The Practitioner Corner: Healed After a Trail Run at Camp 

By Trevor Yates, CS

Last summer, while serving as the Christian Science practitioner at the A/U Ranches’ Family & Adult Camp, I had a little time off to go on a favorite run. It starts up the Challengers’ Trail to Harvard Lakes, continues along the Colorado Trail, and returns back down the Conquerors’ Trail to camp. It climbs about 2,000 feet in elevation over the course of 6-7 miles, and there’s nothing like it – certainly not in New York City, where I live. 

During the run, I stopped to take a photo of the beautiful Arkansas River Valley from the Colorado Trail. When I began running again while returning the phone to my back pocket, I tripped and fell. I put my hands forward to catch my fall, and when I got up and dusted off, I noticed a considerable amount of blood on one hand. 

I was listening to the Bible Lesson, as I usually do when I run, and was quick to reject what the material senses were trying to tell me. I was not about to accept this false claim for a second.

A Christian Science nurse from another camp once said to me, “You know why blood is red, don’t you? To get our attention! If it was clear or white it wouldn’t be nearly as impressive.” Being reminded of this, I was unimpressed by the appearance of blood or the suggestion that one of God’s ideas could “leak.”

There was a little pain in the hand, and as I continued my run, I prayed about the spiritual fact that my hand had no ability to communicate anything to me. It couldn’t talk. It couldn’t say anything that I wasn’t willing to accept myself. Since I wasn’t about to listen to the suggestion mortal mind was trying to tell me, the hand became silent (or I ignored it). I don’t recall which came first, but the sensation of discomfort went away.

I continued praying and decided that I would run to Highview, the Christian Science nurses’ cabin. Though I knew I could clean the hand myself, I was so grateful for the provision of having a Christian Science nurse on property there, ready and willing to assist me. This felt like such a gift.

On the run down, it came to me to pray about “debris.” I hadn’t looked at my hand, but I was obedient to the inspiration. I knew the spiritual truth was that nothing can adhere to an idea. Things don’t stick to ideas like kindness or the number seven. And since I’m a spiritual idea, nothing can adhere, stick to, get lodged in, or infect an idea, which is what I am – and we all are.  

Mary Baker Eddy’s statement in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (p. 283) also came to me: “Mind is the source of all movement, and there is no inertia to retard or check its perpetual and harmonious action.” I knew Mind was moving me and I was reflecting its perpetual and harmonious action. God does not fall so I, as God’s image and likeness, therefore could not fall or fall out of God’s care. I was expressing Mind, God. This is what was moving my harmonious action and was continuing to move me down the mountain.

I prayed about the fact that the apparent cut was just a claim that I could be cut off from God. “Cut” was a suggestion of the material senses. It was a temptation to think what the material senses were claiming was true. Since there’s no thought force beside Mind, there’s no power behind the temptation to get me (or any of us) to think about being cut (or cut off from God).

And furthermore, since there’s no cause beside God, Love, I knew I could not be punished for stopping to take a photo in celebration of the beauty around me.

Choosing Love
When I arrived at Highview, the Christian Science nurse on duty helped clean my hand. She said there was a considerable amount of debris in the hand and that she would like to remove it. In that moment, I asked myself, what’s more real? The suggestion of pain that a hand would try to communicate to me, or the loving care that this Christian Science nurse was actively expressing? I had a decision to make. It was so clear that Love was the great communicator, so I chose to pay attention to the love that was being expressed. My hand was cleaned without any discomfort and then bandaged.

I returned a day later for her to clean and change the bandage, and the next day, when I removed the bandage, the hand was perfectly well. Although I could see a mark where a cut had been, the skin was together, closed and healed.

I’m reminded that “with God all things are possible” (Matt 19:26). And this is the case especially when we follow this direction from Science and Health (p. 261): “Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts.”

I’m so grateful for the healing atmosphere at camp. While those of us who serve as Christian Science practitioners and nurses certainly help establish and support this atmosphere, we too are blessed by being in this healing environment. The truth is that every full-time and seasonal staff member at the A/U Ranches is an essential contributor to the healing atmosphere through their prayers and expectancy for quick and whole healing, and this is felt by all who come to camp.