Fixed

Well, there had been torrential rain and many of the macadamia nuts had been washed down into the cow paddock. So I went there to work. I must have put my sack on an ants’ nest, for my bare legs suffered many stings. Those ants were about twice the size of an ordinary ant.

In bed that night I found myself scratching the strong itches from the stings, and, knowing that I was bad at resisting scratching, I knew I needed God’s help. I decided to listen for a message. For a while there was a train of unhelpful thoughts, and then I realised that one thought had been relevant. It was, “Leave it, I will fix it.” A little reasoning about who would fix it brought peace. I knew it was God. Very soon I went off to sleep, the itching having stopped.

The next day I was tempted to scratch again, but the message was repeated, “Leave it, I will fix it.” Whereas the original message was a very quiet one, this time it was more like a trumpet blast.

I had looked up “fix” in Mary Baker Eddy’s writings and found that she does not use it in the sense of making things better. Rather she emphasises the fixed nature of God’s creation. To-day, having checked Science and Health and Prose Works to confirm my reasoning at the time, I have found a delightful use of fix in a poem Mrs. Eddy wrote in girlhood – Alphabet and Bayonet: “Go fix thy restless mind/On learning’s lore and wisdom’s might,/And live to bless mankind.”

The poem seems prophetic of Mrs. Eddy’s future as the Discoverer of the Science of Christianity. Here it is.

 

Alphabet and Bayonet

If fancy plumes aerial flight,
Go fix thy restless mind
On learning's lore and wisdom's
might,
And live to bless mankind.
The sword is sheathed, 'tis freedom's hour,
No despot bears misrule,
Where knowledge plants the foot of power
In our God-blessed free school.

Forth from this fount the streamlets flow,
That widen in their course.
Hero and sage arise to show
Science the mighty source,
And laud the land whose talents rock
The cradle of her power,
And wreaths are twined round Plymouth
Rock,
From erudition's bower.

Farther than feet of chamois fall,
Free as the generous air,
Strains nobler far than clarion call
Wake freedom's welcome, where
Minerva's silver sandals still
Are loosed, and not effete;
Where echoes still my day-dreams thrill,
Woke by her fancied feet.

(Poems, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 60:0–4 (np))

Joyce Voysey