The light of correct Scientific thought
/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.
Years ago, when I felt ready to take class instruction in Christian Science, I wondered whom to choose for a teacher. I was living in Boston, which had several teachers, so I decided to schedule interviews with each one. As I visited them, they all seemed fine, but I did not feel drawn to any particular one. Moving down my list, however, I did gain a conviction that one thing I was not looking for in a teacher was a relationship based on human personality. Beyond this, I did not know what to look for, and felt very much at sea.
The last teacher on my list was Skip. In response to a question of mine during our interview, he suggested I read an editorial he had written in the Christian Science Sentinel. Although I had already read that editorial, that evening at home, I obediently sat down to read it again.
Part way through the editorial, I suddenly saw what is hard to put into words. It was like a path of beautiful light that was not of this world. This light was correct Scientific thought, and the passage I was reading had it. The light had nothing to do with the topic of the editorial, nor anything particular said in it; rather it was the thinking behind it, where it came from, the substance of it. That was what I was looking for! Correct Scientific thought would be my teacher! Although the glimpse was brief and tenuous, I knew this was my answer from God.
Because it came to me through Skip’s editorial, I decided to choose him for my teacher. The next day, when I went to tell him that I would like to take class with him, he was surprised. Our interview the day before had not gone all that well, and he suggested that I might like to talk to other teachers, too. He was again surprised when I said that he was the last in a series of teachers I had already interviewed with. I was not troubled by any awkwardness, because I knew God had shown me the teacher I should choose, and no other consideration could stand against that.
Skip then asked that we have another interview, to clarify some questions. The second interview went better, and I was accepted into his next class, which began a few days later. I had to smile that one of the lessons on the first day of class addressed personality.
During class and over the following years of our Association, I always found the correct Science that I looked for in his teaching. It was always there, and I have never had cause for any doubts about this.