Seeing my brother and his wife scientifically
/Question 2: Share a testimony other than physical healing in which reading one or more of Skip’s articles had played an important part in your own spiritual study and prayer and final demonstration.
For a long time, I was estranged from one of my brothers and his wife because of something they’d done to another member of the family that I perceived to be selfish, unjust, and harmful. Although I didn’t plan it that way, I didn’t speak with them for a period of years.
As I saw the situation, the obvious problem in our relationship was my brother’s wife, who seemed antagonistic to everything. During family gatherings, she’d find ways to introduce her unpleasant opinions into conversations. Often, we’d spend hours trying to coax her off the acrimonious ledge she chose to perch herself on, but to no avail. Eventually we’d just give up and go our separate ways.
Although my self-imposed hiatus from my brother and his wife could be justified in a court of human opinion, I knew that my thought about them was wrong, and eventually my position began to soften. I regretted erecting a barrier between us.
As I pondered the situation in Christian Science, I remembered this pertinent excerpt from our teacher’s article “Seeing others scientifically” (Journal, October 1987): “A personal assessment is a poor, vague guide to knowing our fellowman. Mary Baker Eddy writes: ‘I earnestly advise all Christian Scientists to remove from their observation or study the personal sense of any one and not to dwell in thought upon their own or others’ corporeality, either as good or evil. According to Christian Science, material personality is an error in premise, and must result in erroneous conclusions.’”
His article “Lessons from the movies” (Sentinel, April 27, 1987) also came to mind. In it he says, “there’s a wonderful scene in an American movie called Places in the Heart….At the end it shows most of the characters in the film sitting in church. Actually, as the camera slowly pans over the pews, we realize that everyone from the story is there. Each one seems full of light and a pure, luminous love. Even those who have been enemies, those who have harmed and misused each other. And even those who have passed on are all there worshipping God, good, together. As a Christian Scientist might describe it, something of their true selves is finally being seen in the light of Christ, the spiritual idea.”
As I prayed about my situation, I began to dismiss the human history and listen for God’s direction on how to put this rift behind us. One day this Bible passage jumped out at me: “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted” (Galatians 6:1).
As I thought about the last part of that verse, I was reasonably sure I would never be tempted to do anything like what my brother and his wife had done. Then it hit me that I’d already been tempted by seeing them as bad actors. I was giving evil a voice, a presence, and a power it didn’t have, and denying God’s all presence and power. I’d also allowed myself to be sucked into a vortex of self-righteousness. It became clear that to “restore such an one in the spirit of meekness” was to restore the fact of God’s allness in my own thinking and in humility recognize all three of us as His perfect spiritual ideas, incapable of going off the rails.
An opportunity to put our relationship back on the right track soon presented itself. My brother, who is not a Christian Scientist, needed a medical procedure that was not available where he lived, but was available where I live. He and his wife needed my help getting to and from the hospital, so we found ourselves working together to plan their trip.
During this time, I exchanged emails with my brother’s wife and had several long phone conversations with her. Things were different now. I saw spiritual qualities in her that had completely eluded me before: diligence, strength of character, intelligence, a genuine love for my brother, and a knack for organization, research, and planning. She also listened to what I had to say, and I listened to what she had to say. My brother eventually made three trips to complete this procedure. All three visits featured harmonious, even enjoyable, interactions.
Last week I visited them in their home and took them to lunch. We had a great time together.
These sentences from “Seeing others scientifically” sum up my experience perfectly: “Persisting in a scientific view of others, we’ll spend far less time in analyzing and lamenting personal weaknesses and peccadilloes or feeling injured by them. We’ll understand that everyone is necessarily emerging from the dream of being a fallible, imperfect mortal. Each one of us is engaged in the effort to rise into spiritual realization that our individuality is wholly the reflection of God, expressing only His goodness and excellence….The one Mind and one Love, which is the only reality of being, produces in man, and as man, perfect unity and complementarity. No idea of God encroaches on another. Every idea is needed and is equally valued by the Father. And it is the very nature of these ideas to be perfectly related at every point, to express the harmony that is the divine reality of being” (Journal, October 1987).