Articles

Do you find that things which once were simple, like regularly attending church services, now seem complicated or difficult? Do you now have to face pressure from family members to sleep in on Sundays, or go away for the weekend? For a midweek testimony meeting, there might be concerns about traffic or public transit congestion, security issues, fatigue, an employer’s expectations that you work into the evening, or trouble driving at night. All this may make going to church feel like going to the moon.

Jesus did not change sick people into well people. He understood that in reality no one has ever been unwell in any way.

The  Journal  is pleased to offer readers the first in an occasional column from the office of Christian Science Practitioner Activities at The Mother Church in Boston. “Pathways to the practice” is autobiographical.

The  Journal  is pleased to offer readers the first in an occasional column from the office of Christian Science Practitioner Activities at The Mother Church in Boston. “Pathways to the practice” is autobiographical.

At my church, a branch of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, the First Reader frequently opens the service with the greeting “Welcome to this healing service. ” Recently, I had an experience with my mom that proved that we do have healing services.

Oh, no! There it went—my friend’s brand-new cellphone—over the side of her kayak and into the lake. The water was only about five feet deep, but the lake floor was too soft to support the weight of a person, so we four friends in four kayaks gently searched the ground beneath us with our paddles.

I am currently a business manager, and during my career, I am grateful to say I have hired many more people than I have dismissed. The process of dismissing an employee is not very pleasant for anyone.

I was raised as a student of Christian Science, and I had certainly accepted and even found healing in the understanding that man is the image and likeness of God, as we learn from the first chapter of Genesis, and is therefore spiritual. But I can remember a time when I was overly focused on life as a spiritual journey that required me to dutifully make progress.

Human sympathy for those who are suffering has impelled some medical, charitable, and religious organizations to find ways to comfort people as they are dying—or even to help hasten death. Some have attempted to comfort people by explaining why they feel God would allow or even cause death.

My first memory of hearing about Jesus was my mother reading the story of the Master throwing the money changers out of the Temple (see Matthew 21:12, 13 ). I couldn’t have been more than three years old, but the story made a distinct impression on me.