December 8, 2025

Dear Association Family,

As the Christmas season approaches, we are reminded of the great gifts we have been given through Christ Jesus’ living example and the Comforter, Christian Science. Mary Baker Eddy writes, “The basis of Christmas is the rock, Christ Jesus; its fruits are inspiration and spiritual understanding of joy and rejoicing, — not because of tradition, usage, or corporeal pleasures, but because of fundamental and demonstrable truth, because of the heaven within us. The basis of Christmas is love loving its enemies, returning good for evil, love that ‘suffereth long and is kind’” (My. 260: 17-23). How grateful we can be for our teacher’s example of following our Leader so far as she follows Christ!

In a December 10, 2018, Sentinel article titled, “More meaning for Christmas,” Skip writes,

…Mary Baker Eddy obviously yearns for us to realize that Christmas is, in fact, about something more. She explains that what was truly happening for the world that Christmas night long ago was in effect the entrance of a whole new understanding of life and its purpose into human consciousness. She wrote that it was “the birth of Truth, the dawn of divine Love breaking upon the gloom of matter and evil with the glory of infinite being” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 262).

…our catching the actual spirit of Christmas and living with even a degree of its vast meaning can begin opening our eyes to a startlingly new view of ourselves and the meaning of the familiar Christmas story. Instead of being a mortal beset by the perils and limitations of material existence, we begin to see good as a much bigger fact than we supposed, and all the good we long for as having its source in God. We find ourselves participating in this infinite rightness governed by the divine Principle, God, who is totally Love.

The title of next year’s Association address is, Our Mission is to Heal — ‘Relieving the Sufferings of Humanity.’ (See Retrospection and Introspection 30:7-9.) Our speaker, Deborah Packer, writes, “the gift Jesus gave us surpasses all. It is the gift of freedom. He came to show us that truth is found in Spirit — in the kingdom within, and what appears to be this matter-based external world is not truth and can make no claim on us.”

Deborah also writes, “It is a privilege and an honour to have been invited to give your 2026 Association address. I am looking forward to sharing the day with you. The date of the address is May 9, 2026. When you put this date in your diary, I ask you to take a moment to cherish it. Mortal mind may try to give you many reasons why it might be difficult to give this day priority. See this for what it is. Trust that God will have you in your right place.”

Deborah has provided the following five-part preliminary assignment:

  1. Read the chapters on Fruitage and Christian Science Practice in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.

  2. Think deeply about why you are a Christian Scientist and write down three reasons why you have chosen to be one. This doesn’t need to be handed in; it is the thinking and writing that are important.

  3. Read, or re-read, We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, Vol. 2 — Expanded Edition (2013).

  4. Write up at least one healing. Choose an instance of a situation being healed through your prayer and write it down as though you were explaining it to yourself — the inspirations you received and the change in thinking that occurred. If you feel moved to share these with the Executive Committee, they would be happy to receive them, but even if you don’t submit one, please write one up. The writing of them is the important part. You will learn from the experience all over again!

  5. Highly recommended: View The Onward and Upward Chain: Pioneers of Christian Science in the 1880s. This is a DVD available through Longyear Museum.

Please remember to send your fruitage and testimonies of healing as well as responses to the assignment to the Executive Committee, exec@phinneyassociation.org, as this is most important to the vitality, life, and growth of our Association. If you don’t use email, please send them to Phinney Association, P.O. Box 388, Westwood, MA 02090.

Please note that testimonies and responses to the assignment may be shared with other members — they may be quoted anonymously in the address or posted anonymously on the Phinney Association website. Responses may be edited for fit and clarity.

May your Christmas and New Year be filled with joy and the love of divine Love!

Executive Committee
Jon Trotter, Chair
Luke Hatfield
Derek Nelson
Julia Osborne
Laurie Welch