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A few years ago , my husband and I adopted a rescue puppy who delighted in leaping onto the bed in the morning to wake me up. One morning she landed directly on my head with her paws tangled in my hair, jolting me out of a frightening dream.

Early last summer, the subject for the Bible Lesson from the Christian Science Quarterly one week was “Christian Science. ” Throughout the week I had been carefully studying the Lesson, which is composed of passages from the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.

Listening to the news these days, we might feel dismayed by the many problems confronting us, including wars, weather extremes, immigration crises, and political conflicts. To anyone who is concerned about the state of the world, helping humanity can feel like a daunting challenge.

I was teaching a kindergarten class. The school had recently been reorganized, with some children suddenly finding themselves in new rooms with new classmates and new teachers.

A Christian Science practitioner once told me that angel messages come with action; they are not just good thoughts, but involve results. I had been devoting lots of my prayer time to thinking about church.

I am the librarian of a Christian Science Reading Room in a busy downtown area of a city in central California. Assisting visitors in their search for spiritual insights and guidance has been rewarding.

Imagine standing at the threshold of the fourth century after Christ Jesus’ ascension and watching the shadows gather portending a dark time ahead for humanity, as Christian healing disappeared from the practice of Christianity. What if you knew it would be over a millennium before Christ’s Christianity, with its attendant “signs following,” would begin to reappear? Would you just give up, feeling it was futile and pointless to stand against the currents of such an overwhelming nighttide? Or would you dig deep, and resolve never to abandon the Truth you had witnessed the power of—not only for your own sake, but at least as importantly, for the sake of the many in need you could still help and heal? Your decision would have outsized effect—as a modern-day analogy illustrates.

While reading the allegory of the Greek philosopher Plato, born about 400 years before the Christian Era, I was able to draw parallels between it and what Mary Baker Eddy, the Founder of Christian Science, discovered about God and spiritual man in His image. In the allegory, found in his influential work The Republic, Plato imagines some prisoners in a cave, who have lived there all their lives.

“What a wonderful law! I love it so much that I can hardly think about anything else. ”  That’s not a common sentiment, of course.

In the clash of electoral politics, vitriol is a pollutant that fills the mental atmosphere with personal acrimony. A hyper-partisan spirit, whether pro or con, depicts a “me first” mentality that puts the self-interest of some ahead of the common good and exalts political dogma above the wisdom of God, the universal Principle that reigns over all His creation equitably.