Once, while stationed in a picturesque village in southern Germany, I climbed to the summit of the Kofel, a peak of gray granite, rising three thousand feet above the valley. Thirteen years passed, and in March, 1960, I found myself being discharged from a military hospital having suffered what had been diagnosed as a cardiac infraction. My quick release from the hospital and retention in the service were the direct results of scientific prayer as practiced in Christian Science. Chest pains continued, however, and my activities and hopes were overshadowed by the medical verdict that I would remain alive indefinitely only by living very circumspectly.
Then I was again officially in the village where the Kofel stands, her apparently inaccessible summit a silent accusation that my life was, indeed, inhibited and that I could not repeat the climb I had once made. On page 151 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" the writer, Mary Baker Eddy, tells us, "All that really exists is the divine Mind and its idea, and in this Mind the entire being is found harmonious and eternal."
I longed to demonstrate the promise inherent in this statement which, through my study of Christian Science, I understood to be capable of fulfillment. I prayerfully studied this sentence and gained much spiritual enlightenment. As a result of this mental activity came the inspiration to assert my everlasting right to "rise, take up [my] bed and walk" (John 5:8). This divine command, translated to fit my present situation, became, "Rise, prove that you are actually an undeclining, divine idea—climb the Kofel!"
