Don’t you love it when ideas come and bring with them a new level of spiritual understanding? In Psalm 37, the 37th verse reads, “Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.” I’d thought that the first word, mark, mostly had to do with vision—to identify, find, behold, or observe. But according to Abingdon’s Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Hebrew Dictionary, the word translated mark is more active. It also means, to “protect” and even to “hedge about (as with thorns).”
Have you ever tried to trim a rosebush? Or pick blackberries? Those hedges have thorns! They provide a natural barrier to getting at the fruit and flowers. If you want to protect something, planting a thorny hedge around it would make lots of sense.
Of course, I’ve never literally constructed or planted a fence of thorns around anyone. But I do see a parallel in this psalm with the activity of the Christian Science nurse as Mary Baker Eddy describes in her Manual of The Mother Church (see p. 49). A Christian Science nurse does this “hedging about” or “defending” a patient in several ways. We are taught to assist with a variety of things when human challenges arise, and to do so while wholeheartedly supporting the patient’s reliance upon Spirit, God, for healing.
Perhaps a fellow Christian Scientist, relying on God’s power alone, not material medicine or supplements, requires temporary help being nourished. Christian Science nurses can help! Knowing the completeness of Soul, and realizing that divine Love sustains and nurtures man, we can remove fears of excess or inadequate sustenance, and prepare a pleasing variety of meals that meet the human need. Eddy’s poem titled “Love” gently reads, “Fed by Thy love divine we live” (Poems, p. 7). God’s love, completely spiritual, can be understood and demonstrated through the activity of sharing truth—“breaking bread”—together, for instance, reading aloud from our Pastor, the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.
It might be that someone needs to use a mobility aid for a period of time. Keeping in thought the understanding that Father-Mother God upholds Her own spiritual idea (see Christian Science Hymnal, No. 123), a Christian Science nurse might teach someone how to use a helpful piece of equipment and then support that individual’s progress through his or her own spiritually inspired thought, until full mobility is restored.
Occasionally, a patient may need assistance with personal care and bathing. Christian Science nurses are taught to help, knowing all the while that God is the One that cares for man and bestows dignity. And when such assistance is required, it’s good for both the Christian Science nurse and the patient to humbly remember, “His the arm we lean upon” (John R. MacDuff, Christian Science Hymnal, No. 53).
A Christian Science nurse is called on to strongly support a patient’s radical reliance on Truth for healing and appreciates and values the work of the Christian Science practitioner on the case. He or she is there to witness God’s power with the patient. All three, the patient, Christian Science nurse, and practitioner are protected by following the biblical example of purely spiritual healing and the Church Manual By-Laws, especially Article VIII with the heading “Guidance of Members.”
In my Christian Science nursing practice, I have witnessed not only physical progress and healing, but also spiritual regeneration and the sweetening of sour dispositions.
Whatever the need, both the Christian Science nurse and the individual receiving care can be gently led by Spirit, Truth, as the patient moves toward the promised outcome of healing, of harmony and peace—the peace that comes from acknowledging God, or Love, as the one true caregiver and supplier of every human need.
Whatever help the situation calls for, dignity can be upheld and harmony restored by choosing an approach that includes acknowledging Christ’s joyful presence so that together we magnify the name and nature of God. It is a privilege to witness this promise from Mary Baker Eddy’s Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896: “My heavenly Father will never leave me comfortless, in the amplitude of His love; coming nearer in my need, more tenderly to save and bless” (p. 249). Having understood such care, we can share the blessing when we’re called upon and led to do so, and be blessed ourselves.
