In late summer of 1962, I was in Edinburgh, Scotland, nearing the end of a fifteen-month period of graduate study and travel. At the time, Edinburgh was jampacked with tourists and students. I had managed to find about the last spare bed in the city, in a walk-up apartment being used entirely by transient students whom I did not know. Then, a few weeks before I was scheduled to return home by ship, I became ill. For several days I lay on my bed praying and attempting to ward off fear, which at times loomed large. Finally, I called for help from a local Christian Science practitioner.
As a lifelong student of this Science, I wasn't inclined to seek a medical diagnosis, but the symptoms were the same as those suffered by another student in my residence earlier in the year, whose case had been diagnosed as glandular fever. Because it appeared that the problem might be considered contagious, the practitioner insisted that I notify the public health authorities. This step required considerable courage on my part. I was afraid I would be quarantined and miss the scheduled sailing I had booked passage on. But I made the call, and the official I talked with merely thanked me for reporting the condition, and did not require me to submit to a medical examination. This freed my thought considerably.
The next day the practitioner climbed the several flights of stairs to visit me. Noting the turbulent environment of the apartment building where I was staying, she suggested I enter the local nursing facility for Christian Scientists. At first, stubborn will made me resistant to this idea. Couldn't God heal me anywhere? Later, when I was at last comfortably ensconced in a clean bed at the facility, with a lovely view of a walled garden, I saw that the situation was forcing me to express more humility and a greater trust in God's disposition of events.
