One evening, while working by myself, I hurriedly installed a heavy steel chute into the recovery circuit at our sapphire mine in Montana. I knew I should take a moment to gather some wood blocks to support the chute in position while I welded it in place. But in the rush to beat the setting sun I instead took an unwise shortcut.
I lost my balance and experienced a brief “uh-oh” moment, as my left foot became pinned under the heavy chute. My right foot then slipped over the edge of the sluice box, pulling me over in a free fall toward the ground several feet down. There was a list of possible bad outcomes that could have consumed my thought, but instead I found myself instantly in my “prayer closet.” I was conscious only of God, divine Love, with no awareness of danger whatsoever. I made no mental attempt to “save” myself by any direct physical effort.
I clearly remember being immersed in a sense of total trust and the warm embrace of “the everlasting arms” as described in Deuteronomy 33:27.
My welding helmet now covered my face, so I couldn’t see my surroundings during the fall. However, I remained in perfect peace. With the abrupt landing, I now found myself standing somewhat like a skewed ballerina—with the tip-toes of my right foot on the ground, while my outstretched left leg was about chin height—my legs in a split. One elbow rested against a vertical steel post, even though I couldn’t see it. It held me upright and kept my torso and head from swinging backward uncontrollably like a pendulum.
I remembered that a week before, I’d been going to cut off that steel post to clean up things, but an intuitive voice, which I refer to as “the still, small voice” of God, had stated clearly, “Don’t cut that off now. You might need it for something”—and now it was supporting me upright. My first effort to lean forward and lift the chute with my extended left arm was unsuccessful, and I was feeling more fatigued with each passing moment. Words from a Christian Science hymn came to mind: “In Thine own image we may see / Man pure and upright, whole and free” (Violet Hay, Christian Science Hymnal, No. 12). Right then I needed to feel the spiritual strength of each word—pure, upright, whole, and free.
What had started as an uncontrolled fall concluded in a safe landing in an upright position, instead of falling onto my head. I saw this as demonstrating spiritual equilibrium, which together with “upright” meant I was “whole” and complete as God’s image and likeness. Feeling a sense of urgency, I then joked to myself that I’d work on the “pure” part later! Right then I needed to see myself as “free.” I made a quick acknowledgment that God’s man could never be imprisoned. Then I leaned forward, now with sufficient strength to raise the steel chute high enough to pull my leg out and lift it over the side wall of the sluice box.
As I stood there, while my full strength returned, that still small voice pronounced loudly in my thought: “Remove all memory of accident.” In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy writes, “Accidents are unknown to God, or immortal Mind, and we must leave the mortal basis of belief and unite with the one Mind, in order to change the notion of chance to the proper sense of God’s unerring direction and thus bring out harmony” (p. 424).
Mortal sense suggested images of discord to the body, but I refused to “go there” in thought. I was preserved from any claim of injury, standing upright and unscathed, firm in the understanding that “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30). I then acknowledged that what really happened was not an accident at all, but a demonstration of complete trust in my oneness with God and of dwelling “in the secret place of the most High” (Psalms 91:1), in that quiet closet of consciousness, in silent communion with God, where no discord exists.
I found myself also so grateful for the Christian Science practitioner who years ago impressed upon me this statement from Jesus, quoted in the chapter on “Prayer” in Science and Health: “ ‘When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and, when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly’ ” (pp. 14–15). When I had first studied that quote and the accompanying text, I was perplexed, thinking that directly attempting to shut the door on “something” only seems to further entangle one in the web of error, thereby making it seem more real. But I came to understand that one needs only to become fully conscious of spiritual sense—our oneness with God—and the “door” then automatically and effortlessly closes behind us. And the erring sense disappears.
I am so grateful that I walked away from this experience completely free, with no aftereffects except an enlightened understanding of our dear Father-Mother God’s omnipotent care.
Baker City, Oregon, US
