The universal laws of God allow us to live our lives for the glory of God, as Jesus did.

There is an old Chinese proverb, “Open a book and it will open you.” And that, I must say, is exactly what happened to me.

When I was in my 20s, I was eating lunch with my colleagues at work, and while they all sat around eating a normal lunch, one of them questioned me about the severity of—and my obsession with—my diet. For over two years I had suffered with a debilitating digestive disorder, and after various medical regimens brought no improvement, including an alternative approach that had me drinking clay diluted with water, I became a vegetarian, hoping for any relief whatsoever.

I had an already established identity—as God’s perfect child.

That colleague was a Christian Scientist, and he took me aside to speak to me briefly about the Bible and the healing power of prayer. He told me that I had an already established identity—as God’s perfect child. Already established? God’s perfect child? Having grown up in a religion that led me to believe that my spiritual purpose was to somehow work myself back to completeness, this was news to me. My ideas about my relationship to God were based on the “facts” of Genesis 2 and 3 in the Bible—that God created us from dust and that because of Eve’s susceptibility to the serpent’s wiles, she set the whole of humanity on a course of permanent guilt and suffering. Every one of us, I had believed, was now “fallen” and needed to work our way back to perfection.

At the end of the lunch my friend gave me the phone number of a Christian Science practitioner whom I could call to pray for me. Much to my surprise, I called and went to see him. I’m not sure why I was so receptive—so quickly—to this new idea of myself, but I woke up almost immediately to the prospect that God had created me, and that everything He made was good.

The practitioner drew my attention to two passages in Matthew: “Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink” (Matt. 6:25) and “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man” (Matt. 15:11). These simple truths gave me tremendous hope that God was guiding me to the realization of my already established identity. The practitioner gave me Christian Science treatment—prayed specifically for me concerning my digestive trouble—and I purchased a copy of Science and Health. I buried myself in the universal truths I was learning and gave up all other treatments and dietary requirements. Within a few days I was back at the lunch table with my colleagues, eating the tantalizing treats that my region is known for! I was completely healed.

Nothing at any time had ever destroyed the purity of my being in God’s image.

I was coming to know that nothing at any time had ever destroyed the purity of my being in God’s image. This was my true identity, its basis found in Genesis 1, in which God creates man and woman in the image of divine Spirit. And it wasn’t just true for me but for all humanity. As I read Science and Health, statements such as “Like our Master, we must depart from material sense into the spiritual sense of being” (Science and Health, p. 41) turned my previous beliefs upside down. Passages from the Bible came alive for me, like “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit” (I Cor. 2:9–10).

All through my life, whenever a challenge arose, I had always asked myself, “What have I done to deserve such a thing?” “Why is this happening?” Once I began reading the Bible, I realized that everyone who came to Jesus for healing was, in their own way, asking the same thing. Faced by a man who had been blind since birth, Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus replied, “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him” (John 9:2–3). And healing came. When his friend Lazarus was sick, Jesus lovingly rejected the mournful news that came from Lazarus’s sisters, instead saying, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby” (John 11:4). Again, healing came.

Throughout his life on earth, Jesus never exhibited fear but a sure, steady conviction based on knowing his own—and everyone else’s—complete inseparability from God. There’s no evidence that he ever thought, “Well, in this particular case, which seems pretty severe, I’ll need to pray more than ever.” Nor did he ever have any doubt that the truth he was knowing was already manifest as the glory of God. I’ve accepted his example as a demand for total acceptance that the good of God, of the divine Mind, is always present and active, despite appearances.

Life in God was, for Jesus, an obvious spiritual fact, and he lived everything he said.

And the appearances are many. It sometimes seems like we’re immersed in a world torn between good and evil, assaulted on all sides by the changing nature of events. And even when events appear to be “good,” we often have a secret fear that evil is lurking in some corner—and will reveal itself shortly. On this matter, Mary Baker Eddy wrote, “A knowledge of evil was never the essence of divinity or manhood. In the first chapter of Genesis, evil has no habitation nor name. Creation is there represented as spiritual, entire, and good” (Science and Health, p. 537). I feel that Jesus knew this to be true, and his mission was not only to heal but to awaken the human family from the misconception that life is in matter. Life in God was, for him, an obvious spiritual fact, and he lived everything he said.

Fourteen years after that memorable lunch with my colleague, I went into the full-time practice of Christian Science healing. Over time, I had begun taking patients, and one day a mother called asking for prayerful support for her small child. She was a former colleague who had come to a lecture at our branch church and had purchased Science and Health afterward. On the phone she said her daughter had been taken to the hospital in a coma and that the doctors had no clue as to her condition. She was in intensive care but taking no medication, and so I gave Christian Science treatment. Within a few hours, the little girl woke up. The hospital wanted to keep her to determine a diagnosis, but the father, seeing his daughter in a normal, joyous condition, decided to take her home, assuring the doctors that they would return if there were any difficulties. The child was well and has remained so.

In that case, I had to get rid of all fears about sickness and death—for myself and for the young parents. It’s a stand I have endeavored to take since that day when I first opened Science and Health, the book that was to “open” me forever.

The universal laws of God, of good itself, allow us to experience every circumstance from the starting point of Genesis 1. That’s how we can joyfully prove that we’re living our lives, as Jesus said, “for the glory of God.”

Marie Taillefer practices Christian Science healing in Pau, France.

Committing oneself to witness God’s perfect design is a substantial action step toward healing.

It’s natural to want prayer to be effective. Whether you’re praying for someone else or for yourself, when you sit down to pray you’re hoping for healing. But at some point, any anxious hope for change must give way to inspired thoughts that honor God—to a feeling of trust that He’s revealing the perfect order of His creation, as described in the first chapter of the Bible: “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31).

But when intense desire for change—for evidence of healing—is distracting me from inspiration, I have to step back and ask myself, What is my role when I’m praying?

A deep desire to understand this role can make prayer more powerful and makes healing through prayer more natural, more possible. The Bible provides substantial insight and counsel regarding the would-be healer’s role. At first glance, though, there appears to be a dichotomy.

On one hand, the Bible clearly indicates that God is “Doer.” He not only creates, but He maintains this creation. In the Old Testament, Job declares, “[God] is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth. For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things are with him” (Job 23:13, 14). So in this sense, it seems that not much is left for us to do when we’re praying for healing.

Our part must involve witnessing what already is.

On the other hand, when one is facing a challenge—physical, financial, relationship, etc.—it’s natural to want to be “part of the solution.” Christ Jesus, the ultimate model for healers, gave his followers these imperatives: “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils” (Matt. 10:8). Jesus further declared, “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do” (John 14:12). But if the healer’s role isn’t to make good things happen—because God is the actual doer and healer—then our part must involve witnessing what already is. It’s to realize wholeheartedly and consistently God’s power and presence now and to understand more clearly that all of His creation is already spiritual and perfect.

Early in my healing practice, I got a vivid lesson on the power of witnessing what already is. One afternoon, I received two calls asking for prayer. The first came from a woman who had scratched the surface of her eye and was in pain. She was concerned about her vision. The second call came from a man who was suffering from flu symptoms including nausea. I agreed to give Christian Science treatment to each and decided to drive to a nearby park and listen for inspiration.

I parked the car, settled myself, and got quiet and peaceful—so peaceful that I actually dozed off! I awoke several minutes later with a start. How could I fall asleep when I’d just assured others I would be praying for them? As I sat there feeling increasingly guilty, I realized that it was essential to forget about myself and my efforts and turn thought fully to God. Right there, I focused mentally on what I was hearing from God, knowing that would bring comfort and relief. Inspiration began to flow, and I felt a warm sense of God’s ever-presence and care.

Then a thought came, clearly from God: “Don’t you know these are My children? They’re perfect now and they always have been, because I made them that way.” The glow of reassurance inside my car was a tangible presence. I stayed there for a few more minutes, affirming and cherishing the message I’d received. Then I drove home. Soon both individuals called to say they’d been quickly healed.

That precious time in the car required me to abandon a personal sense of responsibility, and I’ve found that to be a powerful aspect of giving treatment. Healing spiritually is more about discerning what God has already done than about trying to make something happen. But, there’s a vast difference between “letting go” of personal responsibility for healing and “doing nothing.” The former is basic to Christian healing and the latter is foreign to it.

There’s real joy in letting go of the mistaken belief that the one praying is in charge.

Committing oneself to witness God’s perfect design is a substantial, demanding action step toward healing. It provides the space for God to reveal His perfect way, His perfect design. The temptation to feel personally responsible can sneak in when one has agreed to pray for another. Recommitting—or even simply remembering—to witness God’s already intact creation relieves the healer of doubt or burden. Although this approach takes alertness and discipline, there’s real joy in letting go of the mistaken belief that the one praying is in charge. It frees the healer from either trying aggressively to “fix” things or passively hoping they’ll somehow work out. It makes one more receptive to those pure, divine ideas that awaken both healer and patient to spiritual reality.

Of course, the work of witnessing isn’t always accomplished in a moment. To take a stand for God’s active presence and goodness when someone is troubled by a bodily, family, workplace, or economic difficulty requires an increasingly deeper trust in God’s reassuring Word. But the imperfect and changeable material sense of existence offers no help, while the spiritual sense of things reveals God’s truth in any situation. As Mary Baker Eddy explained, “What is termed material sense can report only a mortal temporary sense of things, whereas spiritual sense can bear witness only to Truth” (Science and Health, p. 298).

Bearing witness to God’s creation means focusing exclusively on messages from God.

To me, bearing witness to God’s creation means focusing exclusively on messages from God, rather than on what an inevitably mistaken material sense says about life. It requires denying evil any reality as much it does affirming the substantiality of good—mentally rejoicing in the evidence of God and His spiritual creation and denying the possibility of disease or limitation existing within this creation.

This activity of witnessing God’s power at work makes all the difference in how I respond to the demands of the day. If I’ve already established through prayer that God is Love and therefore that, by design, the man and woman He made is loving and tender, then I won’t believe the physical senses when they report otherwise. Sure, there will be incongruity between what spiritual sense and the material senses are saying, but I’ve already committed to spiritual sense as the only source of valid information.

This ongoing demand of witnessing—of aligning ourselves with God’s goodness and power—nurtures trust in His power. That’s what gives confidence in prayer’s effectiveness. As the healer’s trust grows into absolute assurance of God’s supremacy, we’ll experience more of Mind’s blessings, lighting the path of reliance on God’s healing power.

Melanie Wahlberg is a Christian Science practitioner living in Boston, Massachusetts.

Experience proves that Christian Science is responsible healthcare for children.

It was a sound every mother dreads: I heard our 18-month-old son, Andy, screaming in agony across the hall, and I rushed into his room. He was too young to really tell me what was wrong, but I noticed him clutching his ear. I wanted nothing more at that moment than for Andy to be free from the pain. I picked him up, comforting him as best I could, and immediately called a Christian Science practitioner. She right away agreed to pray with us, even though it was in the wee hours of the morning.

I remember thinking, “If this isn’t healed quickly, I’ll consider something else. No child should suffer like this.” I sat with Andy in a rocker and began to sing hymns to him. I used each hymn as a prayer acknowledging that God is good and God is All, His goodness being all there could possibly be. And I reasoned that since God is good, His will for this child had to be for health and well-being; this pain was obviously not good, not from God, and subsequently without reality.

If I wouldn’t let my child suffer, then why would I think it might be Love’s will or plan for him to be in pain?

“God is one,” wrote Mary Baker Eddy in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. And she continued, “The allness of Deity is His oneness” (Science and Health, p. 267). There cannot be dualism: good and bad, life and death, health and sickness, for “if a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand” (Mark 3:24, New International Version). The Bible also teaches that God is Love (see I John 4:16). If I wouldn’t let my child suffer, then why would I think it might be Love’s will or Love’s plan for him to be in pain? Am I a better parent than an Almighty God who is Love itself? My reasoning could be summed up in a question that later occurred to me: “Which part of Almighty don’t you understand—the All or the Mighty?”

Very quickly a great sense of peace came over both of us. Andy quieted right down and went to sleep. We had a twin bed in his room along with his crib, so I lay down there with him. I wanted to stay with him for a while to make sure that he was OK. Then I felt the pillow we shared getting very wet. Something in his ear had apparently opened and drained on the pillow, but he was sleeping soundly and did so for the rest of the night. When he woke up the next morning, he was his usual happy, vibrant, energetic self. The wonderful thing about this healing was that Andy never experienced another earache after that. It was a complete and permanent healing.

Don’t we all trust what we’ve found to be effective? If that was the only healing I’d experienced or witnessed with my children—or if my children were the only ones healed through prayer in Christian Science—then it could be dismissed as anecdotal or a mere coincidence. But the record of Christian Science healing has been richly documented for well over 125 years.

Creation is governed by divine laws, which are subject to proof.

The very name Christian Science suggests at once its spiritual basis and essence. Each word, Christian and Science, is equally important. Science points to spiritual laws established by God, by good, the Source of all being, the divine Principle governing all. Coming from Principle, the one Lawgiver, these laws are self-enacting, self-revealing, self-enforcing. The whole of creation is governed by divine laws, which are subject to proof. Health and harmony are the inevitable result as they are understood and yielded to in obedience.

The word Christian is a reminder that scientific laws embody the compassion, the love, the tenderness, and the healing authority that Jesus demonstrated in his remarkable career. The Science of Christianity is rooted in obedience to the two great commandments that Jesus gave: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matt. 22:37–39, NIV). Mary Baker Eddy insisted that to fully understand how to live these two commandments, a student of this Science must use “a priori” reasoning, or reasoning from cause to effect (see Science and Health, p. 467).

The material sciences, based on the observations of the physical senses, begin with effect and reason back to cause. Christian Science begins with Cause—an infinite, all-powerful Spirit who is entirely good—and reasons out to man (all men, women, and children) in the image and likeness of Deity. Considered from this perspective, we are, therefore, entirely spiritual, not material beings with a spiritual component. Right reasoning alone doesn’t heal disease, but it does lead to spiritual insight, inspiration, revelation, and healing.

Along with this spiritually based reasoning, Christian Science points out the importance of living the compassion Jesus exemplified. Mary Baker Eddy desired to ease the suffering she saw around her and had a special place in her heart for children. One of her early healing works is recorded by a mother. In a letter to Mrs. Eddy, she wrote that two years earlier, when Mrs. Eddy had visited, her son had been healed permanently of a disease of the bowels. At age 18 months he had been reduced to a skeleton because of this illness. The physicians had given up on him. But Mrs. Eddy tenderly picked him up, held and kissed him; then she prayed with the spiritual laws she’d discovered. The boy was well within an hour (see Yvonne von Fettweis and Robert Warneck, Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer, pp. 79–80).

God does not stop at the doors of a hospital or a doctor’s office.

It’s important to understand that while God’s laws are absolute and unchanging—and when understood lead to healing—they cannot be countermanded by any doctrine that would prohibit parents from doing whatever they feel is in the best interest of their children. Simply put, God tenderly meets people where they are in their spiritual understanding and gently leads them forward. God does not stop at the doors of a hospital or a doctor’s office. I’ve loved reminding my own children that no matter where they go, “God got there first!” Children are safe in their Father-Mother’s care.

As soon as my own children were old enough to understand that there were other methods of healthcare besides Christian Science, my husband and I would offer them the choice of calling a practitioner to pray with them (so they were involved in the healing work themselves) or of arranging to see a physician or visit an emergency room. It was a sincere desire on our part to let them choose what they felt was best for them, and they knew it.

On one occasion our older son had an injury on the tennis court, resulting in a deep cut right alongside his eye. His coach was with him when I drove up just after the injury occurred. He felt that the wound would require 10–12 stitches. We were a couple of blocks from a hospital ER, and I offered my son the option of stitches or calling a Christian Science practitioner. He had come to trust God through his own experiences, and he chose the latter.

So we prayed together in the car, acknowledging that there could be no carelessness or accidents when all is governed by the divine Principle, Love. By the time we reached home, all the bleeding had stopped, and the wound had begun to close over. He called the practitioner, and they agreed to pray together. When he went to his tennis practice the next day, there was only a thin line where the cut had been. He was cleared to play immediately by his coach.

When there are legal accommodations for practicing spiritual healing, it’s important to recognize that those accommodations don’t guarantee the safety of children or their exemption from illness. But preventative medicine is always the best medicine. When I signed the religious accommodation form that allowed my children to forgo mandatory vaccinations as Christian Scientists, I knew that I had a responsibility to see where their true immunity came from.

I woke about an hour before my children did each day and spent that hour praying for them.

I woke about an hour before my children did each day and spent that hour praying for them, acknowledging that they were subject only to laws of health and harmony—and that would necessarily include immunity from contagious diseases. One way that I thought about it was considering the idea of integrity, which comes from a Latin root meaning whole and untouched. Their integrity had its source in their Maker, the Holy One. I realized that I would never wonder if they were going to wake up one morning and go rob a bank or murder someone. Their integrity, their honesty, their sense of justice would never allow that. I found a statement in Science and Health that helped me see the implications of that: “The moral man has no fear that he will commit a murder, and he should be as fearless on the question of disease” (Science and Health, p. 406).

Praying with these ideas and many others over the years led to freedom from contagious diseases. On three occasions there were measles outbreaks in our children’s schools. Each time we prayed together about the powerlessness of a so-called law of contagion that would try to trump God’s law of health. In two instances there were no further cases, and my sons had only a few hours of minor symptoms in one of those before they were completely free. In the third case, the school decided to enforce a state law that requires all unvaccinated students to be vaccinated when there’s an outbreak of a contagious childhood disease. We immediately had our son vaccinated to comply with the law. That was done both to be obedient to the law and to ease the fears of other parents and children. Again, it was a Christian thing to do.

Many parents pray for their children, but the premise that sickness may be God’s will or that at the very least God allows sickness, often leads to prayers just asking (and sometimes begging) God to make their children better. Occasionally some parents may mistakenly believe that it’s God’s will for their child to die even if they don’t understand why that should be necessary. Such a misguided view cannot lead to healing.

Sickness is never God’s will for anyone.

In Christian Science, prayer has a different starting point: that sickness is never God’s will for anyone. In the Lord’s Prayer we’re taught by Jesus to pray for God’s will to be done “in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). In Revelation 21:4 we find a description of heaven: “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” Surely Jesus wouldn’t have asked us to pray for the impossible. We can safely pray for God’s will to be done, knowing that His will would be health, restoration, and regeneration—never illness, disease, or death. Those prayers are far above faith healing; they are affirmations of divine perfection and power that come from a spiritual understanding of God’s laws of health and harmony, and they result in healing.

