I don’t think I’ve met a person who doesn’t love spring—the way everything springs up new, full of life and color and promise. We don’t just see the newness of spring; we feel its glory in our hearts. That’s how I think about spiritual education in Christian Science. It’s about discovery—seeing and feeling in fresh ways the glory and magnitude of God and the wonder of being His own child, the very image and likeness of Spirit.
Educators these days often talk about the importance of lifelong learning. Students of Christian Science can relate. We never reach a point of development where we can expect to go forward on cruise control, gliding on the basis of what we’ve already mastered. Mary Baker Eddy made this plain in the very structures of the Church she established. Yes, Primary class instruction is a one-time experience, but it is followed each year with a full day of continuing instruction in student association meetings. Nor do serious students of Christian Science show up in church once a week for their weekly spiritual “fill up.” They study the Christian Science Bible Lesson all week long before hearing it read on Sunday morning; they also attend midweek testimony meetings. The Christian Science periodicals and the lectures on Christian Science sponsored by branch churches are avenues for ongoing spiritual education.
In a short essay called “The New Birth,” Mrs. Eddy made this observation: “The new birth is not the work of a moment. It begins with moments, and goes on with years; moments of surrender to God, of childlike trust and joyful adoption of good; moments of self-abnegation, self-consecration, heaven-born hope, and spiritual love. Time may commence, but it cannot complete, the new birth: eternity does this; for progress is the law of infinity” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 15).
