"WHAT does a Christian Science nurse do?" is a question often asked, even by students of Christian Science. In accord with Mary Baker Eddy's teaching in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," the Christian Science nurse has a twofold task to perform. She needs to minister skillfully to the patient. The meeting of human needs—keeping the body clean, comfortable, and properly nourished —is assurance to the patient of Love's care. And the nurse also needs to keep the atmosphere spiritually pure by consistently lifting her thought from material beliefs to the spiritual understanding of existence.
In her task of maintaining an atmosphere of spiritual purity, the nurse recognizes that she herself must abide in the consciousness of Life, Truth, and Love, even while her hands may be attending to human needs. The spiritual understanding of God as All-in-all, which she has gained through a thorough study of the Bible and Science and Health, enables her to say and do the right thing at the right time.
A Christian Science nurse knows the necessity for obedience to God and by her own example encourages the patient and inspires obedience. She expresses gratitude generously, for she understands that gratitude for the good already at hand is the means of perpetuating and multiplying it. Gratitude and joy, antidoting mental tension, enable the flow of good to be free and harmonious. Christ Jesus said (Matt.13: 12), "For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath."
A Christian Science nurse never allows herself to talk down to a patient, but always helps the patient to listen for and to obey God's direction. The nurse acknowledges with the Psalmist (Ps. 119:130), "The entrance of thy [God's] words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple."
A nurse neither violates the rights of the patient nor neglects his needs. Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health (p.106): "Like our nation, Christian Science has its Declaration of Independence. God has endowed man with inalienable rights, among which are self-government, reason, and conscience. Man is properly self-governed only when he is guided rightly and governed by his Maker, divine Truth and Love." One never loses his right of self-government under his Maker, divine Truth and Love, and the nurse recognizes the right of the patient to work out his own salvation under God's guidance.
The nurse is firm in Truth and keeps out any subtle suggestion that would adulterate Christian Science treatment, such as a resort to material aid by nurse or patient. She knows that working from two standpoints retards and defeats healing. The firmness which Truth and Love impart is free from condemnation or self-righteousness; it uplifts and supports the wavering thought. The student of Christian Science knows that the use of human will, even with the best of intentions, is not in accord with the teaching of Christian Science.
The reflection of Love underlies the success of all work done in Christian Science; the nurse is ever conscious of this fact. Love meets all needs, for Love is practical. Spiritual love embraces one where it finds him and freely pours out its blessing to him, even as the good Samaritan came to the place where the wounded man was. Mrs. Eddy gives this valuable instruction in Science and Health (pp. 366, 367): "If we would open their prison doors for the sick, we must first learn to bind up the brokenhearted. If we would heal by the Spirit, we must not hide the talent of spiritual healing under the napkin of its form, nor bury the morale of Christian Science in the grave-clothes of its letter. The tender word and Christian encouragement of an invalid, pitiful patience with his fears and the removal of them, are better than hecatombs of gushing theories, stereotyped borrowed speeches, and the doling of arguments, which are but so many parodies on legitimate Christian Science, aflame with divine Love."
The attitude of a Christian Science nurse toward another nurse should not include any thoughts of competition, but a sweet sense of unity of purpose, of glorifying God together in word and deed. In order to maintain a high level of pure thoughts, one continually needs to deny the suggestion of an ego, or mind, other than God.
Of great importance is the nurse's ability to work intelligently with the practitioner. The nurse should be spiritually alert, loving, and helpful to the practitioner, having full faith in the power of Christian Science treatment. She should never, even in her own thinking, allow herself to criticize the practitioner's work, which must be consistent with the teachings of Christian Science. The one all-important task of the nurse is to keep her own thought pure, acknowledging God's presence, power, and activity as supreme and letting good unfold in God's own way.
The activity of the Christian Science nurse is clearly and concisely summed up by Mrs. Eddy in the Manual of The Mother Church. She writes (Art. VIII, Sect. 31), "A member of The Mother Church who represents himself or herself as a Christian Science nurse shall be one who has a demonstrable knowledge of Christian Science practice, who thoroughly understands the practical wisdom necessary in a sick room, and who can take proper care of the sick."
