In a way every Christian Scientist is a practitioner. He may not be listed in The Christian Science Journal as a practitioner, but the moment he opens Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy and conscientiously applies what he reads he has entered the healing practice. The degree of his success as a healer is determined, naturally, by his consecration and by his faithful application of the rules, as is the case in any other activity or practice.
Christ Jesus, the Way-shower, gave this command, which is indispensable to healing (Mark 5:36): "Be not afraid"; it can be obeyed more easily when we begin with the realization that no discord or disease has ever been true of man, God's image, since God, who is all good and the creator only of good, does not cause discord or disease, which is all bad. The more clearly we can recognize that the evil of sickness is inconsistent with the goodness of God, divine Principle, the more easily we can eradicate its seeming reality.
Our practice of Christian Science involves listening for God's voice and taking time to do this at home, at business, or at school. This means daily to seek moments of stillness, in which we can feel the presence of God conveying that "stationary power, stillness, and strength" to which Mrs. Eddy alludes in "Retrospection and Introspection." There she writes (p. 93), "The best spiritual type of Christly method for uplifting human thought and imparting divine Truth, is stationary power, stillness, and strength; and when this spiritual ideal is made our own, it becomes the model for human action."
