Do you know how sailboats stop without brakes? Sailors head directly into the wind. With no angle to the breeze, sails flap, and momentum is lost. This is known as being “in irons.”
When learning to sail, it’s not surprising to find ourselves inadvertently stalled or stuck in irons. But practice brings a growing understanding of sailing principles as well as fearless dominion and the ability to avoid or shift out of irons with ease.
If we feel thwarted at every turn – dismissed, detained, disturbed, denied – we may feel stuck in irons. But for every problem that seems to limit or restrict us, there is a spiritual solution.
Christ Jesus demonstrated true freedom – taming storms, healing all manner of sin and sickness, walking on water, raising the dead. He taught that we make headway by worshiping God as infinite Spirit and letting go of false, material concepts.
“Sooner or later we shall learn that the fetters of man’s finite capacity are forged by the illusion that he lives in body instead of in Soul, in matter instead of in Spirit,” writes Mary Baker Eddy, Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 223).
Humanity widely assumes that our universe is material and mortal, governed by physical laws that render us helpless victims of chance and limitation. Could these assumptions be mistaken?
Some modern-day scientists, such as astrophysicist Richard Conn Henry of Johns Hopkins University, have been challenging the entrenched belief that matter is substance. An article by Professor Henry argues that we need to “abandon our tendency to conceptualize observations as things,” contending that experiments in quantum mechanics disprove theories regarding the substantiality of matter and indicate the opposite – that “the Universe is immaterial – mental and spiritual” (“The Mental Universe,” Nature, July 7, 2005).
Mrs. Eddy, whose discovery of the Science of Christianity predated the advent of quantum physics in world thought, makes many earthshaking statements that shift us out of mental irons – for instance: “Mortals are no more material in their waking hours than when they act, walk, see, hear, enjoy, or suffer in dreams,” “Divine Science, rising above physical theories, excludes matter, resolves things into thoughts, and replaces the objects of material sense with spiritual ideas” (Science and Health, pp. 397, 123), and “… the physique is simply thought made manifest” (“Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896,” p. 34).
Our thoughts determine our experience. Recognizing things as thoughts helps us discern the false nature of all that is unlike God, Spirit. When we break the mesmeric hold of popular belief and become conscious of divine reality, healing happens.
Early in my marriage, I was troubled by a chronic, uncomfortable rash on my fingers. I’d pray, then look at my hands, thinking, “Surely they must be better.” But the rash didn’t yield – and sometimes it worsened. I couldn’t seem to move out of irons.
At the time, my husband and I were restoring historic houses. We were a good team, but now and then we’d find ourselves in disagreement about how to proceed with the work. The morning after one particularly heated discussion, I noticed a rash under my wedding ring. Could the message have been any clearer? Science and Health explains, “Mortal mind … feels, hears, and sees its own thoughts” (p. 86).
In that moment, I knew that the resentful, willful opinions I’d been harboring were the problem. Such thoughts could never define me as divine Spirit’s image and likeness (see Genesis 1:26, 27). We are spiritual beings, made to express and glorify Spirit. We reflect the harmony, grace, peace, and fearlessness that have their source in God, good – not the fractious, grating discords of earth: irritation, self-will, self-justification, fear, and so on.
This was a turning point. Rather than looking to my body for signs of improvement, I began watching my thoughts – redoubling my efforts to have the “mind of Christ,” as the Apostle Paul put it (I Corinthians 2:16). I committed to correcting fraudulent, material assumptions with spiritual truths. And in stressful situations where my husband and I couldn’t see a clear path forward, we agreed to calmly wait for guidance from God, divine Mind.
With this sea change in thought, the rash disappeared. Though it reappeared once or twice in a milder form, it vanished for good when I laughed at its illusive nature.
As mortal concepts are replaced by an understanding of Christ, Truth, we will feel the breeze of divine Mind filling our sails. We’ll demonstrate health and freedom, and move forward freely – forever held in Spirit, not “in irons.”
Adapted from an article published in the May 11, 2026, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.
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