Children are precious gifts from our common Parent, and they deserve the very best care that we can give them. Christian Scientists rely on the method of healing that has been most effective in their lives. They strive to be law-abiding, good neighbors and citizens, and wise, loving, caring parents. The laws of God that they apply in their prayers for their children are universally available to anyone.

Sarah Hyatt is a Christian Science practitioner and teacher. She lives in Charleston, South Carolina.

We can never be separated from God’s Father-love.

My dad passed on earlier this year. It was unexpected, and to be honest, a shock to me.

Soon after, I was sorting through some of my papers, and I found a special card my daughter had just bought to give to Dad this Father’s Day. It had a little silver charm of a grandfather clock on it. We were excited when we found it in the store because as a kid, Dad collected and repaired clocks.

Family members and neighbors brought their clocks to Tommy Jones to be fixed. And throughout the years he took good care of the grandfather clock that had come from his own grandfather—a clock that’s now mine. It made me feel bad that my dad would never see this card and that I wouldn’t be celebrating Father’s Day with him.

The fatherhood of God could become even more vivid than ever.

I was on a work trip when my sister called to let me know the news of Dad’s passing. Not long after, I emailed my boss to let him know that I needed to take a few days off. He’s a Christian Scientist, and he wrote back right away that when his mom passed on, he’d had many immediate “signs” from God that Mother-love could never die and that this love was with him and his mom forever. He told me to watch for proof of it. He also said that the fatherhood of God could become even more vivid than ever right then.

And it did. Soon I felt the kind of comfort a child feels when her dad scoops her up after a fall. I still felt sad. And I still wish my dad were here. But at the same time, I have felt loved, cared for, and fathered since Dad died.

Right away the tune and words of a hymn by Mary Baker Eddy came to me. I thought about them throughout the day and sang them silently:

Thou to whose power our hope we give,
Free us from human strife.

Fed by Thy love divine we live,
For Love alone is Life;

And life most sweet, as heart to heart

Speaks kindly when we meet and part.

(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 30)

Every line made me feel more at peace. I thought about how my dad’s life was made up of God’s love and how that could never change.

I felt a palpable sense of unconditional love and patience for Dad.

The very evening he passed on, Dad and I had had a really great phone conversation. It wasn’t unusual for us to chat on the phone at least every week, but this conversation was different. I felt a palpable sense of unconditional love and patience for Dad throughout the call. I’d been in the middle of an important work event and didn’t really have time for a personal call, but I felt compelled to dial the phone. I’m so grateful I did, because it left nothing unsaid between us. He told me that he thought he had the three best kids on the face of the earth, and I told him that we loved him and wanted him to have everything he needed. This was clearly God’s gift to both of us and proof that She provides whatever we need even before we need it.

Even though I’m an adult and haven’t really lived “at home” since I graduated from college (and that was a long time ago!), my dad fathered me many times and in many ways since then. He was a steady support.

Because Dad had just died, I didn’t have time to think about what I would do without that kind of stalwart care. But I’ve since learned that I didn’t have to.

The very next day I got a call about a financial situation I needed to deal with. It was a pretty big challenge, and I didn’t see a clear-cut solution, but I did trust there was one. Less than minutes later, I was on the phone with someone who offered me unsolicited help. It was the kind of unselfish help Dad had given to me over and over again.

The timing was perfect. To me the undeniable lesson was this: My dad had expressed God’s fathering qualities well, but I’d never be separated from God’s Father-love.

Looking back, I see that previously it had felt more natural for me to think of God as my divine Mother. I may have referred to God mostly as “He,” but the synonym I identified most closely with God was Love, and that makes me think of a mother (not that dads aren’t loving!). Maybe that’s because I’d felt God’s mothering very clearly in the past 25 years since my mom passed on, and I’d more actively thought about the more feminine qualities of God.

Already in the time since Dad’s passing, I’ve had lots of “father” experiences. My boss was right. God’s fatherhood has become more vivid to me than ever before. And it heals.

I think I’ll be celebrating Father’s Day this year after all.

Amy Richmond lives with her daughter on Roosevelt Island in New York City.

Even in a swine flu pandemic, prayer has a contagion-countering effect and can defuse fear.

Common sense, not panic. That’s what healthcare authorities called for as concern over a swine flu outbreak in Mexico stirred around the globe. Strong cooperation and coordination among nations, not an international blame-game, were the order of the day. Experts saw these as key to a united effort to stop the spread of the contagious disease.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the United States identified the sickness as a new strain of influenza, and Mexico responded promptly. The CDC and the World Health Organization (WHO) promoted steps such as managing the scope and timing of some public gatherings, limiting nonessential travel to certain areas, and distributing face masks that some believe reduce the likelihood of transmitting the illness.

If the disease strain is novel, the response to it isn’t, and may sound a bit like a lecture from your grandmother: “Go wash your hands again.” At this writing, the consensus emerging among experts appears to be that while the virus is continuing to spread, it won’t necessarily be as severe as was first expected. Officials add a warning note about its possible return in the fall. But for now, the WHO has informed the public that from its perspective, the likelihood of full recovery extends even to individuals who receive no medical attention and go without any antiviral drugs.

Prayer calms panic

Prayer helps move thought from panic to common sense.

And that’s before one even considers the contagion-countering impact of prayer. Prayer, infused with an understanding of God’s presence and power, helps move thought from panic to common sense. The move from common sense to spiritual sense follows as a natural next step. Spiritual sense intuitively discerns the presence of divine power. This halts panic and arrests the spread of fear.

Why is that important? Because too often an outbreak of some contagious illness is partnered with a contagion of fear. Addressing the latter through prayer helps resolve the former, and brings a speedier end to both.

Love advances, fear retreats

As the spiritual sense of God’s—divine Love’s—presence continues to develop in a person’s consciousness, fear and panic shift into retreat. Gradually, they grow smaller in thought, as the conviction of divine Love’s presence grows larger, until Love owns the whole ground. But the counteracting of fear never occurs in a vacuum. It occurs within the overall mental environment.

That environment, to a considerable degree, gets its shape from the media. Reports intended to deliver information to a news-consuming public, wittingly or unwittingly, also deliver images that fuel the contagion of fear. That may be good for ratings, but it is not good for individual or societal health. What to do? Individually, one can defend one’s mental territory. No one has to allow the media or any other outside influence to shape their individual mental environment, or the overall mental climate they inhabit.

You have dominion over your own thought.

In other words, you have dominion over your own thought. You can as easily choose to fill your thought with the awareness of divine Love’s stupendous healing power, as with fear-inducing images. But choosing Love is in fact not only as easy; it is also more natural to turn Godward, to take in something of Love’s panic-ending power, and to help end the contagion of fear by persisting in the awareness of Love.

Choose love, not disease

Hard to do? Maybe, but not impossible. After all, in turning to Love you are not left on your own. The turn to Love is impelled by Love itself. It is in you to respond to that divine urging, that spiritual impulsion. As the offspring of your heavenly Father, it is in your spiritual DNA, so to speak, to respond to Love’s power. It’s natural for you to be fearless through Love. This is the message that comes from God to you.

This message, to sum it up in a single word, is Christ. It’s the healing message of God, the great Physician, that speaks to each of us ceaselessly. It was brilliantly at work throughout the healing ministry of Jesus—quelling fear, transforming the mental climate, and, inevitably, bringing about physical healing, including the healing of contagious conditions, through spiritual means.

Touching the untouchable

Christ Jesus was love-driven, not fear-driven.

Consider an episode from Jesus’ ministry. He encountered a man riddled with leprosy—a disease widely held to be contagious. The rule of society was to shun such an individual, to have no physical contact. But the man appears to have intuitively sensed that Christ Jesus was love-driven, not fear-driven. So, he approached Jesus, knelt before him, and said, “If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.” Did the man already recognize that the Christ, Jesus’ (and everyone’s) spiritual nature, could restore him to health? Did he only question whether the Christ would?

If so, perhaps that foreshadowed an uncertainty that would plague people in later centuries—people convinced that spiritual healing can happen for others but wondering about the possibility of its ever happening for them. In any event, the question was quickly answered for the man with leprosy. Jesus’ answer wasn’t “I can,” but “I will.” At the same moment that he delivered this powerfully assuring Christ-message, he also did the unthinkable. He physically touched the man.

The Bible describes the encounter this way: “Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed” (see Mark 1:40–45).

Looking back on that long-ago event, one can only speculate about what went on and what it all meant. But it seems certain that Jesus’ compassionate touch—when the leprous man had perhaps not been touched by another human for years—communicated an overpowering love. A love that emanated from all-powerful, but ever tender, divine Love. Direct contact with Christly love cancelled out the negative effect from any earlier contact the man apparently had had with a contagious condition that may have imposed the illness.

Common sense versus spiritual sense

Common sense argues that a host of troubles, including contagion, trace back to exposure. People needlessly conform to that mistaken view. But uncommon spiritual sense discerns an entirely different view of exposure. What each individual is truly exposed to—all that any individual can be exposed to—is not that which is destructive or disease inducing. All any of us are truly exposed to is the overwhelming presence of divine Love, flooding the whole scene. Love leaves no avenue through which you could be exposed to anything unlike the love of God. Under divine Love’s care, there’s no place or time—not now, not this coming fall, not at some date far in the future—when you could be exposed to something never divinely authorized in the first place.

Love transforms the mental environment.

Love transforms the mental environment, nullifies panic, annihilates fear. Love touches you with the healing message of Christly compassion. Sentinel founder Mary Baker Eddy wrote in her primary work, Science and Health, “Let us reassure ourselves with the law of Love. God never punishes man for doing right, for honest labor, or for deeds of kindness, though they expose him to fatigue, cold, heat, contagion” (Science and Health, p. 384).

You have the spiritual sense to see that because you are exposed solely to the presence of divine Love, you are safe. Now and always. So is your neighbor.

Contributing editor Channing Walker is a Christian Science practitioner who lives in Mountain Center, California.

God speaks directly to children and parents.

Many people will say that parenting is one of the most difficult and yet most rewarding jobs there can be.

It’s difficult because when sticky challenges come up, it’s tempting to think, “I must solve this.” Sometimes I forget, as Christian Science has taught me, that the best way to parent and be parented is to remember God, our Father-Mother. I love what I’ve learned about God and His direct and constant care for each of us, when I’ve taken those challenges to Him.

I remember a time when God did so much more than solve the situation at hand. One day a friend and I were chatting about the idea that God speaks directly to His children. She’d been to a lecture on Christian Science where the speaker emphasized that because God is communicating with His children, each and every child can hear exactly what he or she needs right from divine Love itself.

God, as Father-Mother, communicates directions to each child moment by moment.

Wow, I thought. As a parent and a Christian Scientist I spend a lot of time praying for my daughter, Taylor—but somehow this idea of God, as Father-Mother, communicating directions to each child moment by moment, including Taylor, felt new and very valuable. And just what I needed to hear that day.

Taylor was in second grade at the time and had been struggling academically. And even though her school had very caring teachers, some mornings she just didn’t want to go. Also she’d complain about having an upset tummy—which seemed to me might be connected with her feelings about school. I’d studied Christian Science all my life, and Taylor and I had had quick physical healings through prayer, and seen other proofs of God’s protecting and directing. My first inclination therefore is always to pray, turn to God and hold on to the truth of His spiritual goodness, when I run into any kind of trouble. So I’d always pray right away when Taylor complained of a tummyache, and each time she would quickly feel well again.

Though we had other healings along the way from prayer alone, the academic struggles continued. For a few months Taylor’s teachers gave her extra help with schoolwork, but there wasn’t much progress. So I kept praying. It all seemed very frustrating at times, but I knew we could expect a good resolution to this; I wanted so much for Taylor to be happy at school and to always feel well.

We’re all spiritual—the direct children of a good Parent, God.

As a parent, I really appreciate Mary Baker Eddy’s reminder in her writings that we’re all spiritual—the direct children of a good Parent, God. Retrospection and Introspection, her autobiography, includes this statement: “The real man [meaning children, men, and women] is not of the dust, nor is he ever created through the flesh; for his father and mother are the one Spirit, and his brethren are all the children of one parent, the eternal good” (p. 22).

And a particular hymn in the Christian Science Hymnal that Taylor and I prayed with together was helpful to me at that time, especially this verse about God supplying us with angels—with helpful thoughts:

O longing hearts that wait on God

Through all the world so wide;

He knows the angels that you need,

And sends them to your side,

To comfort, guard and guide.

(Violet Hay, No. 9)

While praying about my daughter’s school situation, I realized that the conversation with my friend was one of those angels—a spiritual intuition that God had sent right to me. I realized that I could, and should, trust God Himself to guide Taylor, just as He would guide me.

Since Taylor was God’s child, I could expect her to know what she needed, too.

That very day, completely out of the blue, Taylor said she wanted to go to a different school which one of her friends attended. I would never have even considered a change of school for her, but I was now prepared to listen openly and trustingly. I saw the idea as another angel message just for her, so we visited the school.

The timing was perfect. There was room for her at the school, Taylor loved it, the staff loved her, and within a few days she was enrolled. She clearly felt comfortable, fit in well, and did better academically. The tummyaches stopped completely. She happily attended that school for three years.

What a beautiful thing to see the angels that we need, speaking directly to our children as well as to us as parents!

Kate Dearborn lives in Lakeway, Texas.

The rebirth process is not a one-time event but requires ongoing spiritual transformation and progress.

The concept of being “born again” is vital to the commitment many Christians have to God and to their love of Christ Jesus. But just what being born again means can be very individual and understood on a variety of levels. Searching through the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, both her originally published works and many of her unpublished letters and documents archived at the Mary Baker Eddy Library, I found a rich store of how she felt about the concept of being born again.

For instance, in a published sermon titled The People’s Idea of God, Mrs. Eddy addressed Christian Scientists as “… thou of the church of the new-born …” (The People’s Idea of God, p. 14). Another sermon, titled “The New Birth,” is included in her book Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896 (see pp. 15–20). And in other letters and documents, she used words such as rebirth and reborn to explain the transformation that comes with an increasing understanding of God and of our oneness with Him as His loved creations, made in His image and likeness. In these writings she explained clearly that this rebirth process is not a one-time event but requires ongoing spiritual transformation and progress.

Rebirth and baptism

Another word that Mrs. Eddy used to explain this rebirth process is baptism. She took this concept beyond a religious ceremony involving being sprinkled with or immersed in water that many Christian faiths embrace. At the heart of baptism in Christian Science is a process of purifying thought and actions and gaining spiritual insight—a striving to have that mind “which was also in Christ Jesus” that the Apostle Paul referred to in his letter to the Philippians (Phil. 2:5).

The concepts of baptism and rebirth in many Christian traditions stem from the story recorded in the Gospel of John where Nicodemus, a leader in the synagogue, visits Jesus by night (see John 3:1–8). Nicodemus is impressed by Jesus’ works and teachings. He expresses his confidence that Jesus’ miracles and wonders are the result of Jesus’ closeness to God, divine Spirit. In their brief encounter, the Master tells Nicodemus that one must “be born again.” As the Amplified Bible translates this passage, Jesus says, “Unless a person is born again (anew, from above), he cannot ever see (know, be acquainted with, and experience) the kingdom of God.”

True spiritual rebirth takes place in human consciousness.

Jesus then makes it clear to Nicodemus that he was not talking about anyone needing to be born again physically but needing to be “born of the Spirit.” In other words, where true, spiritual rebirth takes place, and where it is constantly going on, is in human consciousness.

To me, human consciousness is like the field of the tares and the wheat that Jesus describes in a parable (see Matt. 13:24–30). In the parable, a landowner discovers that an enemy has planted weeds (tares) in his wheat field. At harvest time, the wheat is gathered and put to good use, while the tares are burned and destroyed. This parable provides a good analogy for what goes on in thought as we progress spiritually. What is real and true is separated from what is unreal and false. Materially based thoughts (those that are “born of the flesh”) are eventually exposed as useless and we drop them, or they are destroyed like the tares at harvest time, while we retain ever-advancing spiritual thoughts and allow them to continue to develop.

Fundamental to the rebirth process is the acceptance of our oneness with Spirit and of our own spiritual nature. Our lives are baptized, purified, by the understanding that we are each God’s beautiful, loved child and therefore free from materiality and mortality, including sickness and death, as well as sin.

A more spiritual and improved consciousness must lead to better lives.

Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy’s primary work on Christian Science, explains that our physique, and really our whole human experience, is determined by the correct or incorrect concepts we hold in thought about ourselves and others. So it naturally follows that a more spiritual and improved consciousness must lead to better lives. Living a healthier, more wholesome life is the natural outcome of a growing understanding of our spiritual nature.

Three stages

In her article “Pond and Purpose,” Mrs. Eddy discussed baptism and rebirth in detail (see Mis., pp. 203–207). She spoke of three stages that human thought must go through to reach the highest level of spiritual understanding that level Jesus so perfectly exemplified in his ascension.

Repentance

The first stage she named is the baptism of repentance, or turning from wrong ways—that is, from material ways of thinking and acting. At this point in our progress, we begin to let go of a mortal view of ourselves and of the world, including immoral or unchristlike behavior. The human consciousness at this level, Mrs. Eddy wrote, is in “a stricken state.” The human consciousness feels wounded, afflicted, damaged, injured, sick, and fearful. It is a misshapen and disfigured mental state that needs to be healed. This early stage of rebirth sparks a rejuvenation of that consciousness. At this point, an individual may feel like everything he or she had thought of as solid and true has been upended. This stirring in thought can be a bit unnerving.

Uncovering errors in consciousness is vital to experiencing the blessings of a life in sync with God.

It is rarely a comfortable experience to see our faults and mistakes in the light of divine Truth. But this process of having errors uncovered in consciousness is vital to experiencing the blessings of a life that is in sync with God. Striving to be better, we begin to feel the divine presence embracing our consciousness, and therefore our daily activities.

An individual mentally wrestling in this state is just beginning to glimpse the reality of God’s spiritual creation—just beginning to be born again. Of this first stage Mrs. Eddy wrote, “Tears flood the eyes, agony struggles, pride rebels, and a mortal seems a monster, a dark, impenetrable cloud of error; and falling on the bended knee of prayer, humble before God, he cries, ‘Save, or I perish’ ” (Mis., pp. 203–204).

