“…a transformation in my thinking had taken place”

Rereading the Century book made me realize how practical Christian Science is and how it can be applied in various situations to ameliorate the idea that matter (material conditions) are the last word. The testimonies still hold the impact of real evidence as if they were written today. By reading these testimonies I was impelled to look back on testimonies that I had written down. One stood out very clearly that the practice of Christian Science is healing Truth.

An email written to you and your reply were the underlying recognition of healing. Ten years ago, when it appeared I was very low and without help of any kind, I was raising my daughter alone and had lost my full-time job and was about to lose a house I owned. It had been rented, and the tenants trashed the place, stealing all the copper piping and not paying the rent for several months. I had no money for the repairs, and I was unable to rent it and pay the mortgage. My daughter’s junior year spring term was about to begin, and I didn’t have the money for tuition.

I wrote these words to you. “I want to be like Joseph (faithful), but it is so difficult with everything falling down around me. My house…will be lost next month for lack of funds and I have been unable to pay for my daughter’s junior spring semester. My consciousness gets lifted when I do the lesson and listen to healing tapes, but I just can’t seem to maintain that higher thought when my family is feeling sorry for me, debt collectors are calling and all I get is ‘no’ from employers I am contacting.”

Your response was loud and clear! You wrote,

“Was thinking that the first step in every challenge is pretty important and that involves getting out of the way of what God is doing. Getting in the way involves rehearsing the terrible situation, adding up the darkness instead of counting on light, considering ‘last straws’ and going ahead fearing as much as one wants. It may also include not really changing what every spiritual sense and spiritual intuition indicates needs to be changed. The next step is be as conscious as possible of the fact that your need isn’t to bring into being something that doesn’t exist. It is to see more what does exist. That means not outlining what needs to happen in order for things to be okay but instead seeing and listening and feeling more of God’s present rightness and goodness literally, and all things working together for good.”

Your words helped me to change the way I was thinking about my life, which had been as if it was separate from God, and I knew that to be untrue. I really couldn’t be separate if God was all. I turned my thought to all the good I had witnessed (another healing concerning an immediately changed circumstance) and applied that healing and others, to my thinking about my current situation. Just as I am doing with rereading A Century of Christian Science Healing.

In looking back over these past 10-years, I can see how much I have relied on Christian Science practice as my primary support, though I’ve had spiritual support from friends. I did not lose the house; it was repaired, made possible by a loving loan from an unexpected source. My daughter graduated college, including a term abroad and recently married. And I completed my Master’s and have had two excellent positions, one which I continue to work in today.

Looking back helped me to understand the present better through a newer viewpoint. I realize now that a transformation in my thinking had taken place and was expressed in my experience of abundant blessing not only for me, but those who received what was rightfully theirs.

Each healing in A Century of Christian Science Healing is unique, but the healing on pages 213 -216 struck a chord especially because of where I am in my experience now. Just like the writer, I am wondering what my purpose is or am I just drifting through the final years of my material existence. I am seriously praying to understand God’s present purpose for me.

The writer’s words in the final paragraph of his contribution spoke to me, “I think probably the most outstanding feature of it all was that prior to this experience I felt I was just sort of drifting, and rather useless. I wasn’t quite sure what my purpose in life was; I felt that all my experiences were superficial. I was doing some interesting work, but it wasn’t satisfying.” These types of feelings are what I am currently struggling with. However, his words have helped me realize that I, too, have an opportunity every minute of every day to see myself and my fellow man in the true light. And I could have the experience the writer described: “This not only contributed to my own wellbeing, but I was able to bring it to others, which was more important.” This demonstration, which took place years ago, is so meaningful. The writer’s contribution of well-being to himself and others is very much like what you said in Class. We are not working for ourselves, but for the ages!

While not a healing per se, but a heading in the book on, “The Healing of The Nations,” (p. 249) is consistent with these ideas of working on identity of self and for others. The writer quotes Revelation (22:2) “the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” I love how the writer associates this statement with life: “Christian healing must necessarily extend to the collective aspects of living. But the deepest spiritual intuitions of mankind have always pointed to the fact that it must start with individual regeneration.” I feel we, as Christian Science healers, are not only working for religious reform (a Christianity more closely related to Jesus’ own life) but also for the greater purpose of a more spiritual life for all; I believe that was Mrs. Eddy’s wish for all mankind. If I can apply this all-inclusive thinking in my daily work I believe my purpose will become clear and certainly great growth in Christian Science will appear.

“…the change in view for me has been to see what it really means to trust that infinite Love is ever-present, is All”

When I saw the excerpt from Capt. Eastaman in the references, it brought tears to my eyes because Mary Baker Eddy’s gentle encouragement to him to “heal your wife yourself” has been present in my thought for a year and a half as we have sought healing for my wife, to really leave all for Christ, for her to be lifted out of such a dark dream. Even before Century was part of our assignment, I had been holding to the truths expressed by Peter Henniker-Heaton – in particular, the place where he writes: “...great spiritual joy filled me – joy that God governed and nothing could interfere with His purpose of present perfection and satisfaction for all.” Even before there was evidence of the unreality of the aggressive physical claim, he was filled with spiritual joy – that has been a rock for me.

I would say that the way Century made changes in my view of Christian Science healing is that I saw, over and over again, how the testifiers became conscious and convinced of God’s ever-presence; it didn’t matter what the circumstances seemed to be. And even if the advice from others – medical professionals or just witnesses and acquaintances – seemed troublingly specific, the consciousness of God’s goodness being real and undeniable broke through or was made clear to them. To me a lot of the testimonies were so many different versions of that sentence in Science and Health where Mrs. Eddy writes, “The metaphysician, making Mind his basis of operation irrespective of matter ...” – and many of the testifiers were not even thinking of themselves yet as “metaphysicians.” They just knew that matter held no more truth or comfort or healing for them. So, the change in view for me has been to see what it really means to trust that infinite Love is ever-present, is All.

There were two accounts of healing that were especially meaningful to me this time through. One was the healing of a couple’s son of rheumatic fever after the doctors said there was nothing more they could do, and after the doctors encouraged the father to go home and pray. (pp. 160-162) To which the father replied that he didn’t “know how to pray” and had found no answers to his own prayers about his own invalidism. He couldn’t reach his minister by phone, and minutes later a business acquaintance called about another matter, asked whether they had tried Christian Science and came right over. After talking with the Christian Scientist and then a practitioner for about ten minutes, he returned to the living room “free, happy, and assured….that the boy is in God’s hands.” He didn’t even feel a need to return to the hospital that evening, as has been their routine; he said he “positively knew [his son] was in God’s hands.” This example of the consciousness of God’s all-power, Love’s all-presence coming clearly to the father, establishing reality in his thought, in his experience, has stayed with me. And, of course, when they return to the hospital the next day, their son has had a healing – and the healing began “within an hour after [his] leaving the hospital the day before…” Even more meaningful is that the healing wasn’t isolated to just the boy; the father, too, had a complete healing of multiple conditions that had been going on for years. 

The second one that really stayed with me this time through is told by the husband who worked for years on the railroads (pp 184-188). He returns home from one trip to discover his wife has badly injured herself, she’s distraught, and three physicians have said they can’t do anything for her. Her distress moves him to remember a copy of Science and Health given to him by his mother years before that he has stowed away in a drawer. His preparations for reading to his wife include getting his drink, his cigarettes, and getting comfortable with having no expectations that anything is going to change. The book took him over in one sitting; I loved the clear way he describes the feeling, that he “became all in this thing, forgot about everybody else and everything else.” Again, I read that as a simple acknowledgement that Truth’s reality and ever-presence were established in his thought, naturally, without fanfare, and that Love couldn’t be denied or resisted by human planning and willpower. “Truth is affirmative and confers harmony” has never seemed stronger to me: “affirmative” isn’t a slight or meek “yes”; but a bold, unassailable “yes,” an affirmation of reality and ever-presence that allows no room for any opposite. What’s really striking about this testimony, too, is that he goes on to describe healing of many character traits he isn’t proud of: gambling, drinking. And he describes how reading that “C.S. silences human will…” helped him get a better understanding of Life, that the “I came out entirely.” New purpose in his work, a promotion, a new perspective on how to manage others in his work. It all becomes about “learning the meaning of Love.” I have prayed with these insights a lot this year, both to redeem my sense of what my daily prayerful work is for, and how that can lift up my thinking about the job I go off to every day (except for the past few weeks, in which I’ve just gone upstairs to my “remote learning” job!)

The book brought a healing back to me. I took my high-school-age son to an early spring soccer tournament – miserable, cold weather, tough conditions to play under, a lot of mental clouds on the field, too, seemingly. He got a bad leg injury that brought EMTs onto the field, but he declined being carted off, took crutches, and I walked along with him as he hobbled to the car, upset, in pain, too distraught and mad about the whole situation to want to listen. We got in the car, I turned on the heat, I was moved to simply say to him, “You can have a healing.” He gradually calmed down as I drove and tried to just keep something simple in thought, a hymn (“No snare, no fowler, pestilence or pain…”) and “perfect Love casteth out fear.” He was hungry so I found a pizza place, and when I got out of the car to order, I called my wife and asked her to call a practitioner. We ate and didn’t talk much. He wanted to join the rest of the team at a restaurant nearby while they had lunch. He needed the crutches to get in the restaurant; there was no place for me to find a quiet spot, but I stayed with the thoughts that had occurred to me in the car. He visibly cheered up being with some teammates he liked and respected. The team had another match after lunch. Long story short, he needed crutches to get from the parking lot to the field; stood watching everyone warm up for the first 10 minutes; began putting both feet on the ground, still with crutches, and kicking the ball with teammates for the next ten; last ten minutes of warm-up he began jogging around, kicking, moving. The match began, he walked around the field to where I was standing to ask me if he could play! I said absolutely, if he felt up to it. He said he did, asked the coach, and played for the last 20 minutes of the match. When we got in the car afterwards to head home, I just turned to him and said, “God is good.” And he said, “Yes, He is.” At home I called the practitioner and reported how rapidly the situation had turned around. He said that he had gotten the call on his way to serve in the Reading Room, and he just kept praying with, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” That was all that God knew about our son, about me, about all involved. That was the truth, he said, he was pouring in through floodtides of Love. I felt deeply grateful for this proof of God’s goodness – that that is all we can experience in reality. We are never separated from it; we are all beloved by God.

