My plane reservations were made months in advance, because I was to fly at the busiest travel time of the year. I arrived in plenty of time at the city airways terminal, but with the crowds and noise and confusion I didn't hear the announcement for my bus to the airport, and I missed that crucial flight. I inquired about a seat on a later flight—there was absolutely nothing. I explored the only alternate transportation (many hours by ferry and bus), which was hopelessly inconvenient for all concerned. The people meeting me at my destination had a long drive to the airport and would already have left home; there was no way to contact them. I felt confused, angry, frustrated, helpless. At last I started to pray.
I reached out to God for a message to get me out of this predicament, and quickly one came to me. But it seemed irrelevant to the situation, so I dismissed it and listened again for what divine Mind was telling me. Same message! So I thought I'd better heed it. It was a sentence from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy: "The calm and exalted thought or spiritual apprehension is at peace." Science and Health, p. 506 My thought was anything but calm, exalted, and at peace. I noticed that the calm state of thought Mrs. Eddy referred to was equated with spiritual apprehension, and I realized how far I was from apprehending things spiritually. I'd been engulfed in the disturbing human circumstances. Now I began some reassessment from a spiritual standpoint.
Instead of being angry at an "inefficient bus announcer" (as I'd labeled him), I acknowledged that each airline employee, in his or her true nature, was actually an orderly, loving idea of divine Principle, God. Instead of being frustrated at my own lack of alertness, I claimed my status as an alert, intelligent idea of divine Mind. Instead of feeling deprived of being in my right place and helpless to correct it, I recognized that the all-intelligent Mind, which is Love, forever maintains each of its ideas in its right place and in the right relationship with all other ideas. Under God's government there are no mistakes, no hopeless situations, no missed connections. I soon felt a great sense of peace and calm, and with this radically changed attitude I returned to the very counter where earlier the answer had been an emphatic "NO" and inquired again. This time the answer was "Perhaps," and then "Yes, I've found one seat, but you may have to forfeit your ticket and buy another." This didn't faze me, since by now I knew that God doesn't do anything halfway. Moments later: "No, we can reuse the same ticket, and there's even a small refund because of routing through a different airport."
