Articles

"THANKS, BUT WE NEED the strength of 10 .

WHEN I WAS IN SUNDAY SCHOOL, I had a teacher who stressed a point that has stayed with me all my life. Our class was at that wonderful age when "Why?" seemed to be our standard response to everything he said.

YEARS AGO A HIGH SCHOOL swim team in our area always performed exceptionally well. One or two swimmers on that team consistently came in first during local, district, or state meets.

THE STRATEGIC PLANNING professional who was meeting with the Board of the nonprofit organization I was serving on told us kindly but bluntly, "Your organization has a completely unsustainable business model. It's amazing that you've raised this much money each year to support the organization, but this can't be done year after year.

As an active portion of one stupendous whole, goodness identifies man with universal good. Thus may each member of this church rise above the oft-repeated inquiry, What am I? to the scientific response: I am able to impart truth, health, and happiness, and this is my rock of salvation and my reason for existing—Mary Baker Eddy ( The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p.

MARY BAKER EDDY LOVED her country, the United States, and revered the "heroes and heroines" who sacrified to establish its democratic ideals and religious liberty. Yet her 1886 Fourth of July Independence Day comments, which began with patriotism, quickly came to focus in on the critical needs of the Christian Science movement.

WHEN DID CHRISTIAN SCIENCE become a "Cause" for Mary Baker Eddy? As I considered this question, I quickly assumed that she began to label her discovery as a cause when her church was well established, when she had a substantial group of loyal students supporting her and assisting her. I decided to start my research on this by taking a chronological look through her correspondence—quite simply, I would see when the term was first used.

IT WAS the wildflowers that were so unexpected as I slugged down a can of soda and ate trail mix for breakfast .

IT WAS A SIMPLE THING: A man pulling a little red wagon past my window, with his young son riding along contentedly. The father had carefully bundled his boy in a jacket for the cooler weather, but the sun beamed as brightly as their smiles.

Last year, I was walking in the Boston Common with my friend Kim. We were talking about our college classes, and out of the blue, she asked: "How do Christian Scientists pray about swine flu? Do you have a special prayer for it?" I replied that we didn't have prayers for specific illnesses but that you could pray about anything from the basis that God is in control, and that everyone expresses His completeness.