I love Hymn 109 in the references. ”Here, O God, Thy healing presence/Lifts our thoughts from self and sin…” and it expresses what I am trying to do to be more active in healing. Here and now is the place and time to pray, to feel God’s “healing presence.” It has too often felt as though, early in the morning when I am reading the Lesson, studying and praying – or at different points during the day – that I think of my job as throwing off the burden of self and sin and then I can get down to work. But I’ve come to think differently (freshly?) about the other ideas in that first stanza, what’s really being said: God’s healing presence, ever-presence, lifts us above the complicated picture (mortal mind’s) of self and sin, gives us light, helps us naturally welcome Love in, turns us heavenward, which feels like home – the place we want to be – and unseals our hearts. So that hymn just puts so clearly how I have been thinking since reading Century.

“To love God…is our birthright to heal and it has been done everywhere AT ANY TIME”

The first testimony/account that spoke directly to me was of a youngster of not quite 13 years old who took five children (mostly cousins) on a canoe ride that ended up being some three miles from the nearest shore.…The canoe overturned, and they all fell into the water.…Almost all the children attended Christian Science Sunday School, and so they repeated poems of Mrs. Eddy and the Scientific Statement of Being and prayers learned in church. The writer decided to swim after a boat that he had seen not long before. He reminded himself that “I knew that we could not at any time be separated from God.” He had no training in long distance swimming but was buoyed by his remembrance of the truth, and he was able to reach some fishermen who took him back. This took two hours. All the children except for one were still hanging onto the side of the canoe. The writer found her a little distance from the canoe calmly floating in the water. The four year old who had been floating was asked what she was thinking all that time. Her response was that she knew the water was over her parents’ head but not over God’s head.

There were other examples of Science working out uplifting healings.

There was an absolutely warm, uplifting account of a brother who was a Christian Scientist who worked with his sister while she was in a hospital diagnosed with cancer, expected to expire in a few days. He maintained his vigilance, his trust in God’s care, and never left the hospital for five days. He never seemed to sleep or eat but was always mindful to remind everyone he came into contact with that his sister Mary was God’s child, and that there was no death but life in God. “He would never admit that I would die.” (p. 61) When during his sister’s second or third night the nurses recorded that she had expired, he came to her and put both his hands on her cheeks and called her name. He called out her name twice, and she returned. “After I awoke from that condition,” she wrote, “I felt and knew that I was healed.”

Another fascinating experience took place when the Japanese army conquered Bataan Corregidor and many American sailors and soldiers, to escape Japanese prison camps, took to any kind of escape transit to leave the Philippines. Their plan was to go through New Guinea, though “enemy-infested” waters, a distance of 1,500 miles. Their only navigational tool was a page from an atlas and a practitioner who said that he would pray for them. They made their way without sickness, hunger, or conflicts with any natives. After arriving at New Guinea, the writer met a commanding officer of an active vessel who offered to take them to Australia because their primitive outrigger would never make it. The officer had just arrived soon after the Americans and was only to stay for five hours. One of the writer’s shipmates, who was an atheist, remarked, “too many things worked out just right to be the result of chance. There has to be a law of some kind.”

Another account had to do with a Christian Scientist who said that he had been a Scientist for 49 years, and he never once had to get a practitioner’s help. Perhaps one can see this as more braggadorio than a sincere statement of commitment to Science. I don’t. I see it as someone who hasn’t “fallen off his perch” (The Story of Christian Science Wartime Activities 1939-1946, Christian Science Publishing Society Boston, MA, 1947, pp 265-266) but is always aware of guidance and love every day. There is an old hymn that I love which says, “Love (God) place my feet on higher ground.” I can only figure that he must have been practicing “renewing prayer” while keeping his thoughts elevated.

Christian Science could be said to be a delivery system that can reach anyone, anywhere, at any time. Century tells of healings where the practitioner was not in the same room but hundreds or over thousands of miles away. Christian Science is a religion that looks to the inward man, not impressed by the worldly aspect. It is a faith that will not shrink. “Then said Jesus unto the twelve, will you also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” To love God with humility, grace, compassion and not give credibility or power to any other thought is our birthright to heal and it has been done everywhere AT ANY TIME.

While winterizing some lawn equipment, I was running a push mower so that the oil would get hot and facilitate the draining of the dirty oil. After turning the mower off, I then grabbed it to turn it upside down, but in that act the mower slipped from my hand and the hot exhaust hit the underside of my arm next to my wrist. I felt no pain nor fear, but I knew that I had to address the event firmly but without any unnecessary chatter. That is, I did not get upset, call myself clumsy, or give much thought as to what could happen with the burn. I knew from lots of experience that God is my help, that I am 100% spiritual, and that animal magnetism has absolutely no hold on me. I knew my expected end and could claim dominion now. I asked my wife to get me a large bandage while I cleaned up the burn. I noticed that the skin layers indicated third degree burn, but I was completely calm because degrees don’t interfere with God’s healing process and the healing can be done quickly. Within a few days I removed the heavier bandage, cleaned around it, and put on a lighter gauze. There was never any pain, infection, nor scar, and it was completely healed in two days after applying the second bandage.

P.S. Something I found in the Reading Room. It was a letter directed to the staff in 1883. It resonated with me. I had never heard it before. The letter was much longer, but I’ll share this.

“You have dominion in Him, over the world; the flesh and the devil; dominion that is omnipotent; Your life is in Him. No power can bind you. God is the only Life. Spirit is the only substance. Love is the only cause. Harmony is the only law. Now is the only time.”

“I am so grateful that I was never afraid”

Two things that have stayed with me from reading this book are:

1. How certain were many of the healers. I love the humble, rock-solid confidence with which Christian Science treatment was given.

2. I have loved reading where the healings took place. Bunch, Iowa; Trenton, Nebraska; Sussex, England; Denver; Los Angeles; Pilot View, Kentucky; Tokyo; Chicago; Norfolk, Nebraska; South Africa; Texas; ’the Near East’; in chemistry labs; on aircraft engineering drafting tables. “Love lived in a court or cot is God exemplified, governing governments, industries, human rights, liberty, life.” (My 287)

I found the following so reassuring, because no matter how humanly technical or complicated, the spiritual answer is neither technical nor complicated. In his first assignment as an aircraft engineer, Dwight Mills was to design a jet gear mechanism. (p. 227) There were difficult control issues, and he learned that other engineers had been working on this problem for almost a year without a solution. After studying the problem, he concluded that there was no mathematical analytical solution. There were an infinite number of possibilities for locating three main centers around which the gears would operate. As he began to feel helpless and overwhelmed, he said, “I went back to my usual way of working out difficult problems – through prayer, the prayer of spiritual understanding…I knew that God provides everything we need – if we are alert enough spiritually to discern it.”

So, one day at his drafting board, he leaned back in his chair and prayed. He started by thanking God for His goodness, realizing the ever-presence of the divine Mind’s all-power and infinite capacity. He reasoned that man actually reflects the capacity and intelligence of the divine Mind. After praying and feeling this closeness to God for 30 or 40 minutes, he went back to his drawing. Within minutes, without any calculations, it came to him where all three pivot points for the gears should be located. And it turned out to be the perfect solution for this complex design. It was put into production, and the basic design was still flying at the writing of this experience. He said, “To me this was a clear proof that when we listen for God’s guidance humbly and prayerfully, we can be led to the right answer, even though from a human standpoint the problem appears to be without a solution.”

Another notable experience echoed one of my own. Velma Lewis Ingraham lived in an impoverished ’near eastern’ country where she regularly encountered a desperately dirty, deprived young boy “with lovely brown eyes and a quick warm smile.’ (p. 217) She said, “There seemed to be no way of helping him with any degree of permanence.” Then one day she realized that Jesus must have seen so many people like this, and as it says in Science and Health, “(he) beheld in Science the perfect man...and this correct view of man healed the sick.” (SH 476-7) As she was giving him some coins, she realized how inadequate this was, and “Out of the depths of her heart (she) prayed: ‘Lord, open Thou mine eyes that I too may see! Let there be light!’ And suddenly there was nothing but the light of spiritual reality. She was no longer conscious of the boy or the place; ...she was only aware of God’s presence and of His spiritual, perfect universe. For several days the boy did not even come into her thought. Then one day she met him on the street, and he was completely clean, changed. She asked him, “Who told you to do these things?” And he said, ”No man...and pointed upward and said “I tell me.” That was the beginning of a complete transformation in his life.

The following experience of mine is parallel, seeing the hand of God move, and the Mind that is God speaking, being heard, and transforming.

For a number of years, I oversaw the Monday noon soup kitchen at 2nd Baptist church in my community. One raw winter day as we were cleaning up, there was a banging on the door and a man came in. At this soup kitchen we never saw people that were in such desperate condition. He had a garbage bag wrapped around his shoulders, cardboard strapped to his feet, and, as he shuffled to a table to sit down, seemed barely conscious. I brought him a bowl of potato salad, which is all we had left, and he began to shovel it into his mouth. I sat down near him and introduced myself and asked him what his name was. He mumbled something, and I asked again. He replied loudly, “Dennis!!” I said, and meant it deeply, “Dennis, I am SO glad you came here today!” 

