A couple of years ago I began to lose my normal sense of taste. I had an unpleasant metallic taste in my mouth; everything tasted rancid or spoiled. I had also become hypersensitive to odors, which made simple tasks such as grocery shopping agonizing—everything smelled terrible. Since we were getting ready for Thanksgiving and expecting guests, my husband had to taste test everything and coach me on the spices.
I called a Christian Science practitioner for prayerful support, and each day the practitioner shared fresh inspiration. This Bible verse came to thought early on: “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man” (Matthew 15:11). One thing I realized was that the political news had left a bad taste in my mouth, as the saying goes, and I saw a need to watch my thinking more closely and to refrain from reacting, judging, or expressing resentment as I stayed informed about politics.
I wasn’t ill, so it didn’t seem as if I had been poisoned. But I felt the need to deny a sense of contamination. I knew that, as God’s spiritual reflection, I could express only purity, and nothing unlike God, good, could enter my being.
