I am most grateful for protection during the coronavirus pandemic. In late February 2020, my wife and I visited Venice for carnival. We intended to remain for several days before going to Florence, but decided to return home several days earlier than planned. Our decision was unrelated to the outbreak of the virus, so we were surprised to learn on reaching home that the city authorities in Venice had canceled the carnival celebrations just hours after we left and that the highways to Florence had been closed. Furthermore, the road that we had used through Austria to Germany was also closed by the Austrian authorities shortly after our return.
On our drive home, my wife began to exhibit coronavirus-like symptoms. In obedience to German law, she visited a doctor who, after a rather cursory examination, concluded that she had not been infected by the virus. Within a week of our return from Venice, German federal and state authorities announced a complete lockdown, and it was particularly strictly enforced in our community, as we live not far from Munich, which at that time had been declared the most infected city in Germany.
This gave me plenty of opportunity for my daily study of Christian Science, which allowed me to correct in my own thought the mesmeric suggestions presented in the media concerning the situation. Among the many helpful ideas I found in my work was this statement by the Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy: “At a time of contagious disease, Christian Scientists endeavor to rise in consciousness to the true sense of the omnipotence of Life, Truth, and Love, and this great fact in Christian Science realized will stop a contagion” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 116).