After he left and I went home, he was with me in thought. Actually, for weeks I prayed about this picture of degradation, refuting it as a lie about God’s man, as a lie about him. I remember knowing, acknowledging, insisting on man’s eternal innocency as an idea of pure Mind. I acknowledged that he was loved forever. “In Science man is the offspring of Spirit. The beautiful, good and pure constitute his ancestry. His origin is not in brute instinct...Spirit is his primitive and ultimate Source of being. God is his Father, and Life is the law of his being.” (SH 63:5) Then, one time when I turned to God again about this, what came to me was, “This is the first time anyone has ever known this about him. This is his virgin birth!” I was moved to tears. I was so grateful. And then, he completely left my thought.

Maybe a month later at a soup kitchen meal, he came in. He was clean and dressed normally, clear-eyed, and he looked right at me and spoke. It was clumsy, as though he was not used to speaking. But it was direct. He came to that noon meal off and on for a couple of months. Then I saw him riding a bike around town. And then, he didn’t come back.

Recently I had a wonderful healing for which I am deeply grateful.

One evening, the corner of my pant leg caught on a kitchen drawer and I pitched forcefully backward, landing on the stone floor, my head fully connecting with the corner of a kitchen cabinet door as I fell. I lay there. My husband called a practitioner, and she spoke to me about my untouched spiritual being right then. After a while I sat up, and the pain subsided. I went to bed shortly thereafter and slept deeply. But early in the morning I was roused to get up and go to the bathroom. The next thing I remember was my husband trying to get into the bathroom, but I was unconscious on the floor blocking the door. He roused me, but there were intense symptoms of illness. Once again, I listened to the practitioner as I lay on the floor. Eventually I was able to lie on a bed. 

The practitioner shared with me many ideas, including:

• “God is the creator of man, and, the divine Principle of man remaining perfect, the divine idea or reflection, man, remains perfect.” YOU are the expression of God’s being. 

• There’s NO REASON for this situation, because it ISN’T. 

• You have on the helmet of salvation, and God is supreme. 

• God is the source and condition of all existence and the source and condition of your existence.

I am so grateful that I was never afraid. I became clearer and could think about the adjustments to the day that needed to be made. Then my daughter called, and when I told her I’d had a fall, she didn’t ask details but was tenderly compassionate. Then remembering what she’d learned in Sunday School, clearly affirmed “There is no spot where God is not!” That made me smile. And by the time we’d finished talking, I was sitting up, ready to shower and get dressed. It was a quiet day, but I never lay down again that day. Except for a little tenderness to the back of my head, there were no more symptoms. And I continue to be vigorous and free.

“I learned that human planning…can obscure the simplicity of the Christ”

In the past weeks, while we all have been sheltering in place, numerous friends and family members have told me they feel “disoriented.” Days slip into weeks, weeks slip into months, and all time seems the same. Familiar routines, workdays, commutes, and forms of communication that once served as markers in time and space have disappeared. There is plenty of free-floating fear and uncertainty to handle.

This is a telltale sign of animal magnetism, a belief in a directionless and destructive power apart from God, a power with modes and methods that try to pull focus away from the reality of substantial good and towards illusive chaos and inharmony. I know I’ve prayed with many others along the lines of the hymn: “Your lovingkindness is a wondrous thing; / We will shelter safely underneath Your wing.” (Hymn 528:2)

The privilege of attending regular Wednesday and Sunday Christian Science services online has been a wonderful way to stabilize thought and focus our prayers for the world. I worked to understand my true “orientation” to help counter the persistent belief of disorientation, and I have been grateful for the opportunity to learn more about our direction and orientation as taught in Christian Science, and how that rock-solid foundation can help us and the world when everything around us seems chaotic and disorienting.

Over the last two years I have been working very hard to find a new direction in my career and business life. During this time, I learned that my true orientation was not a path, outline, or direction that could ever be determined, limited, understood, or charted by mortal mind. Aligning with omnipresent Spirit to find true orientation demands humility and more listening.

My career had been fulfilling, but I felt it was time for something else. I worked with a practitioner, and I took the necessary practical steps to transition away from my very stable employment, which I had pursued for the last 40 years. I thought it was time to start a new chapter. My wife and I moved from the East Coast to the West Coast to explore a different setting and new opportunities.

At the same time, I was very careful to fulfil every conceivable human obligation to my old firm, and I continued to support it, developing business, transitioning clients, and doing actual client work for 18 months, even though I was no longer receiving a salary. The firm was very grateful and respectful of my plans. In the beginning, it felt like I was constructing a detailed path and direction by trying to be a good partner and contributing to the firm and the younger employees, while at the same time outlining the precise terms of my escape from the corporate world.

However, during this transition period I wasn’t satisfied, and I kept thinking that my new direction should be something else, something different, more exciting or fulfilling. After pursuing some short-term ideas and opportunities, I felt worn down physically and mentally, a bit like Mrs. Eddy’s traveler:

“… going westward for a pleasure-trip. The company is alluring and the pleasures exciting. After following the sun for six days, he turns east on the seventh, satisfied if he can only imagine himself drifting in the right direction. By-and-by, ashamed of his zigzag course, he would borrow the passport of some wiser pilgrim, thinking with the aid of this to find and follow the right road.” (SH 21:25)

So, I was very surprised several months ago to receive a call from my old firm asking for help. It was the last thing I expected, and it wasn’t something I would have thought would have been a progressive step. I gladly accepted and returned East. I have been able to serve and provide exactly the help needed at exactly the right time, and I have grown and learned lessons in patience and humility at the same time. My health has improved, and I’ve had healings of sickness and severe physical discomfort along the way. I learned that human planning, coming and going and “rushing around smartly” (Mis. 230:12) can obscure the simplicity of the Christ and postpone the quiet listening time we all need to stay on the pathway of progressive good, which provides dominion over disorientation. This quiet time counteracts the loss of focus animal magnetism depends upon for its illusive existence.

I saw that it is not about where we are, what we are doing, or even what’s happening in the world around us, no matter how fearful or uncertain the times appear to be. It is very much about knowing our oneness with God and then taking the next step by knowing our neighbor must be one with God as well. In that true view, no disorientation, fear, or chaos is possible. Our thinking becomes more closely aligned to God. It moves away from mortal mind’s outlines, predictions, plans, and false views of others. As Mrs. Eddy writes:

“The Christian Scientist keeps straight to the course. His whole inquiry and demonstration lie in the line of Truth; hence he suffers no shipwreck in a starless night on the shoals of vainglory.... Fidelity to his precepts and practice is the only passport to his power; and the pathway of goodness and greatness runs through the modes and methods of God.” (Mis: 268:14–17; 270:23)

I am very grateful for the Association and for the abundance of healing reports from the members, from our Association readings and from A Century of Christian Science Healing. Mortal mind would have us quickly forget and pass over healings large and small. That suppression and oppression cannot stand in the face of the constant inflow of healings Association Day is based upon. Those healing reports make me appreciate and focus on the essential evidence of active healing in my life and my community.

“… great sense of joy in the healing work”

1. Yes. As a result of re-reading Century – and I re-read it twice – I felt a sense of heightened expectancy/certainty of healing results from prayer, and, very importantly, a great sense of joy in the healing work.

2. . It was hard to choose just two favorite accounts, but two which really spoke to me were Richard Knox Lee’s account (p. 80), and the account from Captain Arthur G. Cross. (p. 131)

   Richard Knox Lee’s prayer, before he was introduced to Christian Science, was to a God who he knew not at all, but of whom he asked to be given another chance to live and do some good in the world. This prayer really resonated with me. I am sure that there are many today who are seeking such a God and are so ready for the cup of cold water. His account of how the practitioner went straight to his thought to set it right; the description of the elements of her treatment which resulted in him losing his fear of death; his subsequent complete restoration to perfect health and his reward of “a wonderful happy and hard-working life” was inspiring. When I was 21, I went to see my teacher and told him that I wanted to be a Christian Science practitioner. I have been seeking to learn what is required of a practitioner and to understand how to do better healing work ever since! I know I have made progress and am looking for more.

   Captain Cross’s description of the way he resolved the case of the totally uncooperative prisoner in his charge by going into his cell with such a strong sense of love and seeing him only as the son of God is a method of treatment which is speaking increasingly loudly to me.

3. I remembered again a landmark healing I had in my late 20s when I was working in London. Throughout my childhood I seemed to have been plagued with very regular incapacitating headaches. Despite my mother’s and various practitioner’s assistance, I had not been healed even once. Struggling again with great discomfort I went into the Reading Room on London Wall at lunch time and just sat in an armchair insisting, from the Daily Prayer, that since Truth reigned in me, nothing could be true about me if it wasn’t true about God. I was there for between one and two hours, working with total conviction with this single truth. Eventually the librarian tapped me on the shoulder informing me that it was two o’clock and maybe I needed to go back to work. I went, and a short time later, the pain just dissolved, and I was free for the first time ever. It was a clear proof that “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”

4. I think what I want to do differently as a result of the inspiration gained from reading Century is really summed up in two points: always holding an utter conviction of God’s goodness, presence, total care, and provision for all His creation; and endeavoring to reach and maintain the spiritual attitude of thought which refuses to believe that anyone is living in the dream of life in matter, but all are known to be the perfect blessed children of God. This will require praying without ceasing and constant deep dives into all “the books.”

