FOCUSED ON SPIRIT

Although Scott Putnam grew up in a Christian Science household, the path that led him to his healing practice in Portland, Oregon, took many twists and turns along the way. Born in Illinois, Scott moved to San Jose, California, in the seventh grade, and later went on to graduate from Principia College, where he lettered in tennis and worked as a sportswriter on the school paper. Scott left college after graduation to travel the world. While in his 20s, he lived on two occasions in a Mexican village, Yautepec, explored Europe, particularly Germany, and later became a captain in the United States Marine Corps. He also did a stint at Stanford Law School.

Scott married fellow Principia graduate Gwen Bardwell, and they have two children, Tam and Bret, who both live in San Francisco. Before becoming a Christian Science practitioner, Scott worked in advertising in California and Oregon. Then, during the early '70s, the family lived in Florence, Italy, for a few years. While Scott worked as a school administrator, the Putnams hit the road during the holidays—traveling throughout Europe, including the Soviet Union, in a VW minibus.

However, Christian Science and the healing practice continued to beckon, eventually capturing all of Scott's attention—and time. By 1974, he began to advertise in the Journal as a full-time practitioner. In 1988 he took Christian Science Normal class to become a teacher of Christian Science, and the rest, as they say, is history. Today Scott continues to thrive on the daily inspiration of metaphysical healing and the joy that comes with teaching Christian Science. But he still finds time to get out there on the hiking trails, and to keep up with his other great love—history. And travel. In fact, Scott and Gwen just recently returned from a sojourn in India, where Scott says he wanted to "broaden the borders of my tent, to learn more of the richness of God's universal kingdom." Learning, healing, growing, and rejoicing in God's great goodness every day, Scott spoke with me recently to share some of his deep love for Christian Science. Here are some excerpts from our conversation.

Scott, you've been a Christian Scientist all your life. How did your family get interested in this way of life?

Our family became interested in Christian Science when my maternal grandfather passed on when my mother was 12 years old. A neighbor, a Miss Boots, saw the challenge my grandmother was facing and talked to her about God's all-embracing power as explained in Christian Science. She gave my grandmother a copy of Science and Health so she could read it herself and understand more about God's spiritual presence.

My grandmother soon took up the study of Christian Science in earnest, and my mother enrolled in the Christian Science Sunday School. Eventually, both my mother and grandmother took class instruction in Christian Science and were taught by Jennie L. Bryan, a student of Mary Baker Eddy's My mother's older brother, a successful businessman, supported her and my grandmother financially, including supporting them when my mother received her college education. So my mother and grandmother were the spiritual anchors in the family I grew up in. My sister and I attended Sunday School from the time we were small, and Christian Science healing was practiced in our home.

I had a key healing during my teen years that showed me that Christian Science is a substantial way of life. The healing occurred when I was playing on the high school tennis team. We were a week away from going to the league championships. While I had no hope of winning any honors, I loved playing and looked forward to the championship matches. But a blister formed on my foot, and soon my foot became badly swollen. My mother and I prayed to see that as a child of God, I had a right to be free from this physical condition. We knew from all that we'd learned in Christian Science that I was entirely spiritual, the "image and likeness" of God, who is divine Spirit. So in reality, I didn't live in matter, wasn't physique but spiritual. Christian Science was put to the test.

We called a Christian Science practitioner on Monday to support us with prayer. At this point, poison was spreading up my leg, and my foot had swelled up like a balloon and was all colors of the rainbow. However, we all continued to pray, and by Wednesday night all the poison drained out. When I saw my coach on Friday, I told him I was ready to play, as my foot had returned to normal. I played the best tennis of my school experience that Saturday, without giving the slightest thought to my foot. So I proved early in my life that I could rely on God's healing power to meet difficult challenges.

That was a deciding moment—that was when I really understood that my life is not in a physical body where disease can take over and derail normal activities. I also realized in time that life doesn't originate in an embryo. It was always spiritual and complete and I have existed since before human life began. As Jesus said, "Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58). Life is God, and so, like God, my life continues forever.

Healing like this through prayer is such an integral part of the life of a Christian Scientist, as you've proven. But what about the world at large? What do you see happening today in the area of Christian healing?

Around the world there is great interest in prayer and healing. And people are seeing the distinct relationship between prayer and health. For example, a few years ago the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minnesota, reviewed up to 350 studies of physical health and 850 studies of mental health and found that spirituality was consistently associated with "better health outcomes," and that those who were spiritually inclined lived up to 30 percent longer than atheists. (See "Spiritual Healing; Healthcare takes a leap of faith," RT Image, August 28, 2006.)