The imagery that Mrs. Eddy used to describe this mental state brings to mind the account of a penitent woman who slips into a dinner party where Jesus is the honored guest. Ignoring what others may think of her, she washes his feet with her tears, dries his feet with her hair, and anoints them with expensive ointment (see Luke 7:37–50). I’ve often wondered what brought her there. Had she already heard Jesus’ teaching in some public place or had she just heard about him? Whatever it was, her thought had certainly been stirred, and the light of the Christ that Jesus so beautifully represented was burning brightly in her thought. And Jesus assures her, “Thy sins are forgiven.” She has been reborn and evidently is ready for a new life with more and greater rebirth to come.

Yet it’s not enough just to be sorry for having followed mistaken ways of living, or even to feel the forgiveness that washed away particular propensities. In order to move beyond those ways, one must continue to deeply desire to live in accord with one’s spiritual nature. When that genuine striving to think and to live more spiritually is at the heart of our daily life, progressing further is inevitable.

Transformation

The next stage of spiritual development Mrs. Eddy described is the baptism of the Holy Ghost—the spirit of God transforming consciousness and dissolving even minor inclinations to sin. This change involves daily, continual turning away from human willfulness and materially based thinking. As we turn to God to guide every step of our lives, we feel the inspiration, wisdom, and peace of divine Love more and more. Experiencing this baptism and renewal at this stage comes from truly living the life of a follower of Christ Jesus—allowing the Holy Ghost, or divine Science, to be the primary influence controlling our words and actions.

Every step of spiritual growth improves our lives.

Every step of spiritual growth, every new way of thinking and acting and interacting with those around us, improves our lives. This spiritual growth opens our eyes to the good going on around us and helps us become better witnesses to God’s perfect creation in our family and with our neighbors. This progressive improvement of consciousness naturally touches every part of our experience and fortifies and blesses it. The baptism of the Holy Ghost refreshes thought and provides the spiritual insight needed to progress even further. We can expect that an improved awareness of our spiritual identity and our increased understanding of Spirit as the only true substance will bring tangible changes and physical healing.

Several months ago I had an experience that felt like this baptism. For years I had a mole on my neck that showed several signs of being abnormal. It was distended and often itchy. While it didn’t cause me much fear, I knew that this was something that needed to be and could be removed and healed through Christian Science treatment. So one afternoon I spent some quiet prayerful time listening to God, divine Mind, for what was needed to heal this condition. I contemplated God’s pure and perfect existence expecting to uncover anything in my thought that was not in line with God’s entirely good creation.

In just a few minutes, I had a flash of a memory from decades previous. A co-worker had had an invasive mole removed and had shared in great detail this dramatic event in her life. I realized that I had accepted this as a part of her experience and had never challenged it spiritually. So I did just that. I prayerfully denied that this woman or anyone could ever be contaminated by or invaded by such a condition and affirmed that this condition was a lie about God’s true creation. My co-worker’s pure spiritual nature became so clear to me that I knew I had corrected the misperception of her that I had let sit in thought for so long.

Within a week, the mole on my neck dried up and fell away. My consciousness had been refreshed with this new, pure view of my co-worker, and that change naturally resulted in a physical change in my own experience.

Every healing we have involves some degree of being born again.

Every healing we have involves some degree of being born again into the clearer understanding of our and others’ true spiritual nature. What we see as healing is really the unfolding revelation of what is always true. Every moment of rebirth—of awakened realization of our spiritual nature—transforms how we view reality and helps us to see more clearly through the lens of spiritual reasoning.

Immersion in Love

And this clarity leads to the final stage of rebirth: the baptism of Spirit, where we experience nothing but our complete oneness with God. Of this climactic stage, Mary Baker Eddy said that we will find the “… final immersion of human consciousness in the infinite ocean of Love …”(Mis., p. 205). Who wouldn’t want to be immersed in an infinite ocean of Love?

Very often in my prayerful communion with God, as I pray either for myself or for someone who has requested my help, I have felt moments of this complete oneness with Love. It is a sense of being totally surrounded by joy and health and peace, a sense that there could not possibly be anything else anywhere that could harm God’s glorious creation. Physical surroundings seem to melt away, and there is nothing but Love. It is hard to maintain this mental state when the phone starts ringing, the dog starts barking, and the kids want dinner. But just knowing that it is attainable—and that this state of peace and pure spirituality often results in dramatic healings—makes it worth continuing to strive to maintain it more consistently.

That clear, spiritual knowledge of existence transcends, even if just for a brief time, the material sense of life. I think of it as that “one moment of divine consciousness” that Mrs. Eddy explained is possible for us now. Each of us, here and now, can be “… in the full consciousness of [our] immortality and eternal harmony, where sin, sickness, and death are unknown” (Science and Health, p. 598). Relating this enlightened state of consciousness to St. John’s visions in Revelation, she assured that this is possible for us, too. As she wrote, it is “… a foretaste of absolute Christian Science” (Science and Health, p. 573).

Ripe for rebirth

Our spiritual journey is forever ongoing.

That state of existence may seem like a far-off, pie-in-the-sky goal, but it doesn’t have to done in a day. Our spiritual journey is forever ongoing. As the desire to be reborn spiritually deepens, we will continue to move through those first two stages until we arrive at the full understanding of our oneness with the divine—until we find ourselves immersed in that infinite ocean of Love.

Pondering Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, Mrs. Eddy wrote to one of her students: “Your new birth seems such as Jesus declared to the Rabbi of old, even an awakening to the realities that satisfy the immortal cravings. This great hope, faith, and understanding come forth in Divine Science as naturally as the Spring-tide to those ripe for it” (L08381, Mary Baker Eddy to J.R. Clarkson, April 1, 1898, The Mary Baker Eddy Collection).

This truth speaks to everyone. Each of us can be ripe for spiritual rebirth and awaken to the truth of the universe that will satisfy the natural craving for better and higher and happier lives. We all can open our hearts and our minds to being born again today—and again tomorrow. Divine Love is supporting and encouraging each of us every moment. And Love is continually providing the infinite ocean of harmony and joy—the kingdom of God and divine consciousness—for everyone to experience.

Meg Dendler is a Christian Science practitioner. She lives in Cypress, Texas.

God doesn’t send evil but provides a reliable defense from it.

There it was in black and white—on page 66 of Science and Health: “Trials are proofs of God’s care.” Many new as well as longtime students of Christian Science, including me, have puzzled over that statement. A few questions that might arise:

• Does God, who is Love, send evil to tempt me or determine my worthiness?
• Am I to endure some misery to the best of my ability—or even with the help of God’s grace—because He is using the trial as a teaching tool?
• If God is my heavenly Father and “of purer eyes than to behold evil” (Hab. 1:13), does He create evil, know it, or use it to challenge me, or even to offer me “proof” of His care?

Many theologies teach that the answer to all of the above questions is yes and that our purpose and goal is to endure suffering for some mysterious reason. Mary Baker Eddy innately rebelled against this doctrine. Her discovery of the divine laws of healing enabled her to refute the concept of a deity that is both good and evil—a God who is capable of sending us “trials.”

Was I, by divine law, to be subjected to grievous experiences?

Decades ago, I pondered that one brief sentence for what seemed like the millionth time. I felt the need to face down the sticking point that divine Love could send a trial or “suffering that puts strength, patience, or faith to the test”—as one dictionary defines the word trial. Was I, by divine law, to be subjected to what Rodale’s Synonym Finder calls “grievous experiences, … affliction, trouble, … bad luck, … catastrophe”?

What I began to see is that the crux of grasping that statement in Science and Health rests in ultimately understanding a higher definition of the word trial. I knew there are no mysteries or contradictions in Science and Health and that each statement is intended to be understood and proved. Instead of being a sticking point, the sentence became a springboard to greater clarity.

The “aha” moment came one morning. While changing the channels on the TV, I heard an attorney answer an interviewer’s question. Though I hadn’t heard the original question, I loved the lawyer’s answer. He said, “You know what a trial is, don’t you? It’s the presentation of evidence.” Wow! That explanation grabbed my attention, and I delved into a more expanded reading of the passage in Science and Health: “Trials teach mortals not to lean on a material staff,—a broken reed, which pierces the heart. We do not half remember this in the sunshine of joy and prosperity. … Trials are proofs of God’s care. … Each successive stage of experience unfolds new views of divine goodness and love” (Science and Health, p. 66).

I immediately realized my mistake in wrestling with that one paragraph. I hadn’t allowed for a higher meaning of the word trial. To me, the first reference to trial in the passage does indeed refer to those experiences characterized by suffering, affliction, and misery. But in Mrs. Eddy’s second reference to the word trials, she may be requiring us to employ a higher meaning: the presentation of evidence—divine evidence! This defense of what is spiritually real begins with recognizing our identity as God’s creation, made in His image and likeness (see Gen. 1:26, 27). Being made in the image and likeness of divine Love means we are inseparable from our perfect source—always existing at the point of “proof” of God’s omnipresence. The only evidence we ever have to accept is that which conforms to the divine. Everything else is a misrepresentation of Truth and can be gaveled down as perjury—just as a lie would be in a court of law.

Any material speculation is null and void—with no voice, no vote, and no victim.

As Science and Health explains in several places, it’s extremely helpful to approach any difficulty just as we might argue a case in court. The lawyer accepts one side of the case and argues persistently for that side. He or she presents the argument as compellingly as possible. So, like the trial attorney, Christian Scientists argue one side of the case—and one side only. As we rely on the divine Truth of being, any material speculation is null and void—with no voice, no vote, and no victim.

This spiritually emphatic definition of trial helped heal a longtime relationship that had been particularly difficult in my life—one characterized by extreme discord for more than 25 years. It was a “trial” to me as well as to friends and family who observed it at close range. As I asked divine Mind for direction and even assurance that I could break off the relationship, I never got the yes answer that I expected.

In fact, the question that kept recurring to me was, If you’re willing to call this relationship incurable so you can quit and walk away, what’s the next thing you’re going to call incurable and walk away from?

Believe me, the suggestion to walk away was very tempting and, when based on good, old-fashioned human reasoning, completely understandable. But I knew I was praying in earnest and that this prayer would be—as they say frequently in a court trial—“asked and answered.”

It became very clear to me that this wasn’t a matter of good person versus bad person, but rather the false assumption that inharmony within this or any relationship is inevitable. I knew that the characterization of this challenge as a trial—as a misery—had to be elevated to the presentation of divine evidence.

I asked myself, What is God knowing/doing right now?

The wrestling ceased and the witnessing began. The focus was no longer on my trying to “straighten another’s altar.” Rather I became a witness to what God was communicating to each of us, at every moment. I asked myself, What is God knowing/doing right now? What am I being asked to believe? Do I believe it? Why or why not? These questions were progressive, and I wasn’t afraid to hear what God was telling me. This led me away from a willful approach—a strategy—to more inspired views of God and man. I can only describe what happened next as being like someone throwing a switch—it was that sudden. The discord with this individual just stopped. The spirit of love, trust, and cooperation was restored and continues to characterize our relationship today.

The higher meaning of trial doesn’t mean a battle or the necessity to suffer. In fact, if suffering is any part of our experience, it’s a pretty clear indication that we have to reexamine our definition of the word trial. Persistence does mean giving up even our most cherished thoughts in order to more closely ally thought to God, good. It means to consistently present the evidence—the one side of the case that reasons from the standpoint that our heavenly Father-Mother, God, is our only source. Claiming God’s identity as our very being, we’re in a perfect position to protest against the human verdict of guilty—whether it involves a physical illness, a contentious relationship, or any other erroneous suggestion. We have the freedom to bask in our God-given standing as the child of God, experiencing the constant proof of His care.

This is our divine day, our victorious day in court.

Diane Marrapodi is a Christian Science practitioner and teacher living in Forest Hill, Maryland.

Whatever good we think we know humanly has a divine source.

When my dad passed on, among the many condolences I received, a compassionate friend offered words of spiritual consolation that made a great difference to me.

He acknowledged my feelings of loss, but at the same time he assured me that prayer would move me through my grief—to the practical and very real apprehension that God’s goodness could never be lost. “You’re going to get to know your father better,” he said. “You’re going to get to know him spiritually.”

It seemed hard to imagine. All the ways I was accustomed to knowing my father were, I thought, pretty human. I knew his personality, his sense of humor, his generosity and intelligence. I knew his physical presence and could no longer hear his voice or see the lift of his eyebrow.

But I realized that the spiritual sense being recommended to me did not lack substance or power. So I eagerly embraced the idea of finding the imperishable aspect of my dad and our relationship.

My friend had quoted these lines from a hymn:

Prayer is the Christian’s vital breath,

The Christian’s native air:

His watchword, overcoming death:

He enters heaven with prayer.

(John B. Dykes, Christian Science Hymnal, No. 284)

I actually did know my dad in profounder ways than his wit or grace.

And it did take persistent prayer before I was able to grasp the fact that I actually did know my dad in profounder ways than his wit or grace. At times sorrow would come over me unexpectedly, and I’d feel overwhelmed by the thought that death was the final word, the “checkmate” move of a fundamentally mortal existence.

It wasn’t just about me, either. I could cope, perhaps (I thought), but the consequences for my daughter seemed cruel and unfair. Not yet two years old, she’d bonded strongly with “Da,” and he’d become a major part of her young life. Her reaction to his absence, when we arrived at my parents’ home to help my mother, was to race through the house looking for him. When she didn’t find him, she became desperate and began crying, pounding on doors, calling his name. A well-meaning friend suggested we tell her that her grandpa had gone on a trip. Another said we should tell her he had gone to heaven.

As I tried to work out what to say, I was reminded of two statements from Science and Health about children. “The more stubborn beliefs and theories of parents,” wrote Mary Baker Eddy, “often choke the good seed in the minds of themselves and their offspring. Superstition, like ‘the fowls of the air,’ snatches away the good seed before it has sprouted” (Science and Health, p. 237). Also, “Children should be allowed to remain children in knowledge, and should become men and women only through growth in the understanding of man’s higher nature” (Science and Health, p. 62).

I wasn’t comfortable telling my daughter a lie or even offering her a conventionally soothing story about heaven as a beautiful distant place. Such strategies might dry her tears momentarily, but they’d only get in the way of what my prayer had begun to reveal to me: that God’s intelligent comforting and goodness is a constant presence, and embraces all of us.

I found myself more and more expectant of good.

So I chose simple words and told her that “passed on” meant that we would not be able to see Da in the way we were used to seeing him, but that everything we loved about him was still with us and always would be. She appeared to consider this and accept it. But in the weeks that followed, it seemed to me that she’d been deeply rocked by her loss, in ways we couldn’t fully understand or help her with. Her dad and I continued to pray, going to God for a better understanding of the fullness of His love. And I found myself more and more expectant of good, more trusting in divine Love to meet our needs.

A few weeks later we attended a Christmas party at a museum. The owner of a local bookstore was playing Santa Claus. As we walked through the room and watched him interacting with the children, my daughter grabbed my hand and pulled me over to a corner to sit and watch. She was fascinated. After 20 minutes, she tugged my sleeve and said in my ear, “There’s Da!” For her, it had nothing to do with the Santa suit or beard; it was the way he listened with interest, patience, and gentleness, just as her grandfather had to her.

Then, I looked at her and saw a sort of calm joy on her face—to me it was an expression of a fact grasped and peace gained. I looked back at the man in the Santa suit. He was engaging the child on his knee in intent conversation, clearly expressing many of the qualities that my daughter had appreciated in her grandfather. What I’d told her came back to me: “We will find Da’s spiritual identity in all kinds of ways and places. His gentleness, care, and good humor were God’s own qualities, and none of us can be separated from them.”

I saw that she had gotten it! She was grasping the fact that what she loved and treasured would not be lost.

Because God is divine Life and Love, all the good that I’d thought was contained in a human person was actually part of infinite Spirit.

And I also started to get it more fully. It wasn’t that spiritual sense was going to help us get to know a corporeal personality better—one we could no longer see or hug. It wasn’t even that we might find a human replacement for a father and grandfather. Rather, because God is divine Life and Love, all the good that I’d thought was contained in a human person was actually part of infinite Spirit. And Spirit, I realized, constantly pours itself into our lives, through our actual identity as God’s children, His ideas.

St. Paul put it this way: “Ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (II Cor. 6:16). The spiritual qualities of Life and Love are seen and heard right where we are. This is God’s activity, and it is immortal—it can’t be stopped and knows no end or interruption.

The understanding imparted to my daughter that day at the Christmas party has continued to comfort and guide her through the changes and challenges of young adulthood. There were many incidents in the following years when we’d encounter a particular kindness and solicitude that we associated with my dad: the acquaintance met abroad who entertained her over dinner with the Canadian Army songs my father had sung to her as lullabies; the church member who welcomed us to a new town, filling the role of grandfather with familiar wit and cleverness.

Then there was a day that I felt particularly blessed. My second-hand computer had broken down in the midst of my preparing for a talk. I thought fleetingly and sadly, “If my dad were still here, he’d have helped me get a proper machine.” Instantly I recalled what I’d learned about the spiritual nature of our relationship and about God as the source of all good and goodness. Right then I felt such deep comfort at the thought that my Father, God, had always taken care of me and mine.

Minutes later, the phone rang. A woman I hadn’t heard from in over a year said that she wanted to find a home for a laptop that she wasn’t using, and she’d suddenly thought of me.

We’ve gained a solid acquaintance with divine good’s ever-presence.

But even more important for both my daughter and me than these evidences of care is the fact that we’ve gained a solid acquaintance with divine good’s ever-presence. It’s something that we have both come back to time and again when it felt as if some good could be lost.

The Bible promises, “I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters” (II Cor. 6:17, 18). Whatever good we think we know humanly has a divine source. Qualities such as joy, grace, perseverance, and calm go hand in hand with understanding our spiritual origin. Because we’re God’s daughters and sons, those qualities are ours to perceive and express. His good gifts are everlasting, ever-available.

Caryl Farkas lives in Madison, Wisconsin. She is a Christian Science practitioner and teacher.

Focusing on God, not simply accepting the problem, heals shyness.

We’d sung together and sat next to each other at a couple of our community chorus rehearsals in the previous season. I thought we were starting to develop a good rapport. But with the new season beginning again, my neighbor acted as if she didn’t know me. This seemed to be a familiar occurrence for me. Just as I’d begin to get to know someone, they’d seem no longer to be interested. What was wrong with me?

