While serving in the army in Germany during the 1950s, I was in a small unit stationed near a village in the Taunus mountains. We were all linguists, assigned to interrogate captured prisoners in case of war. Since there were no hostilities at the time, we had very little to do. As young men with time on our hands, we decided to see how fast our jeeps could go by racing them along the country roads.
One day I took a sharp corner much too fast and the jeep left the ground, did a half roil, and came down on its top. When I felt this happening, I immediately reached out to God for help. The words, "Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need" came to thought. They are from Mary Baker Eddy's book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (p. 494). I didn't have time to think through the whole sentence, but the idea behind it was all I needed. For a short time I lost all awareness of sight and sound, and felt as though I were floating on a large, gray pillow.
The next thing I knew, my passenger and I were sitting on the canvas top in the back part of the jeep. In the two or three seconds it took the jeep to roll over, we were both moved from the front seat to the small shelf–like area in the back while the jeep rotated around us. We were sitting upright and unhurt. A thin metal tube that held the canvas top had not collapsed, and it supported the overturned jeep above us.
I immediately reached out to God for help.
I unhooked the side curtain and we crawled out—much to the surprise of the men in the jeep following us. The windshield was smashed against the front seats. We would have been in serious trouble if we had remained there. But thanks to what I feel were the effects of prayer, there were no injuries. We each had a small red mark, mine on my arm and my passenger's on his leg. Neither of us had felt any pain, nor were we stiff or sore. We righted the jeep and drove back to the villa our unit called home. Since I was the motor sergeant of the company, I repaired the jeep and there were no repercussions from the incident.
As I thought about the experience, I felt that my reaching out to God had brought us to that spiritual dimension in which the material "laws" that seem to govern existence had yielded to the spiritual ones. We were completely controlled and protected by Principle, another name for divine Love.
Even though I wasn't injured, I did change as a result of the experience. I realized that I needed to seriously and vigorously pursue my spiritual studies so that I would be ready to apply my understanding of Spirit at any time. I needed to learn more about the nature of Christian Science and to gain a deeper understanding of the spiritual identity God has given me. This is my real substance.
To understand that all substance really is Spirit, that Life and Love govern fully and completely, means that one never again needs to fear that one could experience anything but good. All that is required of each individual is to desire spiritual growth and to pursue it vigorously and expectantly.
Olympia, Washington
