Are you sure?
This bookmark will be removed from all folders and any saved notes will be permanently removed.
The 12-mile drive
It was one of those grey, glowering winter days with an attitude. I was making the 12-mile drive to a small canal town near my home, intending to head to the library to return books and check my e-mail.
This is a rural area. You can drive half an hour without meeting a car. And that day, the winter was unforgiving in its monotony—just rolling white fields with the stubble of a fall harvest sticking through, and the occasional farmhouse and barn with a solitary horse and a few muddy cows grazing through the snow. This was the last loop on the way to lonely. The sense of isolation on the drive was suffocating. It was strange how the open space seemed so claustrophobic.
When I arrived at the library and checked my e-mail, I recognized one from a dear friend who is a Christian Science practitioner. Her message was so filled with hope—so joyful, upbeat, and affirming—that it lightened and lifted my thought to a whole new level of unlimited possibilities. No more sense of suffocation, no more enclosures.
Enjoy 1 free Sentinel article or audio program each month, including content from 1898 to today.
About the author
Doug Brown lives in Waterloo, New York.