“I was impressed by this old form of parlance: the conviction that treatment heals”

What stands out from reading these accounts of healing is the utter conviction that characterized both early workers (practitioners) and patients, as well as how treatment and the healing process occurred under the circumstances of those historic times. Healings occurred often through in-person treatment: visiting a practitioner’s office or a home visit by a practitioner. And the term treatment was very specific, sounding more like it is used in medicine. Patients reported healing after one treatment, or being much improved after one treatment, then healed completely after a course of five treatments. Today, we know that the healing work is treatment and learn through class instruction how to give treatment, but nevertheless we refer more to asking a practitioner for “help”; or to “work” for us. I was impressed by this old form of parlance: the conviction that treatment heals.

In the early years, as recounted in A Century of Christian Science Healing, if a person could not visit a practitioner, they would seek “absent” treatment. Today, while in-person visits to a practitioner still occur, it is far more common to “call a practitioner” by phone, as well as email communication. Today most treatment is “absent” though we don’t use that term. Our interactions between patient and practitioner are nearly instant; one can generally reach a practitioner very quickly, even at vast distances; we are easily globally connected. What impressed me in the accounts of absent treatment in these historical accounts is the faith and trust in God that would underly a patient’s efforts as they sought help at a distance – despite the hours or days it might take for communication to happen via the mail or telegram. And “absent” often really meant significant distance and remoteness, or to get to a practitioner required a huge effort. Or, just how far people would travel in order to meet with a practitioner.

Three examples stood out to me:

1. The account of the scientist who was working in a very remote forest in India and completely out of touch with civilization when he severely injured his leg. There was no practitioner in India at the time, and the nearest village with a telegraph office would have entailed having his men carry him 30 miles through the forest to send a telegram or be taken by ship to Bombay – a very long and expensive process to reach any help. Instead, he turned completely to God in prayer and took a stand for his perfection. He was instantly healed of the pain.

2. A very early (1914!) account of the woman living entirely alone in Ecuador who awoke one night in pain with a high fever and vomiting blood. People helping her brought a doctor, but she refused the medicines and instead sent a message to a Christian Science friend in Huigra, 150 miles away. She was healed as soon as the message was received. These extremes of distance and remoteness and primitive forms of communication did not phase these seekers of healing or shake their absolute conviction that healing was happening.

3. There were many accounts of how far people would travel in order to get in-person treatment, such as the account written in 1928 by a woman living in a small town of Dorpat, Estonia, where no one had ever heard of Christian Science. Being very ill and with no one to turn to, she moved to Riga, Latvia, which when I Google-mapped it, discovered was 260 miles away — no doubt a major journey at that time. There she found a practitioner and was lovingly treated and healed.

I am amazed and humbled by Association members’ reports of their healing activity, both in the responses to the assignment, in the fruitage section, and in the thoughts and healings of contagion. I’m grateful for their dedication to the healing work. A small but meaningful healing I had last year came about as a result of the lovingkindess I felt from those around me at a Wednesday evening testimony meeting. Just before leaving for church, I stumbled on an uneven staircase and jarred my foot. It hurt but didn’t hinder me from driving to church and walking in. But as the service went on, the pain increased to such an extent that I had great difficulty getting up out of the seat to sing the second and last hymns. I couldn’t put any weight on the injured foot. It became obvious to those around me that I was suffering, and friends offered to drive me home. I felt such love and care and was grateful for their offers of help, but I managed to drive home and literally hopped on one foot into the house. In bed, even the weight of the blanket on the foot was painful, but I really felt enveloped in divine Love. I declared the truth of my being and gratitude for the love and kindness of my church friends. When I woke in the morning I was healed. There was no pain, no gradual period of improvement. Just a complete healing of injury. This demonstration was to me a clear example of the healing mission of Church.

As a result of reading this book, I will be reminded of that deep conviction and commitment both to the possibility and the conviction in the healing power of Christian Science. I want to focus more specifically on what treatment is, while at the same time bringing the spiritual fiber of these early Christian Scientists to bear in my own healing work.

“…when God is acknowledged as the only power directing us”

Thanks for the opportunity to revisit an “old friend” in the form of the book A Century of Christian Science Healing. Thankfully I still have my copy (1966 edition). I think I read it once or twice many years ago, in the early days of my study of Christian Science. As I recall, I found the overwhelming “tide of healing” described in it really helped solidify my understanding of the power and scope of what Christian Science can really do. This was clear proof that Science can sweep away any and all claims of error when correctly applied and that it really is the Truth that makes us free. This was what I had been looking for since I was very young.

Today as I completed reading it again, I am experiencing many of the same thoughts and feelings that I had then. I have noticed, as I walk to and from my office each day, an enlarged view of all I see. The material objects don’t change much, but the context they now exist in has changed. It is more and more apparent that the picture that mortal mind is presenting is less important and powerful to affect us when God is acknowledged as the only power directing us.

I realize how important this changed outlook can be as we face the seemingly endless rancor and division that try to color almost every aspect of public life today. It is as if we are drowning in a sea of negativity and doubt, and only divine Science can show us the way out.

Choosing favorite healings from the large number of outstanding ones was not easy, except for one. It is the healing of Joseph Mann that occurred in 1886. (p. 25) I remember hearing about this healing either from fellow Christian Scientists or a lecturer in the early days of my study. The first time I heard it described, I found myself thinking this is really unequivocal proof that Christian Science is the truth. That healing provided such indisputable proof of what Mrs. Eddy had taught about Science and its power that it became a touchstone for me whenever circumstances caused me to doubt Science.

As for a second testimony, I found myself especially drawn to the later healings in the book that had been aired on the Radio series “How Christian Science Heals” in the late 50s, especially Ralph Burr’s. (pp. 27-29) This was a time before I had even started studying Christian Science, but I knew enough about it to believe that it was the truth that I was looking for. I only heard these broadcasts sporadically and never knew when I would run across one, but each time it happened I was filled with the feeling that these healings were without a doubt examples of God in operation in the lives of ordinary people, and that someday I would have the chance to study it myself.

Ralph Burr’s demonstration of Divine Mind’s ability to provide an answer to a perplexing technical question reminded me of an incident early in my teaching career when a colleague and I were teaching multiple sections of a biology lab in which the students were to determine the amount of protein in their cell cultures. They were using an assay method that had multiple steps and required use of several different reagents. This assay was the major work of that week’s labs, and the results would be used for further work that they would do. Unfortunately, the assay was not working properly, and a week’s worth of labs were in jeopardy. My colleague and I had spent hours trying to find the problem behind the failure but without success. We were facing having to cancel the lab for a large number of students if we could not find the solution.

We had come to what seemed like an insurmountable wall, and we looked at each other with no idea as to what to do next. I thought at that moment, “We have not tried everything; I should pray.” I suggested to my colleague that we take a few moments to clear our minds and see if new inspiration might come our way. I started my prayer from the standpoint of only one Mind being in charge; that everything that needs to be known is already known by God, and that we cannot be cut off from that knowledge. A feeling of certainty came over me, and, after a fairly brief interval, we both looked up simultaneously and said, “We must look at the technician’s notebook.” This is a record of how the tech prepared each of the solutions we had been using. Often this record is not kept current, but we quickly found the necessary page and immediately saw that one reagent had been prepared at a ten-fold higher concentration than it should have. The problem was solved, and the week’s labs were saved. God was clearly in charge of this situation, and it didn’t take long for us to realize it when we looked in the right direction.

In regard to your last question for the assignment, asking how we can be more active in healing ourselves and others through our understanding of Christian Science after reading this book, I can only say that it has given me a more expansive view of the applicability of Christian Science to all aspects of human existence.  

This was brought home to me very clearly in the final chapter, “The Horizon of Healing,” which provides a powerful overview of Christian Science in action in a number of different areas. The Christianity and Science section was particularly prescient in recognizing in 1966 the very issues still facing humanity today from “the total extinction of the human race” to “the indefinite prolongation of human life.” To me, this illustrates how all-encompassing this Science has been, and still is today, to address every single problem of humanity. Even when I feel overwhelmed with what appears to be the reality of all the world’s problems, and my faith in my ability to do anything about them wavers, all I have to do is return to this book for proof that the Science which Mrs. Eddy gave the world is still with us showing the pathway forward.

“So I'm rebuilding. And walking with God.”

I find myself rebuilding, which feels good.  I fell down there for a while.  I was suffering with the sense that things were wrong (with these times), that I was having family issues; and then my son’s dog died (I was taking care of her).  And then a calf was stillborn.   

But as I was driving one day and praying for my daughter’s stomach problem, I came to the place where it dawns that one isn’t fixing anything. That perfection is real. That perfection is real because God is perfect and all.  And today I said, “well then I want to know YOU better.”  Also, yesterday I caught a message that I am the diamond of God’s cutting.  Not that guilty incompatible one to whom nothing goes right.

So I’m rebuilding.  And walking with God.

“we are turning to the One Mind which knows all truthful ideas, and that’s what brings healing”

1. A Century of Christian Science Healing changed my view of man. When we seem to have a challenge or challenges, they may try to overtake our sense of existence. The challenges appear to suggest that they are more real than our own identities, as God’s man, or even more real than God, Her/Himself, and a “yes, but” kind of existence endeavors to take the reins. What really struck me, when reading A Century of Christian Science Healing, was that no matter what the seeming challenge or mortal picture was – no matter how dramatic, horrific, long-lasting, or engulfing it appeared to be, or no matter how tenaciously it tried to cling to the testifier – the truth came through, and they could see what man was and what man was not. These uplifted views of man, through a Scientific lens, allowed these individuals to identify themselves as aligned with or surrounded by God’s qualities.

