A college campus doesn't always seem like the most promising place to learn about God and spirituality! Just before I left for college, a friend told me that a popular magazine had given my university the dubious honor of being ranked the number one drinking school in the nation. While I didn't want to drink or smoke, I did want to participate actively in college life and wondered how I would fit in.
My first year I made many new friends and did all kinds of crazy college things, but underneath it all I felt very different, somewhat lost, and extremely alone. In my journal entries during my freshman year, time after time I wrote about feeling frustrated by my poor grades, tense about relations with my roommate, totally confused about what to major in or what to do with my life, and upset about having lost all feeling of self-worth.
During this time I had been attending the Christian Science organization meetings on campus and Sunday School classes at the local branch Church of Christ, Scientist. Mary Baker Eddy outlines in the Manual of The Mother Church how individuals can establish a Christian Science organization at a college or university. See Manual, Art. XXIII, Sect. 8. Mother Church members who are "faculty, instructors, or students" can "form" it and "conduct" the services and business. The services and other activities of such an organization are essentially church activities open to all in the academic community.
