A student of Christian Science, who for several days had been praying to heal a discordant human relationship, was enjoying a drive in the country when her attention was attracted to cattle in a field. She noticed they were all standing still, chewing. Then she remembered that for the cow chewing the cud, or ruminating, is part of bovine mastication.
"They remind me of mortal mind in some ways," she thought. "Isn't it always preoccupied with its own finite world, mentally ruminating over happenings of the past or present, thrashing them over and over, habitually rehearsing and rehashing events and conversations and mentally reacting to them?" Suddenly she realized that this was exactly what she had been doing and that it was contributing to her unsolved problem. Her prayerful efforts to heal the inharmonious situation were perfectly good, but they were apparently being counteracted by unnecessary and repetitious ruminating over past unpleasantness, misunderstanding, and false accusations. She now realized that this had been the carnal mind's way of mesmerizing her into holding on to the problem instead of seeing that problem as impersonal error, totally unreal from the beginning. She had to let go of the unpleasant memories. She now refused to mull over any errors or aspects of the problem, and soon peace and harmony were established.
Seemingly harmless, often undetected as error, mental ruminating is really malpractice, or wrong thinking, and is not conducive to health, happiness, or spiritual growth. In fact, habitually persisting in this tendency is unhealthy and disease producing. Chronic disease may seem to stem from chronically mulling over past or present errors.
