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Interviews

Bringing the funny

An exploration of humor, healing, and Christian Science treatment

From the January 2013 issue of The Christian Science Journal


For Kittie Burris, laughter is much more than a natural reaction to a funny joke. It’s a healing ingredient. For example, when she told me how she came to marry her husband, Don, she recited an amusing story about how she was convinced that as a Christian Scientist, she had to marry another Christian Scientist. “I dated all the Christian Scientists,” Kittie told me. “I was engaged to a Christian Science practitioner.” 

When she went to her Christian Science teacher and confided that she wanted to marry a Christian Scientist, but was “making a mess of relationships,” her teacher “started looking through a book of notes,” Kittie explained. “What are you doing?” she asked. His response: “I’m looking to see where in my teaching I should put ‘Have to marry a Christian Scientist.’ ”

A natural storyteller, Kittie went on: “It was funny, but the end of it was I married a hard-drinking Irish cop!” Yet she was sure she made the right choice. Her husband, Don, gave up smoking and drinking, fully supported her eventual decision to become a Christian Science practitioner, and later, after Kittie became a teacher of Christian Science in 1997, he went through Primary class instruction with her. 

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