“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.