"Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts.... Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy paths drop fatness. They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness.... The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing" (Ps. 65:4-13). What are these "pastures of the wilderness" which are "clothed with flocks," and whose valleys are "covered over with corn," of which the Psalmist spoke?
The meaning of "wilderness" is illuminated by Mary Baker Eddy's definition of it in "Science and Health with Key to the. Scriptures," which reads (p. 597): "Loneliness; doubt; darkness. Spontaneity of thought, and idea; the vestibule in which a material sense of things disappears, and spiritual sense unfolds the great facts of existence." The first part of this definition applies to the unreal mortal sense of life; the second to the transitional stage of human experience, when spiritual truth is replacing erroneous belief.
Familiar to all is the Bible story of the children of Israel who were led by Moses out of Egyptian bondage, across the Red Sea through the wilderness, and finally to the promised land. This story typifies the mental journey, or transition, we all must make in order to redeem the human consciousness of materiality and to reach our goal—the kingdom of heaven. It indicates that an initial desire to turn away front a material sense of life is necessary in order to commence the journey. Red Sea trials serve only to test or confirm our faith and allegiance. Relinquishing reliance upon material systems and theories, thought gradually is purified, or emerges from the wilderness of human hypotheses, and gains the clear light of spiritual understanding.