There was an amazingly varied array of testimonies, but in many cases, the details of the specific metaphysical truths were absent. Humanly, this could seem less than satisfying, because the suggestion is, “Yes, but we need to know the precise metaphysics behind the healing, if we want to see the same kind of healing in our own lives.” But, I knew that wasn’t the case, because I remembered the many times you have reminded us that the claim, “We don’t know the truths that will heal us,” is simply part of the illusion. We are not trying to load our human consciousness with powerful truths but are turning to the One Mind, which knows all truthful ideas, and that’s what brings healing. I thoroughly enjoyed reading A Century of Christian Science Healing. It banished the malicious aggressive suggestion that Christian Science doesn’t heal. Many of the situations seemed beyond human hope of healing.

2. One of my favorites was unfathomable from a human perspective but crystal clear from a God-centered point of view of God’s all-present power. The testifier had his legs and stomach run over by a truck containing five yards of rock. To human sense, under normal circumstances, this would seem to be a clear-cut example of how man, like all forms of matter, is governed by the laws of physics. If a large, heavy, solid object rolls over a smaller, more fragile object, the one on the bottom isn’t going to fare too well; that’s just physics. This testimony presented a kind of evidence that seemed not only indisputable but also horrendous from a human point of view. The prayerful work of the man, his mother, and a practitioner (who the man never met until a year after this occurrence) resulted in a total reversal of the laws of gravity and physical structure. To me, this was an incredibly tangible example of the accessible power of God, as witnessed through Christian Science. (p. 114)

The other was an amazing example of God’s Love and ever presence. It involved six children who were saved from drowning, when the canoe, they were paddling, overturned. Again, to human sense, this testimony seemed unbelievable! I love the distinct feeling of the immediate presence of God to keep the six of them safe in the water, for two whole hours. The eldest, not a particularly great swimmer, proved that his strength and endurance came from God, as he swam about four miles to find help, reciting truths he had learned in Sunday School the whole time. The other five children, (the youngest, four years old) stayed afloat with the boat for the two hours while saying prayers they had learned. The little girl’s explanation that she knew the water was over her father and mother’s heads but not over God’s head, shows such an obvious childlike acknowledgement God’s ever-present care and love for his children. (p. 110)

3. We saw a kind of a mixture of those two testimonies in our family. It began when my twin brother, a little less than two years old, was found floating face down in our large wading pool. He had gone in to get a ball, which hadn’t been noticed by the other children playing baseball in our backyard. My older brother (then about eight years old) found him, carried him out of the pool and went to get my mother.

When my mother got to my twin brother, the situation looked dire. He wasn’t breathing. She picked him up and held him and declared that God was his life. She took him into her bedroom, and she wouldn’t put him down until she was truly sure about that statement. The other children in the family were elsewhere praying as well. Not too long after, the children were allowed to come into the bedroom. My sister recently told me that she remembers that she could see that my mom was happy, which confused her because her little brother was crying and coughing up water. That was really the end of the story. At the insistence of some relatives, because so many children had witnessed the drowning, the fire department was called, and this resulted in my brother’s being placed in the hospital overnight for observation, but no medical treatment was needed. We have always been so grateful to God for that undeniable proof of God as the source of life.

4. The idea that I mentioned in my first question is the one that I find most helpful – an awareness of man, and therefore all of us, as God’s own children and reflections, rather than whatever images appear before the mirror, is so helpful for not being taken in by the mortal picture. It gives new impetus to handling problems, physical, economic, or those concerning relationships. Just as those numerous individuals were able to see through and overcome myriad challenges by turning to Mary Baker Eddy’s writings, as well as those many paths of communication distributed by the Christian Science Publishing Society, I too, can refresh my thought to see myself and those around me, in the same light! It encourages me to work, with expectation, about older challenges that have been neglected or accepted and see that they are not a part of that man (as proven by so many individuals in A Century of Christian Science Healing.) I believe that this is a very important position to take, today especially, when so much of the world is trying to convince us that disease is a real threat to man and has a definite cause. I was so grateful to read this book now. It a strong refutation of this world thought.

“A spiritual discipline and a venue for healing”

1. Yes. Commitment to learning more about God through whatever unfolds in my day.

Several years ago, I had the same realization as the testifier quoted in your 2020 Association Assignment letter: “...What I really wanted was to know God better – to know Him as he actually is – to know the truth.” And I set about doing a three-hour daily study broken into one-hour segments. I studied the Lesson-Sermon, I began a deep read of my Christian Science Class Instruction notes, and the third hour I devoted to reading the periodicals, MBE’s writings, lectures...wherever I was led to look. I loved this daily routine, and my understanding of God and Christian Science was expanding.

And then two years ago, I was suddenly impelled to terminate my business of 20 years and begin a Master’s degree in Creative Non-Fiction. It felt like getting a degree in writing was what I should be doing instead of my business. For income, I continued with a separate part time job I’ve had for nine years.

It feels like I’m doing what I should be doing at this time. But, especially after reading all the inspiring healings in A Century of Christian Science Healing, I’ve been taking a second look at my decision. The commentary on the bottom of page 188, especially, is giving me a different perspective.

“...All business, properly regarded and rightly carried on, can become the Father’s business in the degree that it is made an occasion to serve God and one’s fellow men. To turn to the divine Mind for wisdom in all the transactions and challenges of daily life is to carry Christian Science healing into these secular activities which are so often put in an entirely different category from the worship of God. ...”

An interesting theme has been emerging for me recently as I’m doing my homework – consider writing as a sacred activity, a respectful recording of human life, helping make sense of the facts and figures of daily living from a spiritual perspective – as the Monitor so aptly and abundantly demonstrates.

All of this is to tell you that I’m endeavoring to make this degree a spiritual discipline and a venue for healing. I tacked up in my office a copy of Hymn 602, “You Know My Words,” which you had us sing at one of our Association meetings. I’m challenged to carry out this intention; however, when I do, my voice is freed.

2. The first of my favorite accounts is of Peter Henniker-Heaton’s healing. I saw him at a youth meeting in Boston back in the 70s. He was walking with a cane, and there was such respect for him expressed by the folks we talked with. What stands out to me in this testimony is his absolute “conviction of spiritual perfection.” He KNEW what he was learning about God with such clarity, even as it took years to be physically evidenced in his limbs.

My second favorite account is by Ernest Dutton. (pp. 129 -131) Even though Mr. Dutton’s son was killed in action, he came to understand: “Just because I couldn’t actually see my son, talk with him, or be with him humanly wouldn’t alter his real life one bit.” When one of our sons joined the Army and served two terms in Iraq, I was distraught and angry. My husband told me that if I didn’t change my attitude, I would lose him. I wasn’t about to lose him, so I stopped ranting and began rebuilding my relationship with him. He survived two tours, and I know, from what his superiors told us and the stories we heard about him, that he was a blessing to those he served with. We are now the best of friends, and it feels like we’re both growing spiritually. So, Mr. Dutton’s realization that he had to prove “whether I really understood what I had been studying or whether I merely believed it,” is actually a rebuke to me in that I didn’t really approach what he realized. And for this reason, I’m now affirming daily that this son and other members of our family are wholly cared for by our heavenly Father-Mother God.

3. One of our sons became ill in Sunday School. When we got home, he was crying hard, so we called a practitioner. I told the practitioner I was very afraid. She replied, “I know you are.”; I’m sure there were some other meaningful things said to me but it’s this statement that I remember some 40 years later. She knew where her prayer could be directed, on the mother’s thought – my thought. He soon calmed down, as did I. My son had a long nap and when he awoke, he was feeling his usual self.

I have begun to keep a list of my healings and used one listing for a testimony last Wednesday.

4. I’m striving to be intentional about practicing Christian Science in everything I do. To ask God: “what would you have me do today?” To be and do good with what lies before me.

“When God feels more real to me, disease can be seen as unreal”

1. Century didn’t so much change my view of Christian Science healing as confirm important points that are easy to lose sight of in the midst of a challenge: 

• Healing may take a long or a short time, but it is ultimately natural and for everyone.

• While physical relief is wonderful, it is understanding the reality of good and the unreality of evil that brings profound joy.

• All good is ours to accept, but there are times when character reformation, the rejection of stubbornly held beliefs, and radical persistence are required to receive the gift of healing.

• Reflecting unselfed love for others and separating evil from our thought of man is crucial.

• When we are obedient, God helps us overcome errors in consciousness, resulting in healing.

• If others in more desperate circumstances than ours could be faithful to Truth and triumph over evil, so can we!

2. It was my first reading of Century in high school that really turned me on to Christian Science. At that time, my favorite testimonies were Joseph Mann’s healing of the gunshot wound to the heart and Peter Henniker-Heaton’s restoration after ten years of paralysis. Those dramatic experiences convinced me that Christian Science was the truth and could heal anything. 

I’m so grateful to have had a reason to reread the book. This time, flagging and rereading the metaphysical ideas that stand out to me has made this reading even more meaningful. By that measure, a favorite testimony is by Richard Knox Lee (p. 80), who after surviving diphtheria, was stricken with heart trouble and consumption of both lungs and finally given up by the doctors. The metaphysics are clear and compelling:

“...the many kind doctors…had gone to my body and done what they could for that, but had paid no attention to my thought, which directly controlled my body. Now the Christian Scientist did exactly the reverse: she took no notice of my body but went straight to my thought and set that right with the truth of being…that God made man perfect, in His own spiritual image and likeness, and that as I realized I was that image and likeness, I would lose the sense of disease and be free from it.”

I can truly relate to Mr. Lee when he writes, “...I found passages [in SH] that gave me fresh hope and encouragement, especially where it says: ‘Waking to Christ’s demand, mortals experience suffering. This causes them, even as drowning men, to make vigorous efforts to save themselves; and through Christ’s precious love these efforts are crowned with success.’” (22:6)

“Then and there I decided that I, too, would make vigorous efforts to save myself by turning resolutely away from fear, self-pity, and the distressing symptoms of disease, and holding my thoughts to this new and enlightened sense of God and man… .”

