I once taught in a school for gifted children in St. Louis. One Friday evening I was out with a group of fellow teachers when suddenly my cellphone rang. It was my former husband in Seattle. He had been trying to reach me for two days, but because I was so exhausted from work, I had neglected to turn my cellphone back on after teaching. Our son, Alex, also a teacher, had apparently been seriously injured in a football game at a field day with his students in New York City.
My first reaction was, “No!” I berated myself for not having been available sooner. Then I asked myself angrily, “Why was he playing football?!” (My son was an expert soccer player and football was hardly my favorite sport.) But I knew neither self-condemnation nor personal prejudice would help. I quickly took leave of my colleagues in order to hear the details in my car. By this time I was fairly dazed as Alex’s father explained our son’s injuries, which included four broken bones in his face.
After we hung up, I tried to reach our son. I had thought of going home first to get into a better frame of mind, and perhaps look up some references in the Bible or Mary Baker Eddy’s writings in order to share the “perfect” thought with him. But motherly instinct and guilt for my delayed response kicked in, and I felt impelled to call him right away, praying like Moses for God to tell me what I should say. Thankfully, Alex answered the phone. As he spoke quietly about the steps he was taking to recover, the thought came to share an experience when he was a child.
