When a friend recently did lose everything – meaning smartphone, money, credit cards, identity cards – due to a robbery, we saw the privilege of a wealth of divine resources in action. Resources like “calm under pressure”, an undamaged identity, a sense of the every presence of divine Love, the law of restoration in action, forgiveness practiced in two ways: Innocence and redemption in perfect balance.
Out of the blue a really interesting quote came to mind:
“When the unthinking lobster loses its claw, the claw grows again.” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 489)
Interesting, I thought. The lobster doesn’t know something about loss, the lobster just is. And when the claw is lost, is grows back because the completeness and “lobsterness” seems to be out of the question.
This image of the lobster continued to help all of us move forward with confidence and love and expectancy of good. The image of the lobster losing its claw involves also letting go of the expectation of the very same claw growing back. The idea of completeness is complete, but its expression in our lives might be something new.
The law of completeness is the law of good. It brought a restoration of funds and things, an enormous sense of peace, new experiences in the amount of help people are willing to give, a lesson in the goodness of Life itself – and a fresh appreciation of the many lessons nature teaches us. We cannot lose anything God has given to us though this law might be expressed in different forms. The ways we are loved and cared for are infinite. The lobster’s claw is ours, in our own individual, spiritual way.
