Turning and "the detaining hands of the past"

I love mazes, I think. They are challenging and fun...except when one is completely lost! I think I'd like to find a new one to see if I still like them. There's a small one in Kings Park in Perth which the little ones enjoy and where adults never lose sight of their charges; and I remember have a family get-together at a maze in the Gnangara area of Perth when our children were little. We discovered that some backtracking may be necessary in order to find the way out! 

Sibyl Wilbur writes of "backward turning" in the opening of Chapter VI of The Life of Mary Baker Eddy. She conjectures that the path forward is sometimes circuitous and zigzag, and may be beset by obstacles that stop progress. She writes (p. 64):

Every life has its moments of revelation when it would seem proper to start away upon the higher adventures of the soul; but seldom does a human being go forward without hesitation, leaving the past with its thousand detaining hands by an irrevocable decision. 

We might conjecture that life is full of turns, and underlying each turn is a decision: Shall I go here or there? Shall I go now, later, or not? Turning might indicate change; deviation from a straight course, or from the norm; or getting back on course. Taking a "wrong" turn can reveal a surprise, while keeping to our usual pathway possibly hides new information. Sometimes we need to be still. At other times we need to get a wriggle on! We read in Exodus 3: 4 that Moses "turned aside to see" (KJV) ["went over to investigate" The Living Bible] when faced with a burning bush. And Hezekiah (2 Kings 20:5) turned his face to the wall in great humility when faced with a fierce illness. 

Mary Patterson (as she was then) was on a quest to understand Jesus' healing works and to be healed herself. Along the way, she was led in various directions but by the 1860s she was ready for change. In chapters VI to IX, Wilbur outlines events leading up to and beyond Mary's pivotal meeting with the magnetic doctor Phineas Quimby and carefully discusses their professional relationship and its relevance in forwarding Mrs. Patterson's search. It is a fascinating story.

Julie Swannell