So often when I’ve felt as though I were drowning in some problem, I’ve remembered that statement from Science and Health and been roused to make vigorous efforts to save myself from suffering by turning away from the same errors Mr. Lee did and lifting my thought to God. Each time, the Christ has provided the inspiration to meet the need of the moment and to move me a step forward in spiritual growth. Like the practitioner on his case, I’ve been forced to disregard the body and go back to the simple truths of God and man in His image. 

Another testimony I continue to revisit is by Robert Shannon, (p. 97) who was dramatically healed of a devastating eye injury. What I love most is his statement at the end:

“I was rejoicing through all this false thinking and manifestation in that I knew of the efficacy of Christian Science, that I had been a witness to the presence of the healing power of the Christ, Truth, which had annulled one of the so-called strong laws of matter the instant it was applied, and that the Bible truths are applicable to our every human need and are demonstrable – “God with us.’” 

It’s so inspiring that he was able to rejoice even while the “false thinking and manifestation” were still going on. He tells us his buoyancy was possible for three reasons: he knew Christian Science heals, he’d already witnessed its healing power in his experience, and he was convinced that the Bible promises are universal and provable. Whenever I return to these basic points – that I know Christian Science heals, I’ve personally experienced it, and I do accept the Bible promises – I find myself re-grounded on the rock of Truth and ready to move forward. When God feels more real to me, disease can be seen as unreal, and the joy is there.

3. It has been so encouraging to read about the same healing Christ at work in the lives of Association members and guests today. The testimonies on the website are strengthening and inspiring. In “Prayer for Church and Sunday School brings some immediate results,” the account of a Boy Scout trip when the writer healed his fear of tetanus reminded me of a healing I had as a teenager. 

My mother and grandmother had suffered from severe menstrual pain, and I seemed to have inherited that problem. There wasn’t an expectation that it could be healed, and I’d been satisfied with being able to manage the condition. Though I was grateful I didn’t suffer as much as my relatives had, I was a pretty serious Sunday School student and felt that healing should be possible.

One Saturday morning I was lying on the sofa with a hot water bottle over my stomach, regretting that I wouldn’t be able to participate in a daylong hike with my Sunday School to a beautiful wilderness area.  However, as I struggled between studying the Bible Lesson and feeling gripped by pain, something within me rebelled at being ruled by this condition. I didn’t realize it then, but it must have been the Christ rousing my thought.

I finally decided I was going on this hike! To my mother’s surprise, I got up and announced my decision just in time to join the group before they left on the excursion. The pain tried to persist, but having taken my stand, I was strengthened to continue resisting it all through the long drive and rugged hike up a steep mountain.  The longer I persisted, the easier it became to mentally stay the course, and the more dominion I felt. I don’t recall the moment when my freedom came, but I do remember having a really fun time, and looking back I see the experience was an important steppingstone of spiritual growth.

I’ve been recording my healings and mental breakthroughs for a long time but not as far back as that teenage incident. It’s good to see how progress is a building process. We can see our early demonstrations in the way our Leader spoke of her first writings: “... she values them as a parent may treasure the memorials of a child’s growth, and she would not have them changed.” (SH ix:32 she)

4. Over the last several months as I’ve struggled to move to the next level in healing, I’ve been realizing with increasing urgency that each day I need to answer rightly these three questions: “Have you renounced self? Are you faithful? Do you love?” (Mis. 238:22)

Holding to the sense of a personal self that is in turns suffering, frightened, mesmerized, self-conscious, agitated, reactionary, etc., has a stultifying effect on thought. To the degree that I’ve been able to reject this self when it argues for existence, I’ve moved forward. The challenge is to keep on rejecting it, and that’s where faithfulness comes in. 

Reading Century has been so helpful because it reminds me of why I should and can be faithful. We’re faithful to what we love, and I love what the book reveals about the promise of Christian Science, springing from the nature of God as Love.

In the following wartime experience, I’m inspired by the testifier’s demonstration of both faithfulness and love:

“Few people know the suffering and the sacrifices made up there... You will never know what Christian Science meant to me... At all times I kept the fundamentals of what I have learned foremost in my thought, and under the most desperate circumstances I held fast to Principle.  In the daytime I read – sometimes aloud to my foxhole buddy...cramped there in the bitter cold. At night I prayed while standing watch. I did not pray selfishly, either, nor for myself, but just for freedom from this world of materiality for all of us.” (p. 121)

Every day I’m discovering new ways to answer Mrs. Eddy’s three questions rightly.

“I was able to see more clearly the everlasting perfection of the divine and how the human patterns this reality”

1. I feel more of a trust in turning to God and an understanding of our whole self which includes all right ideas as the perfect idea of perfect God in various situations. This viewpoint is the truth we can turn to as reality irrespective of the human situations, which protects, adjusts, and heals. I also found that I have more readily cleared my thought and known the truth regarding friends, neighbors, and passersby.

2. Throughout the book there are strong accounts and affirmations of the perfection of God and man and man in the image and likeness of God. The simplicity and strength of these statements and understanding of these truths stood out to me as very important in these significant healings.

One of my favorite healings is an account by Marta Gehring where she states, “It taught me to live, to love, and to be grateful, … When my thoughts had become clearer and purer, when false thinking had given place to right thinking, then also my body was made clean.…I confidently asked the practitioner for help.…In the afternoon the pain ceased; and then something wonderful happened: parts in my body changed their position without causing me pain. With surprise, but also with relief, I perceived the divine operation.” (p. 78) I was impressed by her simple and strong trust in the treatment and the significance of this healing by divine operation. I was able to see and feel more clearly the everlasting perfection of the divine and how the human always patterns this reality. I saw and felt more clearly how we are the complete reflection of perfect God, always present and in operation. 

My other favorite account was by Mrs. J. W. Robbins and John W. Robbins of their son who was healed of illnesses and long-term spinal trouble. The account states, “In three weeks he was not only free from the bronchial and rheumatic trouble, but also from the spinal trouble. The braces worn for over ten years were taken off, and the boy was well. In spite of the unusually severe weather of that spring, he had no trouble of a bronchial nature and was absent from school only two days, whereas he had previously lost more than half his schooling. Last fall he walked nearly five miles to and from school and even essayed to play ‘Rugby’.” (p. 65) It also states, “During the past year he has grown stronger, straighter, and added between one and two inches to his height. …He engages in all boyish sports ...” (p. 64) I was impressed by the trust and complete understanding of the practitioner and his family that he was the perfect idea of perfect God with no accompanying ifs or whys, and by the expectancy of all that is good, right, and free. It was a complete healing of the young boy expressing his natural and original state and self of freedom in health, activity, and life.

3. One healing I thought about recently was when I had a rash on my back just prior to beginning my study in Christian Science. I thought about our true identity as the expression of the Christ, which includes no illness or disease, and that the more I embodied and expressed the Christ, the less this condition would seem real or a part of my identity. As I grew in my understanding and demonstration of my true self and the expression of these Christ qualities, the rash disappeared.

4. I am going to turn more trustingly to Truth with expectancy of protection and healing. I am going to understand more of this truth for others, including general prayer for friends, neighbors, and our community. I am also going to share these ideas about prayer and healing with more trust and inner clarity of the simplicity and certainty of these truths of perfect God and perfect man that heals always.

“Christian Scientist = Healer”

1. At the outset of both of my readings of the book, I was struck by reading the testimonies from the first twenty or so years. Assuming these are representative, it seems that in the early days the term Christian Scientist was considered synonymous with healer. If people knew there was a Christian Scientist in town, that’s where they’d go if they required support. There was no evidence of any ecclesiastical strata – one, a class of church goers, and another, a special class of practitioners and teachers to whom one goes if healing was what is sought. Quite the contrary. If you were known as a Christian Scientist, your reputation as a healer was already established and preceded you.

It’s a useful and sobering lens through which to look at our work today. Yes, we all love church and its various activities. We serve our branches in various capacities as readers, Sunday school teachers, church officers, and the like. We read the church publications, attend services, and do the best we can to maintain fellowship with other members. All well and good, but nonetheless insufficient. There is more that is being demanded of us – demanded of me – than just showing up, writing checks, and smiling sweetly. The spirit from the early days of the movement remains relevant and needs to be reclaimed. I have to do a better job demonstrating the truth of that equation: Christian Scientist = Healer.

Working for and with God, I must think of myself as a healer first and foremost, and act as if this is my primary duty. Put more starkly – if I don’t do more and better healing work, none of this other stuff really matters all that much.

2. Asking to choose a favorite healing from this book is like asking to choose your favorite tulip after a springtime stroll through the gardens of Versailles. Nevertheless, you asked, so I answer.

Peter Henniker-Heaton’s healing (pp. 156-157) is pretty much legendary. I met him when I first came to work at The Mother Church in the late 70s, having loved his poetry and his writings in the church magazines. But after re-reading his testimony, it is clear that the spiritual mountaintop from which he wrote “Jubilee” and “O Thou Unchanging Truth” (the latter coming during one of the darkest periods of this whole experience) was the result of years of climbing with a level of spiritual courage, conviction and commitment that beggars the imagination.

The “railroad man” (pp. 184-188.) What simple goodness encompassed his journey! The honesty and sincerity of this account was deeply moving. It was yet more evidence that demonstration comes in many forms to any sincere seeker of Truth. Gratitude and joy practically burst through the pages. This man found his pearl of great price, and he wasn’t letting it go.