Although I’d asked that question of myself repeatedly over the years, I was determined to look at things differently this time. Before, my answers might range from “I’m not interesting enough” to “That’s just the way it is.” But I was learning that this line of reasoning was pretty self-centered. It focused exclusively on me and my travails. It not only left God out of the equation, but everyone else, too. In Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy addressed this point of view head-on when she wrote, “Absorbed in material selfhood we discern and reflect but faintly the substance of Life or Mind” (Science and Health, p. 91).

I began to discover that my prayers were actually agreeing with my plight rather than striving to heal it.

As I considered this sentence, I began to discover that my prayers, which had been along the lines of “Dear God, please make so and so like me” or “Help me not care,” were actually agreeing with my plight rather than striving to heal it. Instead of discerning how great was the “substance of Life or Mind,” I was seeing only my own smallness. This kind of praying tended to perpetuate the problem rather than solve it. And I truly wanted to end what might be called an inferiority complex.

Looking at existence from a purely material view, we tend to lump people into groups of superior and inferior, haves and have-nots, “them” and “us.” To acquiesce to these kinds of delineations is to agree that good is limited. According to the Bible, that’s impossible. The first chapter of Genesis states six times that what God made is good. That covers everything from light to landscapes and from porpoises to people. All that God created is good. In fact, in many languages, including English, the word God is rooted in the word good. In addition, the Bible states that God’s presence fills all space (see Ps. 139:7). Prayerful reasoning from these two Scriptural facts leads us naturally to the conclusion that good is also ever present. That means that good must be as infinite as God is.

In the same passage quoted above, Mrs. Eddy went on to write, “The denial of material selfhood aids the discernment of man’s spiritual and eternal individuality, and destroys the erroneous knowledge gained from matter or through what are termed the material senses.” Understanding this statement, I realized, needed to be the basis of my prayers. I set out to gain the discernment of my own and others’ unique spiritual nature, as well as to deny what appeared to be all too true in my experience: that I was a shy or inferior person.

Instead of developing coping skills, I could heal this problem.

This was exciting work. Accepting that I could actually challenge the suggestion that my personality was already set, and that instead of developing coping skills I could heal this problem, was already beginning to free me from its grasp. As I turned to God in humble prayer—that is, prayer that seeks to learn what God knows about any given situation—I started uncovering places in my thought where I had simply agreed with the propositions that certain occasions must be difficult. Or that certain people just wouldn’t find me enjoyable. Or—and this was the toughest of all—that there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

Another prayer that took on special meaning during this time was a phrase from the Daily Prayer, found in the Manual of The Mother Church: “… may Thy Word enrich the affections of all mankind, and govern them!” (Mary Baker Eddy, Manual of The Mother Church, p. 41). I reasoned that I didn’t have to wait for affections to be enriched toward me, but that I had an opportunity to affectionately reach out to others. What an insight that was!

Bit by bit as I embraced these prayers—not only striving to agree with them in thought but to live them as well—I began to be more outgoing and less put off by circumstances. Over time, it became more natural for me to initiate a conversation instead of waiting to be spoken to. Along with this increased friendliness was an accompanying decrease in being judgmental. I recognized that it was my own thought about situations and people that was being transformed—not ultimately the situations and people themselves. This newfound ease in dealing with others included an appreciation for their natural friendliness.

The woman I’d sat next to those many years ago? She’s now one of my dearest friends.

Christian Science answers an athlete’s spiritual questions and heals her.

I’m from India and I practice judo (a martial art). I’m also a wrestler. I enjoy both of these sports because they require an expression of strength.

But soon after joining these athletic teams, I was frustrated with the feeling that people were often indulging in sexism and favoritism, which was hurting women’s chances to succeed in sports. I used to feel very angry whenever I thought I saw partiality toward the men’s teams.

Along with that, I was bothered by the fact that male athletes often earn scholarships, while it’s not always so easy for women. And I expressed these views bluntly to my coach and friends. As a result of my attitude, my team did not seem to like me. Whenever I would think about this issue, my resentment at this injustice would flare up, and I would get upset.

At that time, I was sharing a room with a girl in guest accommodations near my school. She was a computer professional, and I knew she was a Christian Scientist. Wanting to help me, she told me that I didn’t have to have these bad feelings. Instead, she explained it was possible to know more about my relationship with God—and this knowledge would comfort and heal.

I started getting answers to all of my spiritual questions.

My friend gave me a book as a gift. It was Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. Upon reading it, I started getting answers to all of my spiritual questions. The idea that God is good and that evil has no power stood out to me the most. After reading the book for about three months, I attended a Sunday service in a Christian Science Society with this friend.

Then while going back home on my scooter, I collided forcefully with a car. I was unconscious, and the person driving the car took me to a hospital. I was injured, and the scooter was also damaged. When my friend found out about it, she came to see me in the hospital. And before visiting me, she had a word with a Christian Science practitioner.

When I left the hospital later that day, the doctors predicted I would be bedridden for the next one and a half months. After hearing this discouraging news, I prayed to know that God was Love and that I was the image of His love. This was the first time I had prayed with these powerful ideas.

During the next few weeks, I tried to replace every negative thought with hope and faith in God’s healing power. I reminded myself again and again that God would never punish His daughter and that He loved me unconditionally. I went back to doctors three times within 20 days for dressing of the wounds and removal of stitches. And I was back on my feet in about half the time the doctors had predicted. They were impressed at my ability to walk, but told me that my knee would never be strong enough to allow me to play sports again. I felt discouraged and fearful.

I felt confident I could trust God and that one day I would be able to play sports again.

But soon the friend who’d given me Science and Health called up again to invite me to a Wednesday evening testimony meeting—a meeting where people give thanks to God and stand up to verbally share healings. I went, and the peaceful atmosphere at the service impressed me a lot. At this meeting, I talked to the Christian Science practitioner whom my friend had called when she’d heard I’d been in an accident. I asked her many questions about God and got some new ideas. At that point I felt confident I could trust God and that one day I would be able to play sports again.

Then I asked for prayerful help from the practitioner because I wanted to see healing in many areas of my life, as well as complete healing for my leg. Through Christian Science, I had discovered a way where I could find answers to every question, and I was feeling lighter and better about life.

One particular truth from Science and Health stood out to me: “Accidents are unknown to God, or immortal Mind, and we must leave the mortal basis of belief and unite with the one Mind, in order to change the notion of chance to the proper sense of God’s unerring direction and thus bring out harmony.

“Under divine Providence there can be no accidents, since there is no room for imperfection in perfection” (Science and Health, p. 424).

These words encouraged me to reject that injury could become an obstruction to my talent in judo and wrestling. I thought about the spiritual fact that the accident had not happened in spiritual reality, according to a proper sense of God’s protection and care. Because of this understanding, the injury that appeared to have resulted from it could not remain.

After a few months, my name was selected for judo competition at state level. I was excited, but I lacked adequate physical strength and still sometimes felt pain in my leg. I did not know how I would be able to compete.

Within a few days I was fearless and could use my leg normally.

Again I discussed this with the practitioner, and she explained to me in beautiful words that we are purely spiritual and not material. I kept on cherishing this truth continually, and within a few days I was fearless and could use my leg normally. I also prayed to know that God was my strength, and that He gave strength to everyone, impartially. I thought in this way about every player who came to participate.

At the competition, I not only was able to compete, but got third position in the state! I was very happy and expressed gratitude to God. Along with this, when the girls’ team was finalized for the next year, I got a scholarship—without even struggling for it.

My journey of blessings did not stop with this healing. The chance to compete in National Games for wrestling came, and I was selected for inter-university wrestling. This time, my coach made me captain—because of the qualities he said he saw in me as a leader. My resentment over sexism and the injustices I saw was replaced with gratitude that God does not have favorites.

Through studying Christian Science and attending church services, I have clearly seen that Father-Mother God is impartial. Now I fully believe that God is always with me. These proofs of healing inspired me to become a member of my local Christian Science Society in Chandigarh and to pray for my community. I am so grateful to God for leading me to Christian Science through meeting my friend.

Now I feel so worthy and am enjoying my freedom as a daughter of God.

This article first appeared on www.spirituality.com.

A rabbi explains how his life was changed by Christian Science, which he says is universal and doesn’t conflict at all with Judaism.

Rabbi Louis, could you give us a little background on your spiritual path? What made you become a rabbi?

Well, I was born Jewish in Peoria, Illinois, and my parents gave me whatever Jewish education was available. During my college years was the time of the Vietnam War, and I was in a major university that was kind of the center of turbulence. There were great popular movements of students, of searching for the Eastern religions, and many people coming back to their own religious roots. I approached many of the different religions until I came to my own. I studied in the rabbinical seminary in New York and then came to Israel, got married, and was ordained as a rabbi in the field of the Kabbalah Jewish metaphysics. In all the years since, I was occupied with teaching Kabbalah and also was a professional musician.

Tell us about the Kabbalah.

The Kabbalah is a language for discussing spirituality. With music you have seven notes, and through the combination of those notes all the music is made. In discussing spiritual things, the Kabbalah provides a language. There are ten spheres. We can speak about complete materiality, partial materiality, partial spirituality, complete spirituality. In that sense the Kabbalah is perfectly attuned to divine Science, which goes to the complete spirituality in which matter is recognized as not existing.

How then did you encounter Christian Science?

Four years ago my elderly father was suffering from the final stages of terminal cancer, and I went to be with him.

He had moved to his home, he had 24-hour nursing, and he was connected to tubes. I went outside to walk in the neighborhood. And there’s a sign—Christian Science Reading Room. And the sign said the Reading Room was open two hours a day, and it happened that I was there at that time. I went in. I didn’t know anything at the time about Christian Science as such. I did know of the existence of Christian Science from my student years. Every major airport had a Christian Science Reading Room, so I’d had an opportunity to look at the books. And I knew that there was such a thing as healing. Anyway, I sat with the lady in this Reading Room, and told her about my father. I don’t remember the ideas that were expressed as such, but I went home immediately, and told my father, “You’re going to recover completely.”

The people there were not offering me intellectual ideas. It was the kindness, and the prayerfulness.

When I visited the Reading Room, the people there, wonderful people, were not offering me any kind of intellectual ideas as such. It was the kindness, and the prayerfulness. It was the atmosphere, the gracefulness, the graciousness. Now in retrospect, it is clear to me that probably those Scientists were praying.

I love the way you put it—that you felt the atmosphere, the love, the healing, the prayer.

Every day I went back to the Reading Room, and when it was Sunday, I went to the service. On the third day, my father perked up, and he wanted to eat. He hadn’t eaten for three months. So we brought him yogurt and ice cream. On the fourth day he wanted to eat scrambled eggs and pancakes, and I started going back and forth to the supermarket.

By the fifth day he was getting up out of bed. He wanted to come to the kitchen to eat. With a walker and the nurse by him, he’s eating in the kitchen. By the sixth day he was sitting in front of his television set in the living room. On the sixth day he decided he wanted to get his affairs back in his hand. He’d given all of his affairs to his lawyer. To do that legally he had to prove that he was now capable.

So we went to the hospital for a checkup on the seventh day. Then he walked into the bank with a walker with the applause of all of the people there. It was really a fine moment. He got his affairs back in his hands. We went home to his house and got a phone call from the hospital that he was completely healed of all of what he had suffered from. And indeed he was. He lived on happily and healthily for another year.

What I actually witnessed here was a true resurrection. This changed my life.

And that was my introduction to Christian Science. All of his doctors and all of the people that knew him came over to the house, and everybody was astounded. What I actually witnessed here was a true resurrection. This changed my life. I decided that Christian Science is truth and that I intend to find out what it is, study this, devote my life to this. And that’s exactly what I’ve done.

How did you study it? I imagine you got into Mary Baker Eddy’s book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.

Not at first. I didn’t know about Science and Health. All I knew was there was a Christian Science Reading Room and that my dad was completely recovered. I went back to Israel, and looked at the Internet. Eventually I realized Christian Science is centered in Boston.

Boston is where the headquarters of the Church is. But Christian Science a worldwide movement.

But I knew that Boston was the center, and I said that must be the place to start. So, a number of months later, I came to this very building [The Christian Science Publishing Society], and I went into The Mary Baker Eddy Library. I asked around for a Christian Science practitioner. And someone directed me to a spiritual healing center on Massachusetts Avenue, which is open to the public. It’s called Solutions through Prayer.

A Christian Science practitioner is there, and anyone from the public is welcome to go in and speak to him or her. So that’s what I did. And I spoke to the practitioner there, and he began prayer treatments for me. And then we were in communication with e-mail after I returned to Israel.

And by that time had you gotten into Science and Health?

I bought one from the practitioner. And he was sending me passages from Science and Health. He stayed with me in those early times as a guide.

And were there some particular passages in Science and Health that really resonated with you?

I came upon the brilliant metaphysical, logical explanation of the common denominator between Christian Science theology and Jewish theology.

My first spiritual task was to resolve what appeared to be a dichotomy between my Jewish religious life and my deep interest in Christian Science. How did these two fit together? Certainly on an experiential level it was clear to me that they did. But I had to have some kind of platform to stand upon. So I came upon the passage that starts at the bottom of page 360 in Science and Health with a brilliant metaphysical, logical explanation of what exactly is the common denominator, the interface between Christian Science theology and Jewish theology.

Will you read the passage for us?

“… to-day, Jew and Christian can unite in doctrine and denomination on the very basis of Jesus’ words and works. The Jew believes that the Messiah or Christ has not yet come; the Christian believes that Christ is God. Here Christian Science intervenes, explains these doctrinal points, cancels the disagreement, and settles the question. Christ, as the true spiritual idea, is the ideal of God now and forever, here and everywhere. The Jew who believes in the First Commandment is a monotheist; he has one omnipresent God. Thus the Jew unites with the Christian’s doctrine that God is come and is present now and forever. The Christian who believes in the First Commandment is a monotheist. Thus he virtually unites with the Jew’s belief in one God, and recognizes that Jesus Christ is not God, as Jesus himself declared, but is the Son of God.”

So what did that mean to you?

We’re looking at the three words, God, Christ, and Jesus, from three different perspectives—from the perspective of the Jew, the Christian, the Christian Scientist. The Christian will group the three in one group; God, Christ, and Jesus are indistinguishable. Jesus is God, the Christ is God, the Christ is Jesus, and so on. This is unacceptable to the Jewish thought because Jesus is a man. We don’t want to deify man. But Christian Science takes this list—God, Christ, and Jesus—and distinguishes between them in a completely unique way. First of all, Jesus is distinguished from God. Jesus was the man, the reflection of the Christ. The Christ in Christian Science is “the ideal of God now and forever.” The Christ is God’s idea of man, the perfect man. That’s what the Jewish concept of the Messiah is also, the perfect man. So now we see that Christian Science, which agrees that Jesus is not God, agrees perfectly with Judaism, which says the same thing. The Jews will say, “Well, then, what is the Christ? Don’t you think it’s the same as Jesus?” And Christian Science says, “No. The Christ is in all of us. It’s eternal. It’s God’s eternal thought of man.”

Christian Science is illuminating my Jewish metaphysical thought.

Christ Jesus was a rabbi who kept the Jewish commandments. And now in my life, Christian Science is illuminating my Jewish metaphysical thought so that, for me personally, it’s one thing. There’s one God.

What is it about Christian Science that most touches your heart?

Before I knew about Science, I had some frustrations that were disturbing me spiritually. I had a rebellious son. I responded as a stubborn father. Basically this created a situation of very serious estrangement which I suffered from enormously, and I’m sure he did too. One of the first things that I learned in Science was about love and the centralness of love in healing and in prayer.

So I made for myself a daily session, sometimes for hours, of closing myself into my room and sitting and loving my son. I didn’t even know where he was. I was just sending my waves of love through spiritual space to him. After a certain amount of time, we talked on the phone, for the first time in several years. It took another month and another conversation, and then we had dinner together. We embraced each other, and it was gone. The whole estrangement was gone.

How did the family react to your study of Christian Science?

Mainly what my wife saw was how things were working out. She saw how I got it back together with my son. When that problem was resolved, she was already with me. She encouraged me to go back to America to look for a Christian Science teacher.

And did Primary class instruction in Christian Science help?

Christian Science is universal. It illuminates anything and everything.

That put things on an entirely new footing. That brought clarity, an overall vision of what the entire scope of Christian Science is. Recently, I felt it necessary to discuss Christian Science openly with my children. So we had a family gathering in which all of my grown children, my six children, and my two sons-in-law and my daughter-in-law and the whole family, the wider family, were all together. They were prepared that Dad had a speech to make. I told them what I was doing, about healing. I told them that in no way does Christian Science interfere with my Jewish observance. Christian Science is universal. It illuminates anything and everything. If I’m a rabbi, I become an illuminated rabbi. If you’re a businessman, you’re an illuminated one.

Or if you’re in some other religion, right?

Christian Science extends to all religions because it is a meta-religion. As is I think widely known, Mrs. Eddy didn’t originally intend to start a religious denomination. She thought that the Christian world would accept the teachings. It didn’t work out that way; the world was not yet prepared for such a thing. So she started the Christian Science Church. But Christian Science is universal. And I expressed this to my children. They understood me. So they’re all behind me. My sons-in-law are rabbis. One is the head of a rabbinical seminary. My two sons are also rabbis. And they all said, “Go for it, Dad. It’s just fine.” It was beautiful.

So you feel there is a receptivity to Christian Science in Israel?

The only thing I have to be careful about is this point: that Jesus Christ is not God. Once that is understood, there is no problem according to Jewish law or theology. Christian Science is unique in this understanding. Israel in general is wide open to healing. I’m certain that God will bring the understanding of what healing is in Israel, and that promises to be a truly glorious thing.

What do you see as the role of Christian Science in the whole world?

Divine Science is the infinite revelation of God’s thoughts in a way that any human being can understand.

Divine Science is the infinite revelation of God’s thoughts in a way that any human being, any man or woman who so desires and is willing to devote the time and effort to study, can understand. We have, as Mrs. Eddy states so beautifully, the “conscious, constant capacity” for understanding God. We’re all prophets of God, in the sense that all of us can hear God’s Word. He speaks to us all the time. We just have to learn how to hear His language. We also have to learn how to pray. Wanting goodness, wanting infinite goodness, is prayer. God Himself will take your desire and uplift it and turn it into a prayer. That’s His work.

That has strong implications for world peace—and for peace in the Middle East.

Absolutely. The Middle East has the characteristic of being the kind of microcosm of the whole world. Israel itself is a microcosm—all the religions, all the civilizations, all the cultures in the world are all packed together in a country not so much larger than the greater Boston area. But if Christian Science is understood among the Jewish people, and the Christian people, and the Arabic, the Islamic people in our area in the Middle East—then that’s a good laboratory for it to be understood in the world. There’s one God, one Truth, one goodness. And the Science is the Science—scientific.

