This time of the year reminds of when I canned fruit. I would put up over 120 quarts of peaches, apricots, pears, applesauce, and plums, and over 30 pints of fruit jams and pizza tomato sauce. Sweet ripe luscious fruit, picked out of our orchard, and treated in a way that made that fruit available for a year, disallowing it to rot. Oh yes, I also pickled cucumbers. The children remember this vividly because I brined the cucumbers in their bathtub for a week and they needed to take showers in the other bathroom. Needless to say, when peeling, scalding, and boiling, I would think about preservation.

Over and again in the Bible, stories relay the principle of preservation established and kept up by God. A few examples are when Elijah, though feeling destitute and depressed, was fed by ravens that brought him bread (I Kings 17). Daniel’s life was preserved after he was thrown in a den of lions (Daniel 6). A family was saved when Jesus raised the dead son of a widow (Luke 7).

When preserving food, we can select ripe fresh fruit. Today’s recipes are more health conscious and reduced salt and sugar are accommodated for. I was always able to avoid additives and artificial preservatives. And, the family gobbled it up, as we saved the jars for the next years round of canning. Now, that the children are gone, I don’t can anymore. I handed down all the equipment to the next generation who is now canning for their family.

Science and Health, written by Mary Baker Eddy, points out the anomaly of how some old people still look young, proving youthfulness can be preserved through spiritual attitudes. Divine Science explains that the human mind is fickle therefore we can direct it with spiritual thoughts. We can preserve our existence with Godlikeness. We can eat, digest, and use the thoughts of infinite Love, Truth to preserve our souls.

From 21^st Century Science and Health, “Isn’t it a species of unbelief to believe that so great a work as the Messiah’s was done for himself or for God, who needed no help from Jesus’ example to preserve the eternal harmony? But human beings did need this help, and Jesus pointed the way. Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need. Do not imagine that Jesus demonstrated the divine power to heal only for a select number of people or for a particular period of time, since to all humankind and in every hour, divine Love supplies all good.”