For many years my family lived in Swaziland, a small southern African country, working at a school with individuals representing over fifty nationalities and most of the world's major faith traditions. I followed this with three years of education toward a degree in Biblical studies in a community of nine seminaries. I entered these experiences in the same frame of mind that most enter Bible study—with highly trained habits of seeing the Bible from one perspective. I came to feel like a traveler who finds that some of the "vestments" originally packed are not so useful in a new climate. But this was not altogether bad, because after putting those aside, I found that what remained were the true essentials, complemented by the discovery of new resources both in myself and in the new community.
A vital step toward caring for others is coming to "see" and include them.
I brought to my international and seminary experiences the essentials—the truths that I had learned in Christian Science. My discovery of new resources came as I witnessed how divine Love is working in lives very different from my own. Recognizing this and appreciating it required of me a process involving self-immolation, love of mercy, tolerance, patience, and dependency on and trust in God. What was awakened in me was new in my "suitcase"—a much deeper understanding of the inclusiveness inherent in the "Christian" nature of my religion and how it functions in relation to the "Science."
