TRAVELING IN THE ATMOSPHERE OF SPIRIT

Ronald Gray Walker

Many years ago my employers arranged to transfer me to the company's head office, located overseas. After they had booked my passage for the five-week sea voyage, I noted that not only would I be sharing a cabin with three strangers, but because the cabin was below the waterline, it had no porthole. At that time smoking was quite common and wasn't widely regarded as a health hazard, and there was no air conditioning. I was horrified at the prospect of having to endure a voyage through the tropics with three strangers in a small, poorly ventilated cabin.

I prayed for an answer, and also explored the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, who leaned on God throughout some of the most difficult life-experiences anyone can imagine. God and prayer sustained and guided her every step. she wrote down what she learned and how she put it into practice in a book I've come to value more and more each time I read it: Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. What was helpful to me in my particular situation was her description of Kingdom of Heaven: "The reign of harmony in divine Science; the realm of unerring, eternal, and omnipotent Mind; the atmosphere of Spirit, where Soul is supreme" (p. 590).

I became so convinced of God's, Spirit's, presence that my fear that I might be in an uncomfortable, even harmful, atmosphere was completely allayed. There was no reason why my fellow passengers and I should suffer an unhappy voyage, since "the atmosphere of Spirit" couldn't be contaminated by anything harmful. I also found these words from a hymn in the Christian Science Hymnal helpful:

In atmosphere of Love divine,
We live, and move, and breathe;
Though mortal eyes may see it not,
'Tis sense that would deceive.

(No. 144)

My prayers brought me complete peace, and I turned my attention to other pressing arrangements for the voyage. Several months later, it was time for me to embark. I boarded the ship, located my cabin, and was sitting on my bunk, when a fellow traveler joined me and asked, "Do you smoke?" When I said I didn't, he replied, "Well, that's very strange. Do you know that all four of us in this cabin are non-smokers?" We also learned that one of the four had secured his passage at the last moment, when someone had canceled his ticket. We were grateful for the wonderful voyage and the friendship we shared.

Ronald Gray Walker Maroochydore, Queensland, Australia

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