Humans lean, depend, trust. It's an inevitable part of the package and much needed just to function; indeed, even lying in bed looking at the ceiling involves trust in something — perhaps the value of peaceful aloneness. Most of us drift with the popular level of belief and trust people, places and things to operate smoothly until something breaks down and we have to reach out to someone or something for help — placing trust on these. A student of Christian Science will often reach out for an expanded view of existence to guard and guide such dependencies.

Here are some aspects of trust discussed at the meeting:

1) The word "Trust" comes from the Indo-European root "deru" meaning "to be firm, solid, steadfast". Words derived from this root include tree, truth, truce, troth, Druid. We were reminded of the two trees in the Garden of Eden — the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (see Genesis 2: 9). In our everyday life (the Garden of Eden) do we trust God or do we resort to what fluctuating beliefs of good and evil entice us with?

2) We saw a kind of paradox here. We have to "suspend disbelief" enough (as when going to a movie) in order to become engaged in human life; this will involve lots of trusts and dependencies and risks mesmeric engulfment if we entirely forget our divine bearings. It's playing with fire in a way and certainly needs an ongoing conscious contact with God as the process unfolds. But the very wounds sustained and foundations rocked will drive us to a higher appreciation of and at-one-ment with our innate divine nature, the Trust behind all trusts.

3) The student of Christian Science normally spends time in the early morning and during the day getting and keeping his contact with God alive and fresh. He translates the concepts of his day into the ideas of God, thus practicing the Presence of God right there. One member shocked us by using the term "magnetize" in this regard — just as we can let life slip into the magnetic control of dualistic beliefs, we can let the 'iron shavings' of the minutiae of human existence be fully magnetized by our conscious living of our divinity — the minutiae then have no choice but to conform to the directives of God.

4) If one trusts in Christian Science, is he trusting his working knowledge thereof or rather the full reality of Science "reaching out to me even as I reach out to it"? A member felt Christian Science is like math — "I have a working knowledge of math that goes with me to the grocery store; but the bulk of the field will reveal itself only as I need it and explore further." He felt the basic principles of Science could and should be leaned upon, almost as unthinkingly as we depend on math or English. He would reserve study and contemplation for the new and extraordinary.

5) Humans have a choice whether to trust or not and indeed what to trust. The divine idea, which the human represents, has no choice but to reflect God. A couple of members warned us about seeing ourselves and others as trusting or even trustworthy humans. Yes, these are meritorious concepts and quite desirable but basically dualistic and thus very much subject to disappointment. They felt it was better to go at it from this standpoint: whether the situation or person is trusting or trustworthy, get off that level of belief quickly, understand and live out from the fact that all people, places and things are ideas of God. This will bring the so called human level into conformity with reality and suddenly there are wonderful things and people to "trust". How can that be? Well,at that point they are being seen and lived as they truly are—non dualistic ideas of God. The desirable human attributes are — to use our friend's term — "magnetized", or held in subjection to their divine counterparts. As long as the situation is lived as divine, and nor merely human, harmony will prevail and our trust will have been well placed.

Two interesting healing were reported:

1) One member was greatly shaken when his manager suddenly resigned one morning last week. He was fairly new in the business and this woman had been his mentor. At lunch he prayed to gain some serenity and then saw clearly that God was governing and controlling the situation in spite of the seeming ephemerality of the human picture He felt a surge of reassurance and returned to his work. Late that afternoon, the big bosses marched into his office and made him the new manager! He feels able to handle the new responsibilities.

2) Another member has lunch a couple of times a week at a senior center where in the past she has gotten less than her fair share of any meat included in the casseroles served. She worked on this in Science and things had gotten much better — she had suffered no slight for several weeks. The other day she again felt her portion was skimpy and went back for seconds. A man cut in front of her — remember, this is New York — and got the last meat in the dish. She returned sadly to her table. A woman nearby had seen her distress and kindly offered to share the meat portion she had with our member. This felt like quite a progressive unfoldment in the healing, since not only was she now getting more food but was also having the experience of receiving a gift from a stranger. There may even be a new friendship in the making . It seemed a perfect illustration of Mrs. Eddy's idea of loss being gain (see The Christian Science Hymnal, no. 207).

As we came to a close and looked for our next topic, we realized we had touched on the issue of whom and what to believe quite a bit in the meeting. How often we trust a weatherman, or a stock analyst or even an astrologer. One member recalled a logo he had seen on a tee shirt proclaiming "Question Authority" and recommended we focus our practice on this idea. It was so agreed.