And what do you see as your role as a Christian Scientist who is also a rabbi?

Certainly my immediate goal has two sides. One, to go home to Israel and to take what I’ve learned and live in Israel. And in a quiet way, in a simple way, in a neighborly way, look for opportunities to say a good word. The kids are really ready for it in Israel. There’s a great liberality on spiritual matters, and a great searching.

There cannot be in my view the world peace without an understanding of Mary Baker Eddy’s writings ….

And the other aspect of my interest is to speak to Christian Scientists, which is an entirely different world, because they already know the truth and the Science. I would like to speak to Christian Science youth, and to encourage them, to show them how vast and what an instrument of understanding it is for them in whatever career they would take. Mary Baker Eddy touched the point that no one, no one, has touched. I studied metaphysics for 40 years. There cannot be in my view the world peace without an understanding of Mary Baker Eddy’s writings, her life—what she went through. By understanding these things, you’re linking yourself to the unique expression of God’s thought for our times in the most modern, the most immediate sense. I am truly dedicating my lifework to making that point clear to my own countrymen and to the rabbis I’m associated with.

And the same is true for Christian Scientists who already know this beautiful Science. They should also appreciate what they’ve got. Young people may not see what a great gift they have already in their hands. So I would emphasize how precious is this work of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. How precious and valuable it is for the culmination of the aspirations of all of humanity. It is a law of God.

The key to living a Spirit-based life is knowing yourself as God’s likeness.

What does living a Spirit-based life mean to you?

When I was growing up in a Protestant Sunday School, I admired the minister for the way he lived, but I didn’t see how that kind of living applied to my own life. Since then I’ve learned what Christian Science teaches about our identity as the image and likeness of God (see Gen. 1:26, 27), and to know ourselves as this likeness is where we can begin to lead a Spirit-based life.

As I did this, I began to understand how natural it is for everyone, as the likeness of Spirit, to actually live the spiritual qualities of God—such as compassion, affection, courtesy, kindness, patience. It isn’t always easy. Every one of us is tested. (What about when you’re in heavy traffic—are you willing to be patient then?)

Sometimes being kind to yourself is one of the hardest things to do.

People have a tendency to be pretty hard on themselves. We expect perfection! But Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy tells us, “Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man …” (Science and Health, pp. 476–477)—not a perfect human being but God’s image and likeness. And when we begin to see the expression of these spiritual qualities in ourselves, we can be patient and recognize the beauty and grace that come from deep within. Kindness to ourselves draws it out.

So you’re saying that we have to be willing to see ourselves as the image and likeness of God?

I don’t think you can see anybody else that way until you begin to see yourself that way.

How is a Spirit-based life different from thinking of ourselves as mortal beings on Earth who are praying to Spirit up in heaven, hoping that God will help us?

The more we understand God, the more we understand ourselves as His likeness.

In my early religious training, I was taught pretty much that way, but it didn’t help me understand that there is a key to a Spirit-based life. And you know what the key is? It is knowing yourself as God’s likeness by looking into God. Only that way can we see who we really are. The more we understand God, the more we understand ourselves as His likeness. That’s much more than self-improvement. It’s self-discovery. And one spiritual quality of God expressed conscientiously and deliberately throughout the day leads to another, until we begin to be who we are, the creation of God.

There’s a statement in Science and Health that I’ve loved. It says, “The divinity of the Christ was made manifest in the humanity of Jesus” (Science and Health, p. 25). Humanity is the quality of being humane, kind, benevolent. Jesus’ example of a Spirit-based life made his divinity apparent in human affairs. It was his divine nature that healed the sick, raised the dead, fed multitudes, stilled a storm. When he told his followers that they could do the same, he was talking about the divine nature he expressed, his spiritual basis. We call it the Christ.

A Spirit-based life starts with our understanding of God and our relationship to Him, and moves us away from being self-centered to being God-centered. This statement from Mrs. Eddy’s book The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany describes it well: “To live so as to keep human consciousness in constant relation with the divine, the spiritual, and the eternal, is to individualize infinite power; and this is Christian Science” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 160). To me this says that we are able to keep our thought in line with God, with the Divine, with the spiritual, the eternal. And in turn that gives us the Christly power that we need to have happy, productive, and healing lives.

Does a Spirit-based life actually make a difference?

Well, maybe I can answer with this question: Did Jesus’ brief three-year ministry matter to the world? After all, he said, “I can of mine own self do nothing” (John 5:30). But his reliance on God, on Spirit, changed the world, and he told his followers to go and do likewise. In view of the world’s need for a stable economy, and of the health, peace, and environmental issues humanity is facing, each of us can contribute to the solution instead of being captivated by the problem. And the starting point is to learn to live a Spirit-based life. That’s not a theory. It’s practical.

What would you say about Jesus’ statement, “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63).

The entire thrust of prayer is to make apparent that which is true to God, to Spirit.

How many ways does the King James Bible emphasize the supremacy of Spirit over the flesh? Just from beginning to end! So when we go about following Christ Jesus’ example to heal spiritually, we’re not trying to make matter better. Why would Spirit do that? The entire thrust of prayer is to make apparent that which is true to God, to Spirit. Jesus made the perfect, whole man apparent in a heartbeat—and he raised the dead. Later, his faithful follower Mary Baker Eddy left a record of spiritual healing that put an exclamation mark to her discovery of God’s law—the supremacy of Spirit.

So if you take seriously that Spirit is the power that “quickeneth,” everything you look at and even the way you respond to your body will be completely different?

Absolutely. It’s a whole different perspective. When you’re in the practice of having a Spirit-based life and you’re doing the best you can to follow Jesus’ directive to heal, you get requests from people who want to feel better. And it can seem like, “Here’s a man calling me saying, ‘I’m sick.’” But you know, that’s not what it really is. It’s sickness calling and saying, “I am a man.” And when you’re spiritually based in your thinking, you’re not fooled.

You can help that individual by knowing he’s already perfect. God made him that way. The flesh can’t do anything against him, and it can’t do anything for him. And so your job is to make the reality of that person apparent right where it appears to be sickness. It’s a perspective of the Christ, the divine nature that you’re trying to live. You’re not just using it as a theory. Trying to live it as a reality gives you a higher, livelier sense of what God has already done. The Bible tells us, “In Christ shall all be made alive” (I Cor. 15:22). That applies to every part of our lives: our careers, our supply, our health, our happiness. In Christ, the divine nature that we’re living, shall all be made alive.

Then what we’re striving for is to see the reality of Spirit and its “quickening” ever more clearly, and to see the flesh, or material conditions, as powerless before the allness of Spirit?

When we look at the flesh we see a body. We see a man, woman, or child. When we look at our lives, we see a lot of evidence of materially based experiences. But from the perspective of Spirit, we gain an entirely different view. We see life from the standpoint of the allness of Spirit—and then we’re bound to admit the nothingness of its opposite, matter.

Life is not a mixture of good and bad; it is based entirely on Spirit and Spirit’s great goodness.

That may not be clear, at first. But it becomes more apparent as we bring out the Spirit-based qualities that show us God truly is supreme. It’s not a mixture of Spirit and matter, of love and fear. Life is not a mixture of good and bad; it is based entirely on Spirit and Spirit’s great goodness, and that becomes more apparent as we realize it’s not a theory. It’s a practical, demonstrable law.

How can understanding Spirit better help people who are struggling with the state of the current economy?

When they understand that Spirit is an inexhaustible source available to everyone, the state of the economy becomes much less fearful. Here’s an example. My husband had passed on, and he was the major source of income in our family. Our children were just out of high school, and one was already in college. I wasn’t making enough money to come anywhere near meeting the expenses. We had some savings and insurance, but it wasn’t going to last. So I prayed for financial supply.

Praying for financial supply is an admission that you don’t have it.

Praying for financial supply is an admission that you don’t have it. It’s saying that I’m not the image and likeness of an all-inclusive God. That I’m limited. That prayer certainly wasn’t doing me any good. I was getting nowhere. I was almost consumed with grief and fear. My prayer would start out with “Our Father,” but inevitably I’d be left thinking and worrying about the problem.

I knew I had to pray differently, and here’s how my prayer changed: “Father, just show me how to stay with You in my prayer.” Psalms 46:1 came to mind. It says, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Well, I was in trouble, and I sure needed help. I decided to focus on God no matter what. Nothing but God. I simply affirmed that God was All. He was my refuge from fear and lack, from grief, bewilderment, and loneliness. God, not the problem, became the basis of every thought and prayer. I was focused on Spirit and its infinite, immediate, healing presence.

Whatever else I was doing throughout the day, I held my thought with God. I woke up one morning and was almost surprised to be free of grief. I wasn’t afraid anymore, either. My work began to grow. Then money started coming in from every direction. You see, since God is everywhere, our financial supply can come from everywhere, although its source is one. That source is Spirit. And I considered the ideas I was getting about Spirit to be the source of my income.

Those ideas were becoming tangible in the form I needed—literally in financial supply—and they continued to come. I spent a whole year just practicing being focused on God and His allness. By the end of that year our financial status had stabilized, our daughter was still in college, our sons were getting the help they needed from home. That was over 20 years ago, and there’s never been another time when I’ve been faced with such dire need for economic help.

Our security doesn’t actually depend on how much money we have. And we can see from the state of financial institutions in our country and the world over that our security can’t depend on institutions either. It depends on our recognition of God as a tangible, ever-present source in our lives, and that does not change. It is not subject to abuse or loss.

Here’s one more thought: We don’t use God to create wealth. He uses us to express His riches.

What would you say to people who are searching for ways to live less in matter?

Jesus showed humanity that nothing could defeat his spiritual progress.

I would tell them, with the conviction won of experience, that in proportion as we live a Spirit-based life to the best of our ability, we’re being less dependent on matter and more confident in God’s presence and His practical help. It’s a process of resurrection. Jesus showed humanity that nothing could defeat his spiritual progress, his authority in Christ. Not even the cross, not even the tomb. His resurrection put to silence the fears and limitation of materially based doubts. His resurrection is spiritualization of thought.

It’s the Christ that lifts us, and “in Christ shall all be made alive” (I Cor. 15:22). It’s the Christ that gives us the higher sense of God’s presence, and as we live that divine nature as consistently as we can, we’re being lifted above the limitations of matter and introduced to ourselves as the likeness of God, and the recipient of His great gifts to us.

Spiritual truth, recognized and lived, can replace every error or mistake we feel we’ve made.

Few things are as clean and inviting as a Cape Cod beach in early spring. Each walk begins on a pristine stretch of sand. Every footstep (and misstep) from the day before has been erased by the ebb and flow of another high tide.

As I leave my first tracks in a new direction, I find myself thinking of another spring on another shore many years ago. The mental picture is vivid. Swimming to land is a man burdened with guilt. His save-his-own-skin rashness had abandoned a best friend at a moment of greatest need. Waiting to greet him is that same friend—with a breakfast ready to share.

What turmoil Simon Peter must feel as he steps out of the water. He has denied he knew Jesus. He has forsaken the work he was called to do. But Peter’s anguish and self-condemnation gently give way to the irresistible joy of seeing the risen Christ.

As the other disciples join them on shore, Jesus offers a final lesson on the power of divine Love to lift us out of our mistakes and set us back on track.

It begins with a poignant question: “Do you love me?”

Jesus asks this of Peter not just once, but three times. Each is an opportunity for Peter to reaffirm—in front of everyone—a sincere devotion that cancels out the three angry denials of it before the crucifixion. In the process, Peter receives a broad commission to care for and shepherd others. Not only is the past resolved and left behind, but a new responsibility is bestowed upon him (see John 21:1–17).

He has been given a fresh stretch of beach.

Christianity owes much to those who knew what it was to make mistakes.

The subsequent Biblical record of Peter shows him fully committed to this life of love, a courageous example of leadership, teaching, and healing. Between his work and that of the Apostle Paul, another man with an imperfect past, the initial success of Christianity owes much to those who knew what it was to make mistakes—even spectacular ones.

Nobody’s perfect, right?

Most all of us have moments we regret. An e-mail that should never have been sent. A thoughtless comment. An impulse indulged. A measure of advice ignored. An unwise investment. A relationship that should never have started.

Sound familiar? Whether they occurred in our personal or professional lives, they fall into that catchall category of “errors in judgment.” We wince when we think of them. And if we’re not willing to follow Peter’s lead, they can entangle us in years of bitterness and grief.

Peter’s turnaround began when he was willing to look at himself from a spiritual perspective.

Peter wasn’t going to be able to pull himself up by his own bootstraps or disentangle himself from his own mistakes. Despite his best intentions, he was unreliable and ineffective on his own. His turnaround began when he was willing to look at himself from a new perspective, from a spiritual perspective. He needed to see what his Master saw in him.

Mary Baker Eddy wrote: “Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God’s own likeness …” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, pp. 476–477). A perfect man? But nobody’s perfect, right?

While the whole world may object, Christian Science takes the radical position that man—meaning both the male and female of God’s creating—is in fact entirely spiritual, and therefore complete, whole, faultless, and truly perfect. The Bible begins with the tremendous declaration that God’s children are made in the divine image and likeness (see Gen. 1:26, 27). Like produces like. So each individual in God’s likeness would have to be exactly like God in every quality. Since God is Spirit, the divine likeness is spiritual. Since God is unchanging wisdom and goodness, the divine likeness is wise without exception and unfailingly good. There’s neither ability nor opportunity for a lapse in judgment or an error in action or a fall from grace.

Jesus brought this spiritual point of view to every situation.

Jesus brought this spiritual point of view to every situation where he was confronted with the picture of a flawed, sick, or sinning mortal. He wasn’t deceived by the appearance of things. Mist may conceal a mountain. But where others saw only the insubstantial mist of mortality, Jesus saw through it, to the rock-solid mountain of spirituality.

At the heart of his teaching is the nature of God as pure, unchanging Love. He taught that infinite Love feels as gentle, wise, and unconditional as a Father-Mother naturally should. That eternal Love acts intelligently and irresistibly to correct human errors, bringing physical and moral healing. And that all-powerful Love neutralizes every negative thought—every doubt, fear, jealousy, or hatred that could harm another or oneself.

Like sunshine on mountain mist, the warmth of Love melts the mental mist of our mistaken views, and reveals the true identity of each of us.

It was Love that Peter was compelled to acknowledge on that seashore long ago. The resurrection of his Master and his own rehabilitated status among the disciples were indisputable proofs of its immeasurable, thought-changing power. And as he recognized his innate ability to love, he began to grasp his true, spiritual nature. The image and likeness of divine Love is able only to love.

Not regretting, but forgiving and forgetting

Perhaps the hardest thing to do is love yourself when the mistakes you’ve made seem irreversible. Each time you rehearse them, you effectively add to that cold, dank cloud concealing your innocent divine likeness. But nothing can resist the power of God’s love. As Paul reassured his fellow Christians, “… sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace” (Rom. 5:20, The Message).

Grace is the love of God finding us in spite of ourselves.

Grace is not something we earn by trying to be better or do better. It’s the love of God finding us in spite of ourselves. It feels like forgiveness, but it’s really restoration. It says, “Whatever you think you were or did isn’t who you truly are. Now, prove to yourself that you’ve always been the son or daughter God knows you to be.”

So while regrets can be mesmerizing and keep us on an endless loop of guilt, grace gently but completely redirects attention to the perfect selfhood that is eternally blessed. Spiritual truth, recognized and lived, can replace every error or mistake we feel we’ve made. “All things will continue to disappear, until perfection appears and reality is reached. … When we learn that error is not real, we shall be ready for progress, ‘forgetting those things which are behind’” (Science and Health, p. 353).

Persistent prayer redeems the past

Sometimes that progress can seem impossible to imagine. One ill-advised decision spirals into an ever-widening circle of negative consequences. You could probably contribute your own examples. I remember when my husband and I were young parents. We brought an exuberant puppy into a tiny home, with our not-quite-one-year-old daughter. Despite the warnings of family and friends that this was not the time or place to add such complexity to our lives, we wanted a big dog to be part of a picture-perfect family life.

We had neither the time nor resources to train a puppy properly or keep her well exercised, and she began directing her enormous amounts of energy to destructive ends. Wallpaper was ripped off the walls and the furniture chewed, while her outdoor digging kept turning our little backyard into the muddy equivalent of a lunar landscape.

For months we tried to live like this, hoping things would get better as she got older. At that point, we’d signed an agreement to buy another house but needed to sell the one we were in. Then the housing market collapsed. And our dog-damaged property wasn’t looking very appealing to any buyers still out there.

I felt terribly guilty because I knew I’d been the driving force in acquiring this dog. She was very sweet but completely beyond what we could manage. Yet how could I now give away a family member? Anguish compounded with anxiety as the deadline to close on the other house rapidly approached, and we had no way to meet our financial obligations.

Grace began to shift my thoughts.

It was then that grace began to shift my thoughts. A Christian Science practitioner helped me pray more effectively to hear what God was calmly and kindly imparting to us. I began to realize that God’s love was infinite, and within that infinitude was space for an affectionate young dog to be fully loved. I finally felt a sense of peace about finding her a new home.

An ad in our local paper generated some interest in adopting her, but the first several people who came by declined. It was tempting to rehash that original decision to get a dog and be pulled back into the cycle of self-condemnation, but with further prayer I began to fully trust the power of Love to redeem past mistakes and reveal present possibilities.

Then they came. A mother and her slim, shy 12-year-old son. Their family lived on a large property with plenty of room to roam, and they were looking for a dog he could play with when he got home from school. Our pup took to him immediately, and he to her. Twenty minutes later, she was in their car, tail wagging, and on her way.

Not long after, we had just the right buyer for our house within the timing we needed, despite the bad market and the grim expectations of real estate agents. And a few years later (this time with humble prayer beforehand), another dog came into our lives that proved to be an ideal family companion for many years.

Prayer helps us listen to the voice of divine Love reminding us of our spiritual likeness to Love.

We’ve moved several times since then, including during other economic downturns. In hindsight—sure, we all make choices we wouldn’t choose again. But I learned from that early experience not to rue decisions made, not to look back with regret or forward with fear. Instead, prayer helps us listen to the voice of divine Love reminding us of our spiritual likeness to Love and revealing our inherent ability to love ourselves and others. Right now. Right at this moment.

