I learned a valuable lesson one summer while weeding the ivy bed. I had not relished the thought of stooping to pull each troublesome plant. So I'd let them grow for a while. The ivy began to be lost in the dense foliage of dandelions, chickweed, and clover. It finally became clear that I'd better get busy and do a complete job. At first I didn't know if I could distinguish the weeds from the ivy, but I soon found that anything that was not ivy should be uprooted.

As I stooped and weeded, I realized how much like the ivy bed my thinking was. It too had become rather weedy. Thoughts of criticism, irritation, and apathy were crowding out and hiding God-derived thoughts of peace, activity, love, and healing. Then and there I determined to uproot the erroneous thoughts I'd allowed to take hold in my consciousness.

I could easily identify these thoughts. Anything unlike God needed to be uprooted and cast out. I began by rooting out criticism and impatience I felt toward friends and even fellow church members. I replaced these thoughts with the facts of man, as God knows him. I reasoned that since God, infinite good, is all-knowing, then what He knows of man, His own image and likeness, is good. And it is all there is to know of man. Therefore all I can know of man is good. Anything else is not true of man and therefore not real. God, divine Love, creates man in His own image, as the loving reflection of His nature. God's man sees himself as perfect because God, his Mind, knows him to be perfect. That leaves nothing to criticize. Christ Jesus gave us this command: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." ^{Matt. 5:48;}

Man can only see and express the beauty and perfection of God's creation. Man reflects God's activity, performing at His direction. I could see that omnipotent good was the only power, leaving nothing to induce anyone to be unlike God.

My ivy bed was looking much healthier, and so was my thinking! But there was more to be done to both, so I continued the work.

I had been tutoring so-called slow learners in reading and had allowed my thoughts to become entangled with what I considered to be their disabilities. Seeing this, I began to replace the thoughts of limited, emotionally disturbed children with the true concept of God's child, the only child there really is. This child, I realized, reflects divine Mind, is alert, unlimited, intelligent, stable, and perfectly controlled by divine Love. I began to look for and see good qualities as the only ones this child can really express.

My pupils began to read. They improved emotionally as well as scholastically. One mother, not a Christian Scientist, recognized the change as God-derived. She asked to be taken to Wednesday evening testimony meetings. And she started to read Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy.

The ivy bed was now weeded. New shoots began to sprout and spread. Neighbors and friends began to comment on how well it was progressing. But the work wasn't over. New weeds tried to crop up all summer. I sometimes wanted to postpone the work again, but I didn't forget the lesson I'd learned. Instead, I'd go right out and do the job. I found that it was not so hard after that first time.

My thinking followed much the same pattern. I actually entertained no more thoughts of criticism. Every now and then they seemed to crop up again, but I was quick to root them out before they took hold. It was beautiful to see God's man joyfully and lovingly expressed. It became so clear to me that it was my "garden" that needed the weeding. The problem hadn't been with other people but with my own consciousness.

These experiences decisively proved for me that Truth is always active, and that our only job is to do the mental weeding, that is, sweep away the false so that Truth can show through.

It isn't always easy. Sometimes wrong thoughts spring up without our knowing it. Some are entirely overlooked. Perhaps we don't recognize them. But as we turn to God for light, the erroneous thoughts show up, not to give us a sense of self-condemnation or guilt but only to be uprooted and replaced with scientific fact. We'll find that the more mental weeding we do, the easier it is to detect mental intruders and get rid of them.

Mrs. Eddy says, "The weeds of mortal mind are not always destroyed by the first uprooting; they reappear, like devastating witch-grass, to choke the coming clover." ^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 343;} Earlier she asks, "Are we clearing the gardens of thought by uprooting the noxious weeds of passion, malice, envy, and strife?" As we answer this question in the affirmative, the joys of being an alert gardener will be manifest, and the blessings will reach far beyond our own gardens into the larger and more diffuse fields of the world. War, crime, pollution, poverty, and hatred are mental weeds. Truth eradicates these as surely as it does lesser weeds of criticism, pettiness, and mental laziness.

We can uproot disturbances, fears, or anxieties as a start in the direction of tackling world problems, and replace these false concepts with those that express the certainty and harmony of the kingdom of heaven. As we do this, the world will be better. So let's get busy!

What a sense of joy envelops us as we realize the power of Truth and recognize it in action! Mrs. Eddy writes: "To divest thought of false trusts and material evidences in order that the spiritual facts of being may appear,—this is the great attainment by means of which we shall sweep away the false and give place to the true." ^{Science and Health, p. 428.}