We Christian Scientists talk a lot about prayer. But that word, prayer—and the activity of prayer itself—means different things to different people. How would you describe prayer that results in the healing of a physical condition?

Looking to God to meet all our needs means that we need to know how to talk directly with God. But unlike many other teachings, Christian Science makes clear that we don't talk to an anthropomorphic God. We do pray to God—we commune with God—knowing that God is not a person or an entity, but rather the one divine Mind (as well as the other six synonyms for God that Mrs. Eddy provides in Science and Health: Principle, Soul, Spirit, Life, Truth, Love). Throughout the ages, spiritual people have always communicated with God in very real, tangible ways. Mary Baker Eddy noted, "The Soul-inspired patriarchs heard the voice of Truth, and talked with God as consciously as man talks with man" (Science and Health, p. 308). Are we no longer able to talk directly with God when seeking help? What was Jesus' example? When calling Lazarus from the tomb, Jesus said, "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it" (John 11:41, 42). And the Bible tells us many times that Jesus talked directly with God, as when he walked in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before his crucifixion (see Mark 14:36), communing with his divine Father. And in the account of Jesus praying for the blessing of his disciples, again, Jesus' communication is direct and personal, very deeply felt (see John, chap. 17).

So talking with God is reverent communication. A "hot line" to heaven is open to every one of us at any time, in any place. God is always available for help, a spiritual "911" emergency call, whether for physical healing, for guidance in wisdom, or just for reassurance that all is well. We should be able to wash away any guilt that comes from mistakes we've made, because we can always hear clearly God's divine Love's impartation of love and approval and support for us, no matter what. And we can discern what God, divine Mind, is telling us to do. We can always have that mind-set of listening for His guidance. And when we discern which direction to take, we can be joyfully obedient. As Mrs. Eddy pointed out, our communication with God comes directly to us in our thought. She wrote: "The intercommunication is always from God to His idea, man" (Science and Health, p. 284). And this communication is unique in every situation, specific to our individual needs at the moment.

As God's children, we have this right of access to divine Love, which is never oblique or abstract, but direct and sincere. Don't all parents love hearing from their children? This communication should lead us to a higher and more spiritualized state of consciousness, where we have assurance that we are the beloved children of God.

With a lifetime of healing, it's probably not surprising that you decided to become a Christian Science practitioner. But was there a moment or an event that led you to take up the healing practice as a full-time profession?

It was never my goal in life to enter the full-time practice of Christian Science healing. I had studied business in college and was in the business world for some years, much of it with a national advertising agency. But in time this work wasn't as satisfying as my experience in church, and in particular, teaching Sunday School.

At one point, when I had become the administrator for a school in Florence, Italy, people in the Christian Science church there would want to discuss Christian Science, and in time would ask for prayerful treatment for various challenges they were having. When my work at the school began to fall away, this budding practice picked up. I loved helping bring Christ-healing to people who called. Well, the practice grew. People called who were not connected with the church, and at one time I considered opening an office and remaining in Italy. But home beckoned.

Returning to Portland, I soon began to advertise as a healer in the Journal. So, Marilyn, what does call a person into the practice of Christian Science? There's no worldly applause for the profession. Could it be a desire to help lift a friend out of the fog of material thinking and experience? For example, my next door neighbor was a longtime teacher and practitioner of Christian Science. So I early went to him and asked him to talk with me about a career in the practice. He told me he didn't use the word career in relation to the Christian Science practice. He said he found it just as well to put his faith in God each morning and then trust Him to unfold the day's healing activity. So it was that he always found himself in the service of his Maker.

Mrs. Eddy says, "Love for God and man is the true incentive in both healing and teaching" (ibid, p. 454). I found that the practice of Christian Science is not humanism—something like a good person helping another person in need. This leaves God out of the healing picture. And often one forgets to glorify God. Yet, true, there are many good people out there bringing help to the world, but what of the long-term healing effect? When we use the power of the Christ, we find "Christian Science goes to the bottom of mental action ..." (ibid, p. 104), and it can heal any situation.

