life in which these beliefs are accepted, however, lacks the full blessings of a life based on divine Truth. When we view our daily events through a spiritual lens, we’ll be able to deny error as ever being normal or inevitable.

I can recall two occasions when error seemed so real that at first it didn’t even occur to me that there was hope for a positive outcome. The first incident occurred several years ago when a friend and I were driving on a side street one sunny morning. We were about to pass through an intersection when I noticed a large delivery truck approaching from the opposite direction. The driver signaled a left turn into our lane, but by then we had already entered the intersection. I assumed he would stop and give us the right of way and was shocked when he apparently did not see us (perhaps he was blinded by the sun). Instead of stopping, the truck started to turn.

Even though I hadn’t heard a crash, I had been certain that an accident had occurred.