No matter what happened yesterday or the day before, all that really counts is our present, permanent perfection as the children of God. Every mistake we think we’ve made gives way to that eternal spiritual fact. There’s a fresh stretch of beach for each one of us. And we’ll find ourselves moving forward after all.

Robin Hoagland practices and teaches Christian Science healing in Hyannis, Massachusetts.

Christ Jesus’ spiritual consciousness, not an emotional atmosphere of sight and sound, is what healed. That’s what we as healers need too.

SUZANNE SMEDLEY: Alessandra, you’ve been in the Philippines for about a week. I understand that the Christian Science movement is really moving in the Philippines.

ALESSANDRA COLOMBINI: Christian Scientists are so active here. There were almost 300 people at the lecture I gave on spiritual healing last Saturday at a university in Baguio, in the northern region of the Philippines. Many had come a long distance from several mountain villages around the city. And it was raining! I loved their dedication, considering the distance they had traveled. About a third of the people at the lecture were youngsters and teenagers, and they were distributing Christian Science literature and ushering. People were so receptive to the message of the lecture. Newcomers voiced their appreciation during the question-and-answer period following the lecture, and the questions were really good. Many of the people came to talk to me in private afterward, and some even came to my hotel bringing friends who wanted to know more about Christian Science.

I was told there are 15 informal Christian Science groups in the northern region of the country, in addition to the church in Baguio City. There are so many young people in the Philippines, and the Christian Science Sunday Schools are full. The church members really encourage them to work in the branch churches. Many of the young people also support these Christian Science groups, traveling around and teaching informal Sunday School classes. The lecture I gave in Manila was also very well attended. There are two churches in this great metropolis, Manila and Pateros. They are all so unselfish and dedicated.

What language do you speak when you lecture there?

English. There are several different languages spoken in the Philippines, and the country is working toward unifying the language into Filipino, but for the time being English is the means of communication among the different regions.

You weren’t raised in Christian Science—tell us how you found it and made it your own?

I loved Christian Science because of its logic.

I learned about Christian Science in Brazil from my boyfriend, who later became my husband. He first heard about Christian Science from a friend of his. At the time, my boyfriend had a problem at work that seemed to affect his health and resulted in a serious physical difficulty. So he started to study Christian Science and was healed of the difficulty. And so I started studying Christian Science. I loved it because of its logic—the logic in the reasoning that I found in the textbook of Christian Science, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. That really hooked me. And also the spiritual lessons that I got from the Bible by reading Science and Health. I loved the Bible very much, and I was a student of the Bible by then, so when I found out that the lessons it contained could be used in a very practical way today … well, I fell in love with that.

Did you understand Science and Health when you first read the book?

I was used to intellectual study, and that’s the way I approached Science and Health at first. So, no, I didn’t understand the book right away, but I kept reading. What made the difference for me and finally helped me understand it was reading O Arauto da Ciência Cristã [The Herald of Christian Science—Portuguese edition]. One day I read an article in the magazine about family. I was going through a difficult period at the time because I had come to São Paulo for college, and my family was in another city. I felt very sad and lonely and out of place. But after reading this article, I understood that Christian Science was a metaphysical system of thinking. You see, I got from the article the difference between reasoning from material sense—with the intellect—and reasoning from spiritual sense. I saw that I could understand Science and Health only by reasoning from this spiritual standpoint.

How would you describe spiritual reasoning?

Spiritual reasoning starts with God.

Spiritual reasoning starts with God—who God is and what God knows about us—not with human evidence. We begin to reason spiritually by first getting a better understanding of God as Love, Spirit, Mind, Soul, Principle, Life, and Truth. These seven synonyms for God that Mrs. Eddy provided in Science and Health helped me a lot in this reasoning process. For instance, as we start to recognize God as omnipresent and omnipotent Love, we will be able to love others who might seem unlovable. Love, being God, is the power that enables us to love no matter what. We can love because we reflect Love, not because others do what we want them to do.

So how did this line of thinking heal your loneliness?

It gave me a more spiritual concept of home. I saw that my family was God’s family. God was my Father-Mother—always present, always with me. And that my real family was all of God’s children. Not only some of God’s children. But all children of God. I was living in a guest house with other girls, and so I could see that these other girls were my family, too. And I could get along with them, like sisters. I could feel at home because I was always in the presence of my Father-Mother, and I could have the help of my Father-Mother whenever I needed it. This made a big difference to me. It changed my whole life.

You mentioned that you had always loved the Bible. Did you grow up in a religious home?

Not particularly. When I learned about Christian Science, I was going to a Baptist church. I had been brought up in Rome as a Catholic and had gone to a Catholic elementary school. But in Brazil I went to public school. And when I was twelve, I began going with a neighbor friend to the Baptist church. My family eventually followed me there, and I attended that church until I began to study Christian Science.

What attracted you to the Baptist church?

It was the Bible. When I was only seven years old and still living in Italy, my uncle gave me a book called La Bibbia per i bambini [The Bible for Children]. I didn’t have the actual Bible—I had only this book. But I loved it. It was very complete. Reading this book, I found the story of Joseph, and learned how Joseph was victorious over so many difficulties and injustices. That made a great impression on me.

After the Second World War, the mental atmosphere in Italy was very bad. It was scary to a child, and I was very unhappy. Everyone was complaining and rebellious. Every family we knew had lost someone in the war. But when I read Joseph’s story, I got a glimpse that I did not have to comply with the atmosphere of disgrace that hung over the country because of the war. I could overcome feeling disgraced simply because I was poor, the same way Joseph overcame everything he faced. I could use the spiritual resources within me to do so. I could do well in school, be happy rather than sad, and do good things for people. I had a very keen sense of God and that He was helping me. From then on, I always thought about the Bible stories from this book, and I brought it with me to Brazil. I still have the book.

Christian Science made that connection between religion and my day-to-day life again.

When I found out that Baptists read the Bible and used it without an intermediary, and that I could have my own Bible, I loved the church. But by the time I got to college, I needed something more. I no longer felt that the stories and teachings in the Bible had that practical application I had sensed as a child. Religion and my day-to-day life were two separate worlds. Christian Science made that connection between the two for me again. That healing of loneliness while I was in college was my first healing in Christian Science, which brought that practical aspect of the Bible’s teachings back to life to me.

How would you describe the role of faith among people in Brazil today?

In general, Brazilians are very religious. They are spiritual searchers. Despite the materialistic pull of modern life, they feel the need for recourse to a higher power in order to overcome the great challenges we face in our changing country. Therefore the evangelical churches, which continue to grow and have a large presence in Brazil, are full nowadays. Their services are very emotionally oriented. Whereas, in Christian Science churches the atmosphere at the services is much quieter.

Why do you think someone would feel attracted to Christian Science services, which, as you say, are quieter in comparison with church services of many other denominations? Frankly, our church services have little of the emotional appeal that people often equate with spirituality.

Just think how lively our services are when every church member prays for his or her respective congregation in the spirit of our Master.

Genuine spirituality is always good and leads to peace, while emotions are not always good and many times are downright negative. So we should not be worried about comparing our services to an emotional kind of worship. In our branch church in São Paulo, I’ve often heard newcomers praise the quiet and peace they’ve felt at our services. This does not mean that our services are flat and boring. Quite the contrary! If we bring to our services the spiritual inspiration we feel, they’ll be very lively. I like to think of the Lesson-Sermons read at each service as weekly spiritual “treatments,” with specific ideas for healing every ill we face individually, as well as in the community and in the world. Just think how lively our services are when every church member—not only the Readers—prays for his or her respective congregation in the spirit of our Master, as Mary Baker Eddy stated we should in the Manual of The Mother Church [see p. 42]. How forceful this collective prayer is to make the service interesting and healing! It has the potential to inspire everyone to follow Christ, and to join in joyful fellowship with our fellow church members and extend the Christly love we feel to visitors and newcomers.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with worshiping God through artistic expression, whether it’s singing or dancing. This expression of divine Soul is normal and right, but as the expression of God, whatever form of worship we choose should appeal to spiritual sense. If it elicits only an emotional response or sensation, it has nothing to do with genuine spirituality. And it wouldn’t be truthful to use emotion or sensation as a means to attract people to church. A person may come to our church looking for a connection to God and for spirituality, and he or she is not going to find that through material sensation. Christian Science does not appeal to the material senses—it appeals to spiritual sense. And when there is genuine spirituality in our services, that’s what will attract thinkers.

What do you mean by “thinkers?” And what does their thinking involve?

Jesus didn’t try to attract people by spectacular rites and practices. He healed first.

We have the example of Jesus. He didn’t try to attract people by spectacular rites and practices. He healed first, and then taught. He attracted people who needed healing, and then those who were willing to learn how and why he healed remained with him. He did not heal by shouting or by providing an emotional atmosphere of sight and sound. His spiritual consciousness was the healing power at work. This applies to each of us as healers.

A thinker is a person who is willing to learn and is willing to reach that spiritual consciousness that heals. I’ve noticed that in general people are willing to think and learn when they are really in a bad situation. They start asking questions, and they’re willing to go deeper, because they find out that the mere sensation of connecting with God is not enough for them anymore. It doesn’t lead to spiritual satisfaction. And as I said, when those of us attending Christian Science services have that Christly consciousness that Jesus demonstrated, there will be nothing lacking in that service.

Yet we hear that mainstream churches in many countries are facing similar difficulties. Low membership, church closings, and so on. Do you think Christian Scientists need to do anything different to stay vibrant and relevant—to change with the times?

We just need to practice Christian Science more consistently. The real—or shall I say, unreal [laughter]—roadblock to progress in our Church is not that we have three rather than four hymns in our church services, or that we don’t have a choir. Or to worry whether or not the Order of Services in the Church Manual is outdated. It’s that, in many cases, we are not practicing Christian Science.

Can you explain?

This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot. There’s a passage on page 248 in Science and Health that illustrates what I mean: “What is the model before mortal mind? Is it imperfection, joy, sorrow, sin, suffering? Have you accepted the mortal model? Are you reproducing it? Then you are haunted in your work by vicious sculptors and hideous forms. Do you not hear from all mankind of the imperfect model? The world is holding it before your gaze continually. The result is that you are liable to follow those lower patterns, limit your lifework, and adopt into your experience the angular outline and deformity of matter models.” This is what we’re doing in many cases. We have accepted the mortal model and whatever is included in this model (and we can make a long list of things—sickness, fear, limitation, and so on), and we are reproducing it. We hear about this imperfect model today much more than in Mrs. Eddy’s time. Why? Because we have mass communication via the Internet, television, and mass media. I have found in my Christian Science practice that we are not always vigilant enough about turning away from these false models and instead keeping the spiritual model in thought.

What is a specific example of a “false model” that you’ve noticed in the media?

It is an important step forward to see that thought influences health, but Christian Scientists have to go a lot deeper.

I got an e-mail recently linking me to an interview on a physician’s Internet site about the influence of thought on our health. The physician said in the interview that we must be careful about hate, about negative feelings, because they have a negative influence on our health. In this interview, the physician linked diabetes and other physical aliments with thought and described the influence of thoughts on other physical ailments. So, yes, this idea that the human mind influences health is common now. But this reasoning is based on the notion that mortal mind has power and that we have to work through mortal mind to eliminate or lessen fear or stress—or whatever it is in mortal thought that seems to be affecting our health. What starts as sounding very much like Christian Science ends up being totally contrary to it. Christian Scientists pray from the standpoint that God is the only Mind. God has the power, and we overcome sickness not through mortal mind, or merely changing mortal thoughts to better thoughts, but by giving up mortal thoughts and holding spiritual thoughts. It is an important step forward to see that thought influences health, but Christian Scientists have to go a lot deeper and reason from a purely metaphysical basis.

You’re saying that the model we need to begin with is God and His goodness and allness, and then reason from that standpoint in order to be successful healers.

You’re right. There’s a statement in Science and Health that I try to keep in mind always: “It is our ignorance of God, the divine Principle, which produces apparent discord, and the right understanding of Him restores harmony” (Science and Health, p. 390).

Whenever we accept a reason for any evil, we accept its reality.

Among the many false models the world holds before our gaze continually are extensive analyses of the “reasons” for each problem humanity is facing today—a reason for each sickness, each disaster, each economic crisis. These reasons are so well put and seemingly justified that we tend to accept them as truth. Whenever we accept a reason for any evil, we accept its reality, and then we are no longer able to pray about it by applying Christian Science, because our prayer must first of all begin by recognizing the unreality of evil. Mrs. Eddy wrote that it is our ignorance of God that produces discord, and when we correct this ignorance, this does away with all the “reasons” the world presents for humanity’s problems.

There is the well-intentioned assumption that by knowing the reason for a problem we can then solve it or prevent it. This seems to be correct human reasoning, but from the spiritual standpoint it leaves us stuck in human limitations, and we can easily see the poor results of humanity’s best efforts. We certainly appreciate all the good being done by the many organizations and people dealing directly with sickness, humanitarian relief, and world diplomacy. But as Christian Scientists, we have to go even further. We have to eliminate that ignorance of God in ourselves, strive to get that “right understanding of Him” that “restores harmony.” And then we need to help as many of our brothers and sisters as possible to overcome this ignorance. And for me, that seems to be the true purpose of each activity in our churches.

As always, we can look to the Master Christian, Jesus, for our guidance. When people came to him for healing, he didn’t try to analyze the reason for someone’s blindness or leprosy or paralysis (see John 9, Mark 1:40–42, John 5:2–9). Nor did he get into debates and look for reasons for the accident at Siloam’s tower or Herod’s killing of some Galileans (see Luke 13:1–5). He refused to see anyone as a sinner; therefore, he attributed no cause to these evils. Wasn’t this his way of seeing the unreality of these evils? And as usual, when he did need guidance, help, support, or strength, he simply went to his heavenly Father. And we can do the same.

Suzanne Smedley is a Journal senior staff editor.

Following the light of the Christ, we day by day find our way out of the tomb of materiality into our eternal Life.

Every year on Easter Sunday, millions of Christians celebrate Jesus’ resurrection of his body from the dead some 2,000 years ago. This time-honored event deserves recognition and celebration. Yet it’s also vital to realize that a resurrection of thought is a present possibility for each of us to experience in some degree every day of our lives.

Mary Baker Eddy explained that from a spiritual perspective resurrection can be understood as “Spiritualization of thought; a new and higher idea of immortality, or spiritual existence; material belief yielding to spiritual understanding” (Science and Health, p. 593).

The first time I glimpsed what resurrection means outside of the usual religious context was while I stood in front of a file cabinet gazing up at the big clock between my desk and my boss’s office in City Hall where I worked. I was checking to see if I had time to work on pressing projects before some meetings started. Suddenly I realized that this was the wrong question. My spiritual intuition told me that the more fundamental question was How is God expressing His divine qualities this very moment?

I saw that my identity was not primarily that of an office worker, but as the child of God.

The answer came to me, again, through spiritual intuition: God is the great I am expressing individuality in His creation. What this meant to me was that the great I am, which helped Moses do his monumental work, was also guiding me through my work load of a much smaller scale. I felt the humility this implied, the grace and gentleness of God working with me. In that moment of spiritual realization, I lost my sense of time and space. I saw that my identity was not primarily that of an office worker, but as the child of God. I felt a wonderful sense of freedom, as if I had come out of a tomb of pressure and self-doubt. I don’t recall what work got done that day, but the significance of God at one with me, guiding me through my day, has stayed with me.

Mary Baker Eddy wrote that “real Life is God …” (Science and Health, p. 51). Life, then, is not trying to meet deadlines. It’s not juggling competing obligations and relationships. Life is God, who is our true being, our source, and our substance. Every time we have a glimpse of this spiritual reality, the mental boulders restricting us—like stones sealing us in a tomb—are removed to some degree. And we move forward, living more freely our oneness with divine Spirit, divine Life.

It can be frustrating, of course, when material beliefs don’t quickly yield, or when they seem so entrenched that they mock whatever spiritual progress we have already made. Mental dullness, moral weakness, lack of inspiration, and the burden of unhealed problems can feel very dark and heavy, like being stuck in a tomb. In addressing this issue, Mary Baker Eddy asked, “What is it that seems a stone between us and the resurrection morning?

“It is the belief of mind in matter. We can only come into the spiritual resurrection by quitting the old consciousness of Soul in sense” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 179).

To experience resurrection—to quit ‘the old consciousness’— we need to follow the example of Jesus.

To experience resurrection—to quit “the old consciousness”—we need to follow the example of Jesus, who overcame all mortal obstacles by always expressing his Christly nature. We may be bombarded every day with material evidence contrary to the perfect, spiritual, and eternal nature that Jesus so unequivocally demonstrated in his healing works and resurrection. Yet we can turn away from staring into any dark hole of materiality and lift our thought toward the spiritual sense of existence that Jesus showed us is the only real existence. Striving to live our lives in accord with this spiritual sense of life, we’ll find ourselves renewed, resurrected, gravitating more and more toward the spiritual evidence of eternal Life.

I have always loved that after his resurrection—when Jesus talked with two of his disciples on the road to Emmaus (see Luke 24:13–32), when he appeared to the disciples, who had assembled in a locked room for fear of the Jewish leaders (see John 20:19–21), and on the shores of Galilee (see John 21:1–14)—he didn’t complain about the crucifixion. He didn’t talk about how scary it had been to be in the tomb, or how cruel the soldiers were. He didn’t berate Peter’s cowardice for denying he knew Jesus (see Matt. 26:69–75), or condemn the others for being absent at the cross. He didn’t dive into grief about Judas’ betrayal and suicide (see Matt 27:3–5). Jesus expressed such authority and strength after the resurrection, he seemed unencumbered by any memory of suffering.

Following Jesus’ example, we don’t need to ruminate over bad things that have happened to us. We don’t even have to speculate on other adversities that might happen in the future. Instead, the Christ—described in Science and Health as “the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness” (Science and Health, p. 332)—is telling us that this is the moment to live in the freedom of God’s all-encompassing love. This is the moment to honor the good of life as the precious evidence of God’s presence and power. This is the moment to walk away from the misery of mortality and live in the joy of our relationship with our Father-Mother, God.

What this divine heritage means is that we can stop living in fear. There is no obligation to feel harried, to live pressured lives. Similarly, there is no blanket of boredom cast over empty days. Each and every day the Christ is present in our thought to silence speculation about the worst possibilities—to resurrect thought through fresh ideas and solutions.

The Christ-power that Jesus demonstrated in his unparalleled life is here right now.

