I Would Have Bled to Death in Front of My Dog (if it weren't for Christian Science)
Applying the Common Sense of Christian Science to the Journey of the Modern Seeker
IT WAS THE MIDDLE OF JANUARY earlier this year, and I was out at the crack of dawn with my dog in a deeply wooded hiking area in Northern Virginia.
The trail was basically our backyard, as it was just a few short traffic lights from my condo. Lucky for us there was a few inches of snow on the ground making for a wet, white and wild run through the trees keeping track of a constantly vanishing tennis ball.
After fun was had, we headed down a concrete sidewalk leading back to the parking lot. The path was slippery, having no snow cover from all the foot traffic, so I was extra careful.
Then I took a careless step.
Suddenly my feet flew out from under me and before I knew it I was completely airborne, the full weight of my 195-pound frame plummeting backwards in seeming slow motion, down, down, down, until my head slammed onto the hard, jagged ground, bouncing off it like a basketball. The impact made a bang! sound like a bowling ball had been dropped on a hard floor.
I was pinned on my back, and I couldn’t move.
Am I alive?
It was dead silent, not another soul in sight. Panic set in.
My first thought was that my head hit the ground with so much force that there was no way it didn’t split open, and there was no way I wasn’t bleeding out right there in front of my dog, who looked back at me curiously like, “Dude, why did you just suddenly lie down so dramatically?”
But I’m a Christian Scientist, you see, and Christian Scientists have the benefit of knowing certain things they desperately need in the moment, like, accidents don’t exist in a life wholly governed by one perfect Mind.
To the non-Christian Scientist, “logic” like this is nonsense… to the Scientist, it’s common sense.
As I lay there still unable to move looking up at the snow-covered treetops and the crisp blue sky, not a breath of wind in sight, I literally imagined a giant soundless wall of Truth slowly closing in on all the randomness and matter and discord in the world, finally sealing shut anything not made by God, leaving no room for what just seemed to happen to me moments ago. I was safe because I was now completely encased in this giant bubble of God’s harmonious existence where no accidents were part of the divine creation.
For the record, visions like this don’t just appear every time something like this happens. Every situation elicits different thoughts.
And I wasn’t just coming up with these things, I was knowing they were true. My fear began to abate. Something certain and comforting took over my being. I had no idea what my physical head looked like, but I was sure whatever caused it had never happened, and I was in God’s care. I unhesitatingly knew God to be the only Cause and Creator of all things, and if He caused all things, and all things are good, then whatever caused this accident was not of God and therefore not real and had no power.
The Law of God is real and eternal, the cause and effect of all things, but there is no law that supports error, evil, or accident. They are merely suggestion of fact.
“Under divine Providence there can be no accidents,” Mrs. Eddy explains in Science and Health, “since there is no room for imperfection in perfection.”
Though I rose confidently, the panic suddenly screamed back as I imagined my head bleeding and in dire need of an emergency room. But I stopped myself, because I knew that if I started worrying and wanting to touch or peek at whatever seemed to be the issue, I wouldn’t be fully trusting God and his divine order.
Mortal mind (what Apostle Paul called “carnal mind”) wanted me to freak out. It wanted me to think the worst. It knew that if I started panicking, the lie that chaos had any truth or merit would become so real to me that it would eventually manifest into some physical form.
We made it back to my car. The drive home was a blur. I checked the back of my head in the mirror at home. There wasn’t even a scratch on it. I had a faint headache, but that was entirely gone when I got up the next morning. It’s as if the accident never happened. In (spiritual) reality, it didn’t.
Mrs. Eddy explains it this way:
“Accidents are unknown to God, or immortal Mind, and we must leave the mortal basis of belief and unite with the one Mind, in order to change the notion of chance to the proper sense of God’s unerring direction and thus bring out harmony.”
She also said, “fear is the fountain of sickness.” There is not a doubt in my mind that if I had lived in fear after that fall, I would have rushed to an emergency room with some kind of laceration on my head needing immediate attention. Fear that is erased by Truth literally binds up wounds and restores harmony.
“Christian Science acts as an alterative,” Mrs. Eddy once wrote, “neutralizing error with truth. It changes secretions, expels humors, dissolves tumors, relaxes rigid muscles, restores carious bones to soundness.”
If God clothes the lilies and feeds the sparrows, why would he not offer you, His son, His daughter, His magnum opus, the health and protection you need to be whole? Would He have gone through the work of creating humankind without preparing to uphold that promise? He just needs one thing in return: your trust. For us mortals, the trust is the hardest part.
One of Mrs. Eddy’s most known statements, “Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need,” leaves little to uncertainty.
I’ll also add that throughout the ordeal, my dog, having no clue I had gotten into an “accident,” stuck with me the whole way, seeing me as the same right idea of God before, during and after, proving God (dog backwards) took scrupulous care when gifting our furry friends spiritual sense that we humans have to go out and acquire.
Divine Science doesn’t just conquer sickness (i.e. physical afflictions), but it is equitable in battling sin. The reason sin is a much harder error to overcome in our lives is because most people enjoy sinning; they want to continue it. No one (that I know of at least) wants to continue being sick.