3. Like many other churches (both within and outside the Christian Science movement) our branch has migrated to online services for the foreseeable future. This was an account that I wrote up a few weeks ago to be read at our weekly testimony meeting. I hadn’t thought about this particular experience in years, but I shared it as evidence of what a small band of committed Christian Scientists can do working together. Additionally, I rather like the idea of keeping a list of healings and have already begun that task.

With all the headlines that confront us today, it’s understandable that our initial response might be one of helplessness. “What can I possibly do?” might be an understandable response. But I recall an incident that speaks to what concerted prayer by a small congregation of spiritual thinkers can accomplish when we are all of one Mind.

My first job out of school was for the Michigan Energy Administration. It was quite a time – it was the coldest winter in decades (Lake Michigan had frozen over for the first time in a century), there were natural gas and propane shortages throughout the Midwest, refineries shutting down left and right, continual disputes about policy, and other sundry issues.

One day in mid-February I got a call that really jolted me. It was from the company that delivered fuel oil to many businesses in southeastern Michigan. Its biggest customer was The University of Michigan. The owner told me that because of the refinery shutdowns, he didn’t have enough fuel to give to U of M, and if that was the case the university would have to shut down. I realized immediately the seriousness of what he was telling me. The specter of sending tens of thousands of students home and furloughing thousands of faculty and staff (this was in the days before the advent of the Internet) would have a cascading effect throughout Michigan and perhaps the entire Great Lakes region. This was a big deal economically and socially – but no one could really know about this. We didn’t want to provoke panic.

I was a class taught Christian Scientist and a member of both our branch church in Ann Arbor and former member of the Christian Science College Organization at U of M. I called the current org president (who also was my former roommate), and as calmly as I could, told him that he and the other org members had some work to do. He said he’d get the message to all of the org members. I then called our college org advisor – a Christian Science practitioner, teacher, and lecturer. The advisor told me the story of the little wise man from Ecclesiastes (9: 14-15, 17).

That story gave me the spiritual strength I needed to face down the fear and realize that the weapons of this warfare – that were right at my fingertips – were indeed mighty. I prayed diligently over the next week, as did my org friends.

And over the next several weeks a curious thing happened. Throughout the Great Lakes region, the cold snap that had gripped us for months inexplicably lifted. It got warmer. Spring thaw came early. Lake Michigan unfroze. Demand for heating oil, natural gas, and propone dropped, shortages were no longer shortages, and the entire episode passed like nothing had occurred.

This episode has stood out as a beacon for me, evidence of what a committed group of devoted Christian Scientists – spiritually empowered by prayer – can accomplish working shoulder-to-shoulder. It gives me great hope that what spiritually empowered people around the world are doing now in the midst of beliefs of contagion can accomplish similar results, helping to lift the miasma of fear, doubt, recrimination and tribalism and allowing harmony to rightfully reign.

4. Oh my goodness the Big Question! As we all are, I am familiar with Mrs. Eddy’s command to doff lavender kid gloves and become consecrated warriors. But, what I have been feeling for some time goes beyond self-exhortations or zeal that peaks, then peters out all too soon. It has been clear to me for some time that this time in the history of the Christian Science movement we’ve run out of time expecting somebody else to do this work. It’s my movement, so this responsibility is mine to do. If I don’t do it, it’s just not going to get done. To use (and mix) sports metaphors, I must “up my game” – I’ve got to “bring it.” So, what the heck does that mean? Four things come immediately to thought:

• I have discovered a newfound vigilance in and alertness to just what really is vs. pretends to be my thinking at any given time. It’s not enough to be a good man, a good dad, a good neighbor, or a good church member (although those certainly don’t hurt!). We live in a mental realm, so it’s high time to get on with being aware what is divinely truth and infinitely all encompassing, being more aware of the good that’s all around for me and others, irrespective of circumstances.

• A desire to really, truly understand and imbibe the Spirit and letter of what I am reading and learning spiritually, a deepening and nearly insatiable hunger. Examples:

  • For several years I have printed out a PDF copy of the weekly Bible Lesson. Each morning the paper on which the lesson is printed becomes festooned with notes, references, definitions, musings, and insights. Many weeks I have to print out several copies of the lesson just to keep pace with the flow.

  • I’ve started re-reading Science and Health from cover to cover – just because I’m feeling this deep desire to learn, know, and grow more in order to serve God better and in more immediate ways.

  • For many years my reading of the church magazines has been haphazard. That’s changed. Over the past year I now read each issue of the Sentinel and Journal as if each was a combination of an academic journal and a “how to” notebook compiled by other scientific researchers. I am more than curious about the work of other healers as they explain their approaches to what they have found successful in their various practices, colleague-to-colleague. Such a perspective makes the inspiration I find in the articles more purposeful and directed.

• In a recent talk, a friend commented on Mrs. Eddy’s well-known instruction to “always begin your treatment by allaying the fear of patients” (S&H 411:27–28) by wryly observing that it might be a good idea for us to stop being afraid of patients. I winced when I read that, because that’s something I find myself doing – sidestepping giving treatment or being open to treat others because of concerns that I don’t know enough, that I’m not sufficiently spiritually minded, that I’ve had a bad day (or week, or month, or…). A more honest assessment of my own fledging practice reveals, ruefully, that I find myself shirking my responsibility to employ the tools of scientific treatment as I have been taught in class instruction because – well, there’s no good reason other than animal magnetism and cowardice. That’s just got to stop.

• Finally, I’m humbly learning how to be a better lyre player (see Mis. 107:11). More love, less self. More spirit, less matter. More soaring and singing, less ruminating on the branch. More praying that my demonstration of Love become more consistent, more insistent, more concentric, more humble, more aware of the needs of others, more feeling the genuine joy of seeing good flow into the lives of others upon whom my thoughts and prayers rest, as well as my own life experience.

“I needed to counteract mortal mind’s incessant chatter”

1. Since reading the book, I realized how much more I needed to counteract mortal mind’s incessant chatter, and instead, ask for, and listen for, Gods’ direction.

2. As I read the book with the assignment in mind, I recorded page numbers and a few words to describe testimonies under the heading ‘Possible Favorites’ and wound up with 18 of them:  ‘Why don’t you heal your wife yourself’( p.18), Indian captive (p.43), physician turned Christian Scientist (p.55), 14-year-old with children on a lake (p.110), fear of a cleft palate (p.111), from minister to student of Christian Science (p.117), healing of unruly prisoner (p.131), WWII POW (p.136), lost eyesight (p.147), longterm healing (p.156), cyanide crystals (p.168), “The oranges you are seeking are the fruits of Love, and I am going to help you find them” (p. 177), “I can’t help my nature” (p.192), red lights (p.193), aircraft engineer cantilever design (p.195), reform school (p.203), “’I’healed me” (p.217), airplane engineer gearing mechanism (p.227), aircraft flameout (p.229).

I’ll start with a testimony given on February 4, 1955, by Dr. Ernest H. Lyons, Jr., professor of chemistry at Principia College as part of the weekly radio broadcast “How Christian Science Heals” and then later repeated on television. 

Dr. Lyons told of how he was able to overcome fatal poisoning from cyanide crystals he saw lodged in an accidental burn wound he received during a lab procedure. His thought was: “But I was not frightened of poisoning for I was conscious of the presence of infinite Life, God, overruling the picture of accident and possible death.”  After a sudden, completely unexpected accident, to immediately have such a healing thought beginning with no fear, suggests to me someone who is continually and totally leaning on God and the teachings of Christian Science – and demonstrates how dedicated and prepared we need to be as Christian Scientists. What impressed me just as much, though, was the way Dr. Lyons respectfully, thoroughly, even lovingly, replied to a chemical engineer who took radical opposition upon hearing his testimony. Dr. Lyons’ written reply demonstrated to me how completely selfless a true Christian Scientist is in taking no offence and sharing all he believes could enlighten and benefit the offender. I treasure this Christ-like attitude.

My next testimony choice would have to be that of Adrienne Vinciguerra, the WWII POW whose story spans several years. About being in the war camp, she related “…we seemed to be surrounded by the power of evil and nothing else.” But when she opened her thought enough to catch a glimpse of a new startling view, she began an inspired completely God-centered life of remarkable demonstrations – each one of them could be a memorable testimony by itself.

Adrienne had been allowed two weeks from the concentration camp to seek help for poor eyesight. The eye specialist, who said he could do nothing for her medically, told her that what she needed was faith in God and gave her a copy of Science and Health. She could not fathom, at the time, how she could have faith in a God she apparently saw no evidence of and resisted reading the book. That a doctor at that time (or maybe because it was at that particular time) would tell someone he could not help that she needed faith in God and give her the means to find it, is quite remarkable in itself! At his insistence, she finally began to read. In a week’s time, when she had to return to camp, she related “…the expression on my face had changed so much that some of the people in the camp didn’t recognize me.”    

I have always been drawn to testimonies of how others have been introduced to Christian Science. “How I Found Christian Science” is the first thing I look for in the Sentinel. I think it could also be named “How Christian Science Found Me.”

3. Several years ago, my dentist advised me to get a second root canal on a tooth because of a shadowy area that showed up on a routine X-ray. She said that I could suddenly have extreme pain that could only be alleviated with immediate attention. I remember thinking that this would be a good opportunity to rely on Christian Science. A few years went by, and I had forgotten about this until, as I was in the midst of chairing a fundraiser, the tooth began to throb. For the first time, I called a practitioner and at the end of the call she asked, “Are you going to church tomorrow?” to which I replied “Yes.” 

