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On finding the "next leaf"

From the October 1990 issue of The Christian Science Journal


There he was, a yellow, fuzzy caterpillar poised on a green leaf. I watched him raise half of his body, move it and his antennae out over thin air. Did he know where he was going? Was finding the next leaf a problem? Would any leaf do, or would it be an intelligent choice to a next leaf?

I was once like that caterpillar, clinging to a precarious financial base, reaching out to know where to go, what to do. I felt I was hanging in thin air, with no leaf in sight. But a wonderful metamorphosis took place in that "thin air." I was a landscape designer at that point. It was a seasonal occupation. Nothing growing in winter, therefore no income. What was required of me? To stop wavering in thought, this way or that. Cut the human reasoning. Cease self-condemnation for choosing a financially precarious profession. I had to become very still to be aware of an angel message, spiritual intuition, for direction.

As I prayed, the word seasonal struck me. Turning to the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, I found this: "The periods of spiritual ascension are the days and seasons of Mind's creation, in which beauty, sublimity, purity, and holiness—yea, the divine nature—appear in man and the universe never to disappear." Science and Health, p. 509. So there it was! The transit! The spiritual insight I needed. No seasons of lack or loss in Mind, God. What had to appear was my divine nature, the Christ, and there were no barren seasons for that. My true nature could have no season for being overburdened or underfed or out of balance. What I must grow into was already included within Mind's creation— beauty, sublimity, purity, the wholeness and diversity of Life. This was the transit to the "next leaf."

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