Editorials

Charles Dickens’s classic novel A Tale of Two Cities opens with the words, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times … it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us …. ” I’ve always loved church, but there was a time when that depiction of extremes fairly well defined my experience of church—in my case, it would have been called “A Tale of Two Churches.

The Church Manual by Mary Baker Eddy includes a section titled “Prayer in Church. ” It lies in close proximity to other fundamental sections such as “A Rule for Motives and Acts,” “Christ Jesus the Ensample,” “Daily Prayer,” and “Alertness to Duty.

As a new year approaches, our heart may yearn for our life to sing a new song, one that is better in some way—kinder, healthier, more productive, less worry, more freedom. And down deep within ourselves, perhaps we are struggling to overcome some seemingly ingrained habit, character trait, or chronic affliction that we’ve tried many times, with little or no success, to free ourselves from.

At this Christmas season , many Christians around the world are peacefully rejoicing in the advent of the Christ and its promise for the world. Others are in war-torn areas, keeping the faith as best they can.

Volumes have been written about the Bible, but it’s what it writes in a person’s heart, mind, and life that matters—and makes it relevant to anyone who opens his or her heart to its message today. It is the voice of God, which spoke to those who wrote the Bible, and speaks to those who read it—inspiring and healing us.

It might seem a little strange to be talking about infinite good at the very time when the world’s evil and violence seem so widespread. But one of the effects of such aggressive evil has plainly been to cause people to resist it with new strength and fervor.

Christ Jesus had a building plan for his church that had nothing to do with material structures.   Jesus’ plan for church had everything to do with transforming lives through the healing power of divine Love, and building spirituality and Christly love within the hearts and minds of his followers.

There’s a saying , “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” which illustrates the unfortunate tendency in human thought to assume that an entrenched and prescribed way of doing things can be effectively applied to whatever problem we’re facing. The need, of course, is for an honest and humble willingness to look at any given problem and discern what’s actually needed, rather than to assume from the outset what the solution should be.

If you stand at the edge of a beach near me, we can feel the cool saltwater wash over bare feet. Or watch the gentle waves slowly erase the remains of a sand castle nearby.

“To my sense,” Mary Baker Eddy once wrote, “the Sermon on the Mount, read each Sunday without comment and obeyed throughout the week, would be enough for Christian practice. The Word of God is a powerful preacher, and it is not too spiritual to be practical, nor too transcendental to be heard and understood” ( Message to The Mother Church for 1901, p.