Later that evening, as I was trying to go to sleep, the pain seemed to shift to a different area. I declared “you are a liar and the father of it.” I was then able to drift off to sleep and went to church the next day with only a slight discomfort that soon disappeared. Interestingly enough, that same tooth had to be re-crowned after another few years, and this time a second root canal had to be done before the dentist would do the second crown, since the new X-ray still indicated a problem. As the second root canal was being done, the doctor found a very unusual third root on that tooth that had been missed entirely on the first one!

4. I’ve already become more active in our branch church. I am becoming more aware of opportunities to have and sometimes share healing thoughts when needed. I’ve gone back to reading the ‘Articles and Editorials’ that were shared with us by our teacher some years ago and am making more of an effort to “stand porter at the door of thought.”

“…even when you might feel humanly stuck or confused”

1. Yes. The major thing that was very clear to me after reading Century was that healing is a natural result of gaining a better understanding of God and of one’s relationship to God. It’s easy to focus on the desire for healing, but all these accounts underscore that healings are a result of the realization of our oneness with God. This sentence on page 239 of A Century of Christian Science Healing expresses it well: “The purpose of turning to God for healing is therefore not merely to change the evidence before the physical senses but to heal the deeper alienation of human thought from God.”

2. I really love the healing by Dwight S. Mills in which he had no human way of determining how to design a needed device for an airplane, but he knew that “God provides everything we need – if we are alert enough spiritually to discern it.” (p. 228) He began his prayer by thanking God for His goodness and then by realizing the Allness of infinite Mind and therefore his capacity as Mind’s reflection to express this same intelligence. His prayer was based on recognizing his unity with divine Mind. And then the solution to this seemingly unsolvable design challenge came, and it was perfect and complete. This is especially meaningful to me because in my business there have seemed to be a series of things like this – and I am in the midst of something like this at the moment – so I am finding this especially inspiring and helpful. My human impulse has been to try all the human solutions I can think of, but those have been exhausted, so it makes it clear what I need to do (and what I should always start by doing): turn to divine Mind. The last sentence in his testimony is very helpful: “To me this was a clear proof that when we listen for God’s guidance humbly and prayerfully, we can be led to the right answer, even though from a human standpoint the problem appears to be without a solution.” Listening to God with humility seems like a very important part of prayer regarding any human circumstance. I might not humanly know, but Mind knows, and this complete trust in God – not my human effort but yielding and listening to divine Mind – will bring healing.

There are so many other healings in this book I loved and found deeply inspiring, but I found the testimony by the railroad dining car supervisor on pages 184-188 particularly meaningful. He had a drinking and gambling problem but was moved out of love to read Science and Health out loud to his wife, who had fallen down the stairs. He found that it was benefiting him as well – the desire to drink left him that night – and after his wife was healed, he began studying Christian Science. He stopped smoking and gambling as well and really became a new man. I think what made a big impression on me was the love that this man expressed: how he was motivated by love to pick up the unopened Science and Health in his dresser and read to his wife, and later how he found a new way of relating to the men he supervised in the dining cars that was focused on helping them succeed instead of just extracting labor from them. He writes that the “most important thing to me at that time was learning the meaning of Love.” There was something so tender in this account that I find very moving – he really felt a closeness to God, expressed here: “He sustains you – that His thoughts are your thoughts, if you will permit them to be.” He writes that this quote by Mary Baker Eddy on page 445 of Science and Health, “Christian Science silences human will, quiets fear with Truth and Love…” meant that the “I” came out of human will and planning, that he was “just reflecting what was desired of God’s plans. All of your good – not intentions, but your good actions put into practice – that was it.” I’ve become aware that I have been being willful about some things in my life, and this idea of silencing human will with Love is very helpful.

“These were not sunny-day-only Christian Scientists”

This book is not new to me, but I have read it in spurts before and even that was some time ago. Reading it straight through and then reading it a second time really did have an impact on my thought about healing. The variety of circumstances under which healing happened, and the insignificance of the obstacles to it happening, gave me encouragement.

The Covid-19 situation we are facing has been referred to as war, and putting down the bombardment of news about it daily, does seem like we are in the midst of a battle. So, I found the WWI and WWII experiences of special interest. These were not sunny-day-only Christian Scientists, but rather these testifiers were holding to Truth under bleak conditions and while bombs dropped around them and even while imprisoned. I visualized the soldier who took his books to the frontline to study when he could (p.74) and was impressed by the soldier who got clear insight that he had “no material body to protect for man’s life is spiritual” (p.75) while standing knee-deep in mud and being heavily shelled.

The testimony from a German soldier during World War I (p.74) was a reminder there is one Mind and its ideas. The soldier states, “During these years of war, thanks to my efforts constantly to think right and to reveal a demonstrable knowledge of Truth, I was never in a position where I was obliged to harm my fellow man.”

A WWII soldier read to his foxhole buddy (whoever it happened to be) during the day and prayed at night – not selfishly, he wrote, but “for freedom from this world of materiality for all of us.” (p.122) Interesting testimony of two Japanese people during WWII, one in Japan headed off to the Army and one in the United States also more than likely facing the internment that happened in our country. The Japanese soldier spoke about having a false sense of nationalism. (p.129) He tells of what the Japanese friend in America said that gave him a healing thought: She said: “I do not have to think American thoughts. I do not have to think Japanese thoughts. I have only to think God’s thoughts.” The soldier realized while he was thinking of himself as Japanese, he wasn’t thinking of himself as God’s child. I thought how this is a helpful thought in combatting the partisan and divisive political thinking going on in our country right now.

The intro to the section on World War II experiences had an important message for now. “The call to help in the world’s thinking is no longer something that can pass unheeded, it is an imperative duty. Things we did not like to look at nor think of, problems we did not feel able to cope with, must now be faced manfully, and correct thinking concerning the world’s doings cultivated and maintained.” (p.120)

The healings that seemed to take a longer time were so transformative.

Peter Henniker-Heaton’s inspirational demonstration (p.156) made over ten plus years that climaxed in a complete victory over the crippling lie of paralysis is humbling and one I have often reminded myself of. He speaks of great spiritual joy filling him, and this happening while war waged outside the apartment he was confined to. His poetry evidences the peace he found in God. He states, “…and with the joy came an ever keener sense of spiritual innocence, a perception that man, being the individual expression of divine Mind, could never have entertained at any moment any incorrect thinking which could have caused or could justify suffering. The recognition of good’s Allness and evil’s nothingness followed and irresistibly took charge of the physical condition.” Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health, “The realization that all inharmony is unreal brings objects and thoughts into human view in their true light, and presents them as beautiful and immortal.” (276:12)

A woman working through the diagnosis of cancer (pp.149-151), being led by the importance of the Bible in Mrs. Eddy’s experience, set to the study of it in connection with our textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. She states that “she found new significance in the New Testament account of Jesus’ disciples. Not only the spiritual qualities of thought that each of the disciples represented, but the human failings each had to overcome.” She further states, “And just as Jesus lovingly washed the feet of his disciples after the Passover supper, the understanding of the truth and love he taught could cleanse my thought of jealousy, doubt, pride, apathy – everything standing in the way of my healing.” She speaks of the time it took for the healing as “fruitful years.” She was entirely healed and healthier and stronger than she had ever been in her life. She wrote 30 years after the complete healing.

A couple of the healings pertinent to my experience past and present:

A woman left with five children to care for during the depression years, lost her job, and nearly exhausted of funds, had her purse stolen. (p.105) This spoke to me as I had many years as a single parent with limited funds. She states, “Christian Science taught me how I could rely on God every step of the way.” She ends this wonderful testimony of God’s goodness this way, “If all you have left in the house is the understanding that God is Love, and you use that, your needs will be taken care of.” Hers were, and mine were.

Now serving in the Sunday School of my branch church, I was impressed by the experience of the children dumped out of their canoe some distance from shore. (p.110) They used their Sunday School teachings to stay calm. The older boy who swam some distance to reach a nearby boat said he could hear their voices repeating the Scientific Statement of Being and the Little Children’s Prayer as he went for help. As he got tired and cold, he said some phrase of Truth would come to spur him on. The little 4-year- old, when asked what she was thinking while she waited, said, “Well I knew that the water was over father’s head. I knew the water was over mother’s head, but I knew that it wasn’t over God’s head.”

The Century book (p.viii) quotes Mrs. Eddy from Rudimental Divine Science: “Healing physical sickness is the smallest part of Christian Science. It is only the bugle-call to thought and action, in the higher range of infinite goodness.” And it also states in the same paragraph, Paul says in I Corinthians 14, “If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?”

I will start documenting my healings and those I’ve witnessed. I was thinking – what if all the testifiers in this book had not documented their experiences, not given us the inspiration and proof that the Science of the Christ heals and God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.

What am I going to do to be more active in healing?

Worship God only, love more, be more obedient to the rules we have been given, hold more persistently to the truth, be disciplined enough to leave the calling of materiality, reside in Spirit, listen to divine Mind, be willing to follow.

“I never want to give my human opinion”

I am so thankful for the assignment this year!  My favorite healing is Mr. Peter Henniker-Heaton’s.  I have cherished it and thought about it and shared it over the many years that I have been a practitioner. Why? Because it is clearly a healing accomplished in the midst of complete lack of help from matter or material comforts or material reasoning. It could not be said to be “anecdotal” nor could it be said to be a healing arrived at through anything material. I love that he learned the textbook by heart. 

I also have learned much of the textbook simply because I want to be accurate when I am speaking with patients. I never want to give my human opinion. God gives me quotes as I am speaking with someone, and we go to the quote in the books to see the context. His testimony serves as a beacon of light to me and others with whom I have shared it. I also revere the testimony of the woman who found she was able to walk out of a concentration camp because she was totally concentrating on studying the textbook. How powerful is the textbook! She studied it carefully four times as she went hourly through enemy-infested territory, and God guided her throughout her experience.  So humbling!