The Christ-power that Jesus demonstrated in his unparalleled life is here right now, helping us to wake up from the dream of life in matter. We can stop agreeing to strictures on our lives and the inevitability of decline, deterioration, and death. When home, work, or church demands compete with each other, we can turn our thoughts to divine Principle’s perfect ordering of the universe, expecting our schedules to conform to that perfect order. When our hearts ache with disappointment, we can acknowledge that divine Love is present, embracing us with tender care and comfort. When bodily ailments seem all-consuming, we can turn a listening ear to the Christ, to the divine messages that cancel suffering.

Every time we turn from the weariness of mortality to gratitude for our life in God, we experience resurrection—“material belief yielding to spiritual understanding.” The Christ is here and now working as divine law in our lives, compelling our freedom from all aspects of mortal bondage. As we follow the light of the Christ, even in the most mundane experiences of our life, we day by day find our way out of the tomb of materiality into our eternal Life. And that makes every day an Easter day—a day of great rejoicing!

Contributing Editor Lois Rae Carlson practices and teaches Christian Science from her home base in Chicago, Illinois.

Church embraces people of every language, culture, and background.

Maybe you know the old joke: A pedestrian in New York City asks a passerby how to get to the well-known Carnegie Hall. The person replies, not with directions to a street address, but with the answer “Practice, practice, practice.”

That’s actually good advice for finding Church, too. We find real Church not on a street or avenue, but in our hearts as we practice love for God and our neighbor. Real Church lives in every human heart, just waiting to be discovered.

We can think of Church as representing universal reality because the spiritual definition of Church (see Science and Health, p. 583) doesn’t rely on denominations, dogmas, or rituals. As the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah wrote of such a universal understanding: “This shall be the covenant that I [God] will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them” (Jer. 31:33).The promise that everyone shall “know the Lord” is based on the fact that in their real being, as children of God, everyone does know the Lord—meaning divine Spirit.

The Apostle Paul felt that the good news of Jesus and his Church was for everyone.

In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul felt that the good news of Jesus and his Church was for everyone. Showing the inclusiveness of this Church, Paul declared to the Christian community in Rome, “I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise” (Rom. 1:14). In their totality, Paul’s writings indicate that he thought that he was a debtor to both the Greeks and to the non-Greeks, to the learned and to the ignorant, not because he had received something from them, but because he felt a universal obligation to share the gospel message of God’s love for everyone. At about that time, certain Jewish Christians tried to force other Christians to follow Jewish law related to circumcision (see Acts 15:1–31). But Paul fought this imposition successfully, helping all to see that Christianity is not about an external rite but is an internal progression to loving all that is pure and true—a progression that’s natural for everyone.

In the same way that certain individuals tried to narrow Christianity in Paul’s time, in our day wouldn’t error—that which would oppose harmony—try to narrow Christian Science to being just another denomination or only for a certain language group or culture or even only for a certain time, instead of allowing that it is the universal law of goodness, written in everyone’s “inward parts”? In contrast, the book of Acts (see Acts 2) recounts that on the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended and those present from many lands heard the disciples speak, all in their own language. What an illustration, not only of how public true Church is, but of how Church embraces those of every language group, culture, and background!

But how do we see others from varied backgrounds, including different religions? If we are Christians, do we see all of God’s children as having an innate understanding of Church, without imposing our own religious views? We can’t achieve this view by papering over theological differences, nor by watering down Christian Science to some lowest common denominator. Rather, we have to dig deep into the theology of Christian Science itself. As Mary Baker Eddy wrote, “It should be thoroughly understood that all men have one Mind, one God and Father, one Life, Truth, and Love. Mankind will become perfect in proportion as this fact becomes apparent, war will cease and the true brotherhood of man will be established” (Science and Health, p. 467).

For me, having one Mind means my supporting others in their highest sense of how to express their spirituality.

For me, having one Mind means my supporting others in their highest sense of how to express their spirituality, and furthermore, my being willing to be inspired by that expression. It also means knowing that the Science of Mind is leavening other theologies and other approaches to science and medicine, just as we see in the account of the Day of Pentecost that the Divine communicated to everyone in a language that individually touched and transformed them.

Speaking of transformation, wouldn’t history have been different—and can’t the present be different—if we were to let go of the impulse to pull people into Christianity, and specifically into our brand of it? If, instead of this desire to make everyone conform to our own beliefs, we could see people as being embraced by universal Church and let our actions, including those related to the institution of church, flow from this perception. This approach would lift us from trying to correct and convert others to correcting ourselves and healing others—which, of course, is really the most effective form of preaching.

After Jesus’ crucifixion, his disciples became afraid and huddled behind locked doors (see John 20:19). Do we today hide our concept of Church behind locked doors, both materially and mentally? Or do we have a post-resurrection concept of Church, elevated by the universal Christ?

Christ dissolves the belief of haves and have-nots—those who have an understanding of spirituality and those who do not.

Actually any wall that error would erect between the Church of Christ, Scientist, and others would be artificial. To use Bible language, it is the Christ that “hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us” (Eph. 2:14). Christ, as the universal idea of Truth, dissolves the belief of haves and have-nots—those who have an understanding of spirituality and those who do not—with the spiritual fact that everyone has one all-knowing Mind. When Jesus told his disciple Peter that he, Jesus, was founding his church, he also asserted that the gates of hell could not prevail against it (see Matt. 16:18). Perhaps we can understand those gates as self-imposed limits or fear, denominationalism, stereotyped views of others or even self-righteousness.

Over the years, I’ve had many experiences of the universal nature of Church. One time I invited a Muslim friend and his Muslim son and daughter-in-law to a Wednesday testimony meeting at The Mother Church. Almost a full year later, he was still talking about the meeting, conveying to me that he would never forget how he had felt the presence of God there.

On another occasion, when I was Committee on Publication in Canada (Committee on Publication is a church position that involves clarifying Christian Science to the public), the senior physician of Ontario’s largest government ministry called me. Apparently someone who was practicing Christian Science was requesting a payment from the Ministry. The normal procedure would have been for the person to submit to a medical diagnosis, which would be the basis for the decision as to whether or not the person would receive the funds. But the doctor was calling me to confirm that such a diagnosis would be an imposition on that person’s religious practice. This doctor was expressing universal love and goodwill by respecting the practice of Christian Science. That same doctor later read all of Science and Health, which I had given him. Still later, at a professional conference he said publicly how a particular passage had helped him in his practice.

In all time, will there ever be a more universal, a more public, concept of Church than that presented by the theology of Christian Science? Surely, through God’s grace, we can be awake to this theology. Surely, too, through God’s grace, our human expression of Church can flow from this theology into the world, bringing healing to all humanity.

A Christian Science practitioner and teacher, Lyle Young is also a member of the Christian Science Board of Lectureship giving lectures worldwide. He lives in Ottawa, Canada.

The Christly view of creation that Jesus preached heals today.

If you look at a perfectly normal hand through the lens of a cracked magnifying lens, it’s obvious that the hand would appear to be misshapen. Remove the cracked lens, and you see your hand as it really is. Similarly, if you view the entire creation through the lens of the limited five material senses, it will appear distorted—a mix of good and bad, matter and spirit. Yet this false view, which seems impressively real, contradicts the Biblical account of creation in the first chapter of Genesis, which states unequivocally that God saw everything he had made, and it was very good (see Gen. 1:31). But does His good creation include a mix of good and evil? How many creations are there?

Christ Jesus gave us a compelling answer to these questions through his healing work. Certainly he faced the discords, limitations, and sorrows of the world, yet he showed us that through the lens of spiritual sense we see, or behold, God’s goodness and His wholly spiritual creation. He said, “For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see” (John 9:39).

Jesus understood that the material senses are always false witnesses.

Jesus understood that the material senses are always false witnesses. He saw that what appeared to be solid matter to these senses was as illusive as the misshapen hand seen through the cracked lens. Instead of withered hands, blind eyes, and incurable conditions, Jesus saw health and normalcy. In situations where there appeared to be lack—lack of peace, or even food—he saw abundance. For example, on two occasions Jesus fed multitudes of his followers with just a few loaves and fishes (see Matt. 14:15–21 and Matt. 15:32–38). Instead of enduring a raging storm, or natural disaster, he pacified it and restored calm (see Mark 4:37–39). And when raising Lazarus from the tomb (see John 11:1–44), or restoring life to a young man on his way to burial (see Luke 7:11–16), Jesus proved life and divine mercy to be triumphant over sin and death.

How did these so-called miracles occur? Mary Baker Eddy explained that Jesus saw what the mortal eye or senses could not perceive. She wrote in Science and Health, “Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God’s own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy” (Science and Health, pp. 476–477). This Christly view of creation that Jesus preached to all who were willing to listen, sparkles today with such effulgence in individual consciousness that it heals sickness and inharmony, like bright sunshine dissipates dark clouds. In fact, the Christ is a divine influence in every heart, now and forever, lifting off the veil of the material senses and revealing the present harmony of all creation.

For example, one night our family had gathered around the fireplace, and as my son was about to give our dog an affectionate pat, he was startled to find a tennis-ball-size growth under the dog’s chin. Right away, we each went to our rooms to pray quietly for this dear pet.

Everything associated with true growth is really good.

In my prayer, I affirmed that God, Principle, is the source of all order in the universe; therefore there could be no unprincipled or disorderly growth anywhere in God’s creation. I thought about the word growth as something that increases or multiplies. I reasoned that in mathematics it’s the principle or law—not the material numbers or symbols—that does the multiplying, and so too, the one divine Principle of the universe is the Mind that multiplies its own ideas. Therefore, true multiplication resides in divine Principle, not in cells. All that can be represented in God’s creation is expressive of Principle’s health-giving increase. As I prayed, I opened to Science and Health and read, “Spirit blesses the multiplication of its own pure and perfect ideas” (Science and Health, p. 512). I saw then that everything associated with true growth is really good and that good has no opposite.

In the morning, the growth under the dog’s chin was still noticeable, but I could see a change taking place. The next day, an opening appeared, and the growth began to drain until it was about half gone. However, over the next few days, it began to grow again. Everyone in the family opened their thought to what else needed to be seen in our prayers for a complete healing. One day my son commented, “We could always have the growth removed through surgery.” But we had all chosen to pray about the situation, and we decided to continue to pray. My son’s comment, however, brought to my attention a point I needed to consider further.

I asked myself these questions: Is there more than one creation? Am I thinking that there is a material creation that needs fixing up? Was I being deceived into believing that the dog’s misshapen chin needed to be corrected surgically in order to be normal? Didn’t I instead need to look at our dog through a spiritual lens?

While pondering these questions, I recalled that once I had a troublesome growth on my hand. One night it was very painful. As I was praying, the thought came to me that this was just too ugly and painful to be true about me, God’s perfect creation. My growing understanding that there is just one spiritual creation enabled me to make the separation in my thought between the truth and the lie. I distinctly declared that I wasn’t going to believe in the reality of the material growth for one more minute! The next morning, the growth fell off, and the new skin underneath was completely normal. It was as if nothing had ever been there. That had been clear proof to me of what Jesus said of the devilish testimony of material sense: “When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44). Because the lie and the physical condition are one and the same, when the lie is challenged and seen for what it is, the physical condition changes and health is restored.

My prayer was not intended to change reality but to bring everyone into conscious harmony with reality.

So I saw then that my prayer for the dog was not intended to change reality, but rather to bring everyone, including the dog, into conscious harmony with reality. And I could see that my prayer must be single in acknowledging God’s perfect design. So in my prayers, I began to focus on humbly affirming the spiritual oneness of every creature with the Creator. The affirmation of one spiritual creation left no room for a belief in a parallel, material life, or a life combining spirit and matter. There is one law of God, ordering every aspect of creation, leaving no room for abnormal growth; one divine, pure substance, leaving no room for discordant matter. There is one power, a force for health, leaving disease powerless. I came to the absolute conviction and conclusion that there is none other than the one God and His perfect creation.

Off I went for a walk with the dog, rejoicing and accepting these ideas with my whole heart. In the 15 minutes it took for us to walk to the park and back, the large growth had completely disappeared before my eyes. Just like the case with the misshapen hand, this defect left no trace. That which had appeared as solid substance was just a misconception, an illusion about creation. When we see through the illusion of the physical senses and our belief about the body changes, the body conforms, because our body expresses our thought about it. A change in thought inevitably changes the bodily condition. And that’s exactly what happened. The dog responded to our prayers, to our perception of him as perfect, and he was completely healed.

What a joy to see the world through the lens of Spirit, which magnifies with clarity the presence of God’s perfect creation. It’s a glorious view that heals.

Janet Clements is a Christian Science practitioner and teacher in Chicago, Illinois.

The Christ is always a reliable message or answer, very precise and adequate to a particular situation.

Throughout his life, Christian Science practitioner and teacher Michael Seek has taken an active interest in world affairs—from politics to economics to sports. At an age when other kids were reading fairy tales, he was reading articles in The Christian Science Monitor, which his mother had translated into German for him. As a teenager, he subscribed to various newspapers, became editor of his high school magazine, and cofounded a youth magazine for young Christian Scientists (which continued for over 20 years). Later, he studied media both in the US and Germany, and is presently the managing editor of Der Herold der Christlichen Wissenschaft.

Michael began our conversation by telling me about a special spiritual concept that has meant a lot to him from an early age.

MICHAEL SEEK: From childhood on, I was interested in the Christ. My Sunday School teachers, and my parents, who were both Christian Science practitioners, gave me a number of explanations. Today, after many years, I see that these answers make perfect sense. However, at that time I understood only little pieces, which left me unhappy because I felt they sounded only like nice theories.

The Christ will tell you what to say.

Then, one day while in high school, I went from my home in West Berlin to East Berlin. During the time of the wall between East and West, you had to pass through a checkpoint. Together with an experienced Christian Science practitioner, I was to visit church friends in the East. He was in front of me in the line, and I realized that the East German guards were asking him questions in an unfriendly, aggressive manner. (Of course, we had to hide the fact that we were going to see a group of Christian Scientists in the East.) The practitioner whispered to me: “The Christ will tell you what to say.” I do not know why, but this was an eye-opener for me. All my doubts, all my questions about how the Christ communicates were gone. I just felt happy and secure. And I had this thought: Although it is definitely a tense situation here in this checkpoint booth, I feel so calm, almost relaxed, as if sitting in a comfortable chair. And I had this thought: Now I am curious what the Christ will tell me. Good, it is not up to me what to say.

Since the guards had found a Der Herold der Christlichen Wissenschaft in the pocket of my friend, they immediately asked him questions about the reason for his visit. And somehow I felt (I did not hear him perfectly) that he was giving good answers without lying or cheating.

Then I was called in. I was ready for anything—but I had no outline about what I would say. Here was the first question of the guard: “Michael, you are wearing a very nice T-shirt. Did you buy it in West Berlin?” Yes, I said I had. A few more questions along that line followed. No other questions, just very superficial small talk, and then I could leave the booth. They did not even see the German Christian Science Quarterly I had in my pocket to give to our East German friends.

When we met again after leaving the checkpoint, I said to my practitioner friend: “Hey, the Christ is really funny. Such an unexpected move—no hard questions, nothing that could have brought us into trouble.” And my friend replied: “I guess you got what the Christ is: a strong message for our daily activities, sometimes far from human outlining. And quite often full of surprises.”

And, you know what? This was the moment from which I really loved the Christ. It is always a reliable message, very precise and adequate to a particular situation—and, yes, full of surprises. I love to surprise my friends, my colleagues, my family with little gifts, because I enjoy surprises. So the Christ is pretty close to my way of thinking and doing.

JEFFREY HILDNER: Let’s unpack that word Christ. Just in layman’s terms, what does it mean?

How does God relate to a day-to-day decision I have to make?

Well, you know, I have many friends who belong to different denominations and who take their faith seriously. We have a mutual respect for each others’ understanding. Now, to be clear, none of them thinks about God in terms of a wise old man sitting on a cloud. They do have meaningful, valid perceptions of God. And they enjoy what I can say about Mary Baker Eddy’s definition of God as Soul, Life, Spirit, Truth, Love, Principle, Mind. I really see a mutual admiration about how beautifully God can be explained and understood. But quite often the question jumps in: How does God relate to a day-to-day decision I have to make? What has God, who is Spirit, to do with the money I earn and that ends in my wallet?

Mrs. Eddy made it clear that there is a communication going from that divine Source to human understanding. She says: “Christ is the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness” [Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 332]. For me, the crucial words here are “voicing” and “to the human consciousness.” A voice, by definition, is something you hear. If the voice were silent, it would be no voice at all. So I would not hear anything. And “to the human consciousness” means very personally directly to me. To me in my present situation, no matter if I am happy, afraid, active, tired, energetic, shy. No matter if I am religiously oriented or if I have based my life pretty much on matter. The voice is always loud and strong and clear enough that I am going to hear it. If I need tender words of encouragement in a desperate situation, it will meet me in an appropriate way. And if I need what the Bible calls a chastisement, then that will happen. And this “voice” comes to me in words I understand. Ultimately there will be no way to say: Oh, sorry, I did not understand God’s word. If I only speak German, this divine message will not come to me in French, and no English speaker must be afraid to miss the message, because it might come to them in Spanish. That won’t happen. I can’t tell you what a gift it is to humanity that this divine message will be understood by every human consciousness.

When reading the newspapers, I do have the thought, whenever a story deals with dictators or criminals or simply people who failed in doing their job, that it is so good to know, even if some individuals close to these people might not dare speak up, the Christ does it—directly, convincingly, and for as long as it is needed.

We have people who may be reading the Journal for the first time—perhaps this is their first encounter with Christian Science. Could you take a moment to explain how Jesus gets folded into the mix—how Mary Baker Eddy differentiated between Jesus and the Christ and why Christian Scientists typically refer to him as Christ Jesus?

When people know me in person, maybe for years, they might believe what I say about the Christ. But my reputation is limited to a manageable number of people, relatives, friends, patients, students, colleagues. This is nice, but definitely not enough. And, of course, that is true for most people. To prove that this universal divine message really translates into day-to-day activities and decisions, there must be an absolutely certain example that millions of people can relate to. A person, well-known, widely respected, and with a record of examples that make his life a model for everyone. This person is Jesus.

The Christ tells us the facts about man despite the opinions of many people.

One thing we can all learn from his life and ministry is that there’s a difference between fact and opinion. For example, as a factual point, I understand the true, God-given, pure, and eternal identity of man. However, opinion creeps in when I or anyone thinks of an individual as weak, sick, old, angry. The Christ, one can say, tells us the facts about man despite the opinions of many people. For instance, in the book of St. Matthew in the Bible, we find a report about a man with a withered hand. Imagine how many opinions might have been around him: The hand is incurable, this is too late to be healed, probably other healing methods already have failed and, as an extra point to make it even more confusing for the people present, it was the Sabbath, when no work could be performed.

