I HAD BEEN COMMISSIONED to fill—within one month—three museum gallery spaces with pen-and-ink drawings as backdrops for Japanese ikebana flower arrangements. I had little time to waste! The drawings had to be simple and well-composed interpretations of nature—specifically, mountain streams, rocks, and vegetation. The Sierra Nevada, near my hometown, comprises a wealth of beautiful topography, so I packed up my art tools and headed into the mountains.
Once I'd arrived at about 7,000 feet, I settled beside a rushing stream. Using my special pen—the only one of its kind that I had with me—I began to draw. Because it was early summer, the stream was very full with freshly melted snow. Finishing a drawing—totally forgetting that I had put the pen in my lap—I got up to move further upstream. As I stood up, I saw my special pen cascade into the rushing water. Oh, no! I thought, I'm isolated up here in the mountains, the exhibit is only a month away—and I've lost my pen!
However, I had just returned from an inspiring day at my yearly Christian Science association meeting and felt particularly uplifited. Instead of giving in to a rush of self-condemnation, fear, and resignation to my loss, I decided to pray and not accept that the pen was irretrivably gone. At this point, I experienced two conflicting thought patterns—one that wanted to accept the loss and one that refused to accept the loss. Which was it going to be? Lost or found? I remembered that Science and Health states that human power is "proportionate to its embodiment of right thinking" (p.225). Finding my pen, then, required right thinking and right acting.