Did Jesus address all these opinions one by one? No. Did he fear to offend the opinions of the others? No. Did he put his opinion over theirs? No. He disregarded all opinions and just restored the spiritual, eternal fact of the man’s identity and perfection by saying: “Stretch forth thine hand.” And the result? “It was restored whole” [see Matt. 12:13]. Even in a literal sense, Jesus showed all those present the fact—a healthy hand. And simultaneously, he showed that all the opinions were useless.

Jesus exemplified the Christ, often in contradiction to commonly held opinions—instead presenting the divine facts of each situation. And still today, his example is convincing. The understanding of this unity of the individual man Jesus with his divine nature, the Christ, is available to billions of people through the Bible. Mrs. Eddy made it clear that we owe endless gratitude to Jesus’ demonstrations, and she encouraged each of us to put the Christ into action in our own lives. And we do this whenever we leave behind opinions about everything—whether politicians, the economy, various groups, or even the body—and replace them with correct, spiritual facts.

Well, Michael, let’s backtrack a bit now—let’s go back to your story and pick up where you left off. So you had this profound spiritual insight or epiphany about the Christ some time ago ….

I realized just how important it is to build our decisions on the Christ.

Yes, well, I realized during that incident at the guard crossing between West and East Berlin just how important it is to build our decisions—and our perceptions—on the Christ, what Mary Baker Eddy called “… the divine idea of God outside the flesh” [Science and Health, p. 482]. First, this can save you a lot of time. For example, that day with the guards, all these questions about “what if this or that happens” or “what should I do in case of …” were gone. And yet I felt secure; I knew that there would be a good answer, a helpful solution. And I count on that confidence, I rely on that insight, still today.

At the beginning of my public healing practice, I was invited to speak to a youth group of Christian Science Sunday School pupils. The subject of the evening was about the Christian Science practice. It was planned to have these meetings on two consecutive Thursdays. On the first Thursday, they asked me: “What would you do if a patient called with the message, saying he or she has had a heart attack. What would you say?”

My honest answer was: “I do not know today. I have never thought about such a question before. But if it happens, I will rely on the Christ.” From the faces of these young people, I could almost read their thoughts. They were disappointed. Probably they felt that I was delaying a helpful answer. One said: “This sounds pretty weak.”

And I said, “This is pretty strong.”

Now, this was Thursday night. On Saturday morning my telephone rang. A woman was asking me to pray, because her husband had suffered a heart attack. She asked if I could help. “Of course,” I said. And I shared with her some ideas, but while speaking to her, I also listened to the voice coming to my own thought. What I heard was so comforting—it stressed God’s demand that we shall live, and it definitely had a strong healing message.

She called back twice that day, and in the evening her husband was up, feeling well, and the next day everything was perfect.

So, the next Thursday at the youth group, I was able to refer to their question from the week earlier, and they all rejoiced in the wonderful example of how the Christ truly does provide all we need.

The Christ communicates much more to us than what we perceive with the physical senses.

You know, this fact is so important today. With all the financial challenges around the world, with terrorism, oppression, violence, and the ongoing devaluation of women in so many countries, it is easy to feel lost, helpless, frustrated. And, yet, the Christ includes much more, and most important, it communicates much more to us than what we perceive with the physical senses.

What can people do to better perceive the Christ?

Even this answer will be conformed to every individual by the Christ. But I guess there are a few helpful basics that make it easier:

• Be humble. If we follow the Lord’s Prayer, we accept the premise: “Thy will be done.” And we simply cannot add, “But please, make Thy will be done only according to my expectations.”
• Be silent. I once attended a meeting of about seven people, and an important decision had to be made. All of the participants had major opinions, both pro and con. Very interesting, very confusing, very time-consuming. So many options, so many unclear consequences. Suddenly one person said, “Can’t we be silent for a moment?” We were, and after a minute or so, I said, “We can postpone the whole thing, because it is not the right moment, even though the idea itself sounds great.” This was the solution, and a year later the whole issue was solved in less time, with less concern, and with great success.
• Be ready. Sometimes the thought is: Oh, this is a big issue. It will need a lot of prayer, and a lot of patience, until we see the light at the end of the tunnel. And probably a lot of people might agree and say, “Yes, I really know what you mean.” But one thing is clear: The Christ is not like the recording on a business telephone that always plays the same message: Please wait. There might be situations where waiting is exactly the right thing. But there are many more cases where a quick—and reliable—answer is possible. Are we ready to accept the message?
• Be courageous. That does not mean to be a daredevil. I remember how a student in my Christian Science association once intended to change jobs. She had two options. One day she came to my office and showed me a long list of about 40 or 50 items, either in favor of or against the two possible jobs. I had such compassion for her. So much work, so many options, and still no decision. Since she knows me quite well, I said frankly, “I admire how much time you spent to write that list. And I wonder how much more time is needed for you to come to a decision.” At first, she felt a bit offended, and asked, “Well, what would you have done?” I answered, “I would have taken only half the time and listened to the Christ instead.” You should have seen her face! It immediately turned from anger to joy, from earnestness to happiness. And she said, “Now I know which job I will accept. Thanks for helping me.”

We have a reliable source of intelligent, useful guidance to show us what is required.

Is it not wonderful that we have a reliable source of intelligent, useful guidance to show us what is required? This divine source always helps in family situations, in resolving financial matters, in business life, in church affairs, or simple things such as driving a car or planning a trip. And certainly when a physical healing is needed. We can just sit back and be grateful that there is this permanent, spiritual, unfailing guide that always knows precisely what we need better then we know ourselves.

Since I am very much interested in politics and journalism, Mrs. Eddy’s book Pulpit and Press is of special interest to me. One newspaper article reprinted in that book reported on interviews conducted with some of the early Christian Scientists about their faith. One person said, “The power of Christ has been dormant in mankind for ages,” adding, “… and it was Mrs. Eddy’s mission to revive it. In our labors we take the Christ as an example, going about doing good and healing the sick. Christ has told us to do his work, naming as one great essential that we have faith in him” [Pulpit and Press, p. 72].

I sometimes smile when I read the word dormant in this context. It reminds me of my cellphone. It is dormant for hours. There is no light on, I hear no sound, the display is black, as if it has been turned off. And then I receive a call. The phone rings, the light comes on, the display is colorful, it shows the nice background picture I have saved on the screen. And sometimes I even see the number of the caller. All this happens within less than a second. There is no long process involved. It is just active.

All these qualities that the world needs today are instantly available.

Doing good, healing the sick, giving comfort to a neighbor, supporting and encouraging a friend, all can also happen within seconds. We don’t need to take months and years until we make up our minds. All these qualities that the world needs today are instantly available. They might be dormant, but they do exist. And they exist in everybody’s heart. Not only in those of Christian Scientists. And this fact also includes intelligent, quick solutions when anyone is in need or in danger.

Here is an example. I had been living in a six-story apartment building. There was a lift to the floors, and three apartment doors on every floor. These doors had no names on them, and since you were always using the lift, you did not see many people who lived in the building. Altogether there were 18 apartments with similar doors, all in the same color. Nothing to distinguish one from the other. One morning someone knocked heavily on my door. I rushed to open it, and there stood a woman with tears in her eyes, trembling from fear. Without saying anything, she pushed me aside, came in and closed the door. It was easy to realize that something terrible must have happened. I asked her to sit down and offered her something to drink. I asked her to tell me what had happened. She related a rather cruel description of what had happened to her over the last 30 minutes in her apartment. Somehow she had gotten out and run up the staircase and knocked at one of the doors.

I asked her why she had come to my door. “Do you know me?” I asked. “Do you know what I do for a living?” She did not know. She said she was full of fear, with no clear thought, but then, she said, “I felt that this is the door where I would be helped.” So I told her about my being a Christian Science practitioner, about the power of prayer, and of the protection we live under through God’s love.

Later she told me that she lived on the first floor of the same building. I had never seen her before, and I still do not know her name. But a few days later she came back to thank me for the wonderful talk we’d had about God. You see, she did not know anything about the Christ; she had—seemingly—no clear thought about what to do. And still, she felt the power of the Christ to go to the one door where help was surely available. I assume all the other apartments were empty, because people were at work. So I could see so clearly that the healing, protecting, guiding message is always active, always loud enough to break through despair and fear. And the Christ, this divine influence in human consciousness, does not judge according to denominations, readiness, or education. It touches and guides the human heart and guides people to do exactly the right thing. I think we owe Mary Baker Eddy immense gratitude for reviving this influence. It is a gift to the whole world.

Jeffrey Hildner is a senior writer for the Journal. He also is creative director of the Journal and the Christian Science Sentinel.

Spiritual consciousness establishes health, but factors in human thought such as fear or selfishness compromise spiritual sense and therefore health.

What constitutes health or wholeness? What compromises it? These questions have framed the focus of the healthcare community from earliest times. And today, we see an upswing in interest related to mental influences on health. For example, one recent book I found fascinating, Why People Get Sick: Exploring The Mind-Body Connection (Darian Leader and David Corfield), explores this discussion, long debated in the healthcare field, concerning mental factors that influence an individual’s health. Along these same lines, I recall reading somewhere that when Louis Pasteur, considered the father of modern medicine, was asked why the same medication affected patients differently, he remarked that it had to do with the “terrain” of the patient, meaning his or her mental outlook. Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, was a contemporary of Pasteur, and through her practice of spiritual healing she delved deeply into the mental influences that affect health for better or worse. She ultimately learned that spiritual consciousness, or an awareness of God and his wholly good nature, establishes health; whereas factors in human thought such as fear or selfishness compromise spiritual sense, and therefore health. Her discovery of Christian Science shows that health has always been dependent on our growing comprehension of the divine nature and our commitment to living consistently the qualities that we naturally reflect from this good and loving God. Understanding our spiritual identity as the expression of God’s being can bring amazing transformation. And this transformation comes not only to ourselves, but to those we hold in our thoughts, as my grandmother discovered years ago.

A new view

Science and Health captivated my grandmother’s hopes and desires for a more fulfilling life.

At the turn of the 20th century my grandmother, who longed to be of greater use to others, began to study a new book that she found advertised in a store near where she shopped for groceries. Having limited resources, she was unable to purchase the book, but each day on her daily shopping rounds she stopped in and read a few pages. The book captivated her hopes and desires for a more fulfilling life, and it explained a lot of the questions she had gathered from her ardent study of the Bible. She would return home each day filled with eagerness and enthusiasm to share what she had learned. No one in her household, however, was particularly interested. Each afternoon she would go outside and hang up the laundry that she took in to make ends meet. Next door lived a young boy who was regularly placed outside in a playpen to take in the fresh air; his appearance and inability to communicate like other boys his age caught my grandmother’s attention. (She later learned that the boy had been born with this condition.) Unable to find a willing audience inside to share what she had learned from Science and Health, my grandmother began talking to her captive audience outside. She explained to the boy what she was learning about the nature of God and how this little boy, as the very image and likeness of God, expressed this wholly good nature by divine right.

Days passed. Late one afternoon, soon after my grandmother had read almost the entire Science and Health, the boy’s mother knocked on her door. She asked my grandmother what she had been talking to her boy about. My grandmother told her that she had discovered a wonderful book entitled Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures written by a woman named Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science. My grandmother told the woman that she didn’t know much about Christian Science, but she knew that Mary Baker Eddy was a successful healer and had written a book based on scriptural teaching explaining how to heal. According to my grandmother, the mother was quiet and then said that whatever it was that she was learning from that book worked, because her son’s condition was improving. And as my grandmother related the story, within about three months the boy showed no evidence of the condition.

What had enabled my grandmother to heal this young boy? I would suggest that she experienced a revolutionary shift of thought or “terrain.” Her reading of Science and Health had given her a more expansive view of God, enabling her to glimpse the fact that she, as well the boy, had the possibility of experiencing something better than the hand that was dealt to them. To some extent, she broke free of the confining theories and beliefs of the physical senses and saw infinite possibilities for this boy. That he could be healed. My grandmother must have seen clearly that the boy’s identity was wholly spiritual, defined and formed by divine Love, and therefore untouched by disease. He could not be the victim of human genetics. Her spiritualized outlook and new understanding of self, and the implications that this increased understanding has on our lives, had a salutary effect not only on her, but on the boy.

Obstacles to health

But unless, like my grandmother, we’re willing to shed a false sense of self or identity, we can face obstacles to healing. Consider this passage in Science and Health: “Self-love is more opaque than a solid body. In patient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error—self-will, self-justification, and self-love,—which wars against spirituality and is the law of sin and death” (Science and Health, p. 242).

Individuals are more often victims than creators of false inclinations.

An adamant is a rock or mineral considered to be of impenetrable hardness, and the author is telling us that self-centered thinking or stubborn self-love prevents the healing message of the Christ from penetrating thought. Yet notice that the author does not attach such thinking to individuals. Rather, she seems to be saying that self-will, self-justification, and self-love belong to erroneous thinking itself; they are adamants of error. It would be helpful to keep in mind that individuals are more often victims than creators of these false inclinations, and genuine practitioners of Christian Science healing no more attach them to the individual than they attach sickness to the person. These adamants, therefore, belong to mortal thought (that is, the thought patterns of materially based thinking). Nonetheless, these inclinations need to be addressed and destroyed in thought, in order to free us from their harmful effects. Gratefully, we have many examples of individuals who have dissolved the adamants of self-will, self-justification, and self-love.

Naaman overcomes self-will

Take the Bible story of Naaman, a valiant soldier and captain of the army of Syria. He was a leper (see II Kings 5:1–14). In his exploits, he brought back to Syria a Hebrew handmaid who counseled Naaman’s wife that Naaman should visit the prophet Elisha, who could heal Naaman of his leprosy. Naaman followed this counsel and journeyed to Samaria to seek the prophet. When he found him, Elisha sent a servant to tell Naaman to wash in the river Jordan seven times. Naaman initially rebelled at this command, feeling slighted that Elisha did not personally address him, so great a man, and then asked Naaman to bathe in the muddy Jordan rather than in the cleaner rivers of Damascus. So he rejected the prophet’s command. However, Naaman was advised by his servants to subjugate his self-will and follow Elisha’s directions. Namaan finally agreed, and in so doing he was healed of the leprosy.

How often self-will stands in the way of healing! We might have such a decided sense of how something must work out that we miss the very instructions that lead to the healing. What was Naaman really healed of—leprosy, or of the deeper, moral issue of self-will? Clearly, Naaman was being asked to submit to the will of God, represented here by the prophet. Naaman had to be willing to turn away from the pride of power and intellect, human reason and analysis, and be open to the simplicity of divine direction.

Spiritual healing requires spiritual growth, redemption of character, and the willingness to bring oneself in line with the divine.

The pressing question today is, What will heal us of our various economic, physical, and social ills? Contrary to pop culture, which encourages instant self-gratification with little demanded of us, the Bible teaches that spiritual healing requires spiritual growth, redemption of character, and the willingness to bring oneself in line with the divine. As the story of Naaman asks, Are we willing to wash in the river of Biblical inspiration?

Self-justification healed

Centuries after Naaman washed in Jordan, another man sat by a pool of waters, day after day hoping to be healed of lameness (see John 5:2–9). This fellow, whose name we don’t know, was waiting for the moving of the waters at the pool of Bethesda because, according to legend, when the waters were troubled by an angel, the first one who jumped into these waters would be healed of whatever malady he or she had. As the story goes, this man was paralyzed in his feet, so someone else always beat him to the water. Evidently, he had been trying to get there for a long time. This fellow’s challenge, however, was not logistics. When Jesus found him, he asked a most probing question, “Wilt thou be made whole?” Now, to anyone who has been paralyzed for 38 years, that question would seem unfathomable. But Jesus appeared not to be asking, “Do you want to be healed of your paralysis?” but rather, “Are you ready to be whole in every sense of the word?” Not only physically, but morally?

It is easier to say that we want to hear Christ’s demands than to act on them.

If Jesus were to ask us the same question, how would we answer? Be careful. It is easier to say that we want to hear Christ’s demands—divine messages from God to each of us—than to act on them. Which one of us has not been down the road multiple times of professing to want to be and do better, only to find it’s too difficult? Usually, that’s the point where self-justification enters. There is always some reason we can’t follow these demands. For the man at the pool of Bethesda, who had no one to help him into the water—there was never enough time or the opportunity to make it. But Jesus disregarded his material reasoning and said, “Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.” And the man obeyed.

Self-love revealed

Jesus told two parables that highlight the obstacles that self-love poses to health and happiness. The first parable involves two men—one a Pharisee and the other a publican—who went to the temple to pray (see Luke 18:9–14). The publican had a humble prayer. His reward? Jesus said he would be “exalted.” But the Pharisee prayed, “God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.” This man, Jesus said, would be “abased.” How easy it is to fall into the prayer of the Pharisee! The difficulty with this kind of self-love, which takes pride in how good one is compared to others, is that soon the question arises, “But has this loyalty and good behavior done any good, has it really paid off?” And then comes another kind of comparison, “Look at that fellow—he isn’t very spiritually minded and look at his success (or wealth or popularity or good health)!” We may not realize that this is a subtle, self-righteous self-love, but that’s really what it is.

And remember Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son? It began, “A certain man had two sons” (see Luke 15:11–32). We often forget the lessons of the elder son who stayed home and worked dutifully for his father, while his younger brother took off and wasted his inheritance. The contrast in this parable is often thought to be between the sinners (the young son) and Pharisees—the advocates of religious dogma (the elder son). The elder son’s loyalty soon turns into jealousy of the younger son’s celebratory homecoming, and the elder brother becomes self-righteous because he had stayed while the willful younger brother wasted his resources. The faithful brother now indulges in self-pity because he had never gotten a feast with his friends. The father in this parable breaks through the elder brother’s self-focus with the most tender reminder, “Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.” We, too, must never forget that promise.

That promise, metaphorical in nature, is God’s promise to us all. It illustrates the fact that God is always with us, forever supporting and maintaining us. It’s a promise that we can throw off any false sense of a mortal, vulnerable self and become conscious that we are—and always have been—the sons and daughters of God.

Ron Ballard is a Christian Science practitioner and teacher in Ashland, Oregon. This article has been adapted from a Christian Science lecture that Ron gives around the US as a member of the Christian Science Board of Lectureship.