Yet, as Mrs. Eddy noted, "The divinity of the Christ was made manifest in the humanity of Jesus" (ibid., p. 25). People who call practitioners for healing must be able to feel the practitioner's empathy, their concern for the challenges presented, without making a reality of them. Practitioners are not called upon for personal counsel, but to witness to the healing Christ, the scientific Truth. The practitioner, staying close to God, shares statements of Truth that heal and take away fear. But it is the prayerful treatment that seals the healing and aligns the patient with his or her innate, spiritual wholeness.

Truth has a way of scrubbing and scouring consciousness, bringing mental and physical errors of all sorts to the surface to be seen and swept away. Truth is also like a lighthouse whose beam lights up the dark corners of thought and experience, freeing one's thinking and flushing it. Being a witness to the divine Truth that heals and frees the patient is what fulfills the practitioner, and in turn glorifies God. There is nothing like a Christian healing!

What about people who don't really know much about how Christian healing happens? How can we help people become comfortable with some of the ideas of Christian Science if, for example, they haven't read Science and Health?

We all yearn to live a better life, have a happier, more fulfilling experience, a life free from the many fears of this world. Christian Science exposes the lies of the five physical sense. They always want to limit us. They implant fear, hurt relationships, and glorify the body. There has to be a better life than what the physical senses present. Studying Christian Science lifts one into a more spiritual sphere where we can feel lifted up, at least to some extent, above the gravitational pull of matter. Anyone can feel the power and serenity that turning to God gives us. For example, I begin each day by reminding myself that I am "but the humble servant of the restful Mind" (ibid., p. 119). I start my daily study by entertaining God, infinite Spirit, as all that embraces life. I see Spirit as the source of my wholeness, my happiness, and my health. Focusing on Spirit's allness, I lose any fear I may have for my health, my relationships, and my finances. And I think anyone can relate to these ideas, because these concepts are universal and scientific.

So we really can assure others—and ourselves—that we don't have to fear for our health?

You see, there is no disease in Spirit or for Spirit's ideas. Only goodness, strength, mobility. I have been challenged physically often in my life, but as a student of Christian Science, I hold in consciousness to the fact that Spirit-power is the only power. Healing a physical condition begins with addressing the mental state of the patient. The body is only a mental state externalized. When we realize that the presence of health and harmony are the only true facts of our life, we find that the body reflects this thinking, and health and harmony result.

And, of course, Christian Science speaks definitively to one of the most pressing issues for most people—how to rectify or restore or enhance our relationships.

Relationships are not beyond repair when we see that our one, true relationship is with God. If a relationship goes sour or gets distant, we can reach into this deep well of divine Love to resolve whatever issues have come up. We need to do this, because relationships are precious. For me, when a relationship becomes tenuous, I look to God for a relationship that is substantial. I see that any underbrush of hurt feelings is an impersonal imposition of fear and personal sense and needs to be cleared out. Then a relationship of mutual respect is restored.

I try not to let resentments pile up and go unadressed. I clean them up, shake them off, and travel fresh with my friends. It's true that when I view another person, I am seeing only my thought of them, whether a family member, a colleague, or a stranger. Love and affection should be paramount in our relationships. But this love need not always be personal. Rather, it should reflect a love and tenderness that is universal. Divine Love governs all people, nations, cultures, races, ages, genders—all. No one is excluded from God's love.

You mentioned that Christian Science can have an effect on one's finances. How so?

Material thinking always limits us and infuses fear into financial dealings. By thinking spiritually, I find that divine Mind knows my needs and supplies them in ways that I often cannot foresee. There is never any imbalance between supply and demand in the Kingdom of Heaven. I need only to be deeply grateful. The law concerning spiritual substance never varies, and it is always the law of growth. The law that there is infinite substance and intelligence applies to each of us, to our families, and to our government. And this law of divine supply for our every need is just waiting to be proved.

Christian Science, as you've shown, is effective in individual cases needing healing. But how vital—how viable—do you think Christian Science is in the 21 st century with issues like terrorism, the AIDS pandemic?

The prime weapon in Christian warfare is always prayer. The Apostle Paul said, "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds" (II Cor. 10:4). We can be confident that our prayers for peace are powerful and pervasive. Terrorism spreads where there is a vacuum of love and respect. Terrorists invoke fear to carry out their acts, but what they are really asking for is love and respect and a purpose in life.

The modern day version of terrorism can be likened to the "great red dragon" of the Apocalypse (Rev. 12:3). In the glossary of Bible terms in Science and Health, we read this description, "Red Dragon: Error; fear; inflammation; sensuality; subtlety; animal magnetism; envy; revenge" (p. 593). So this awful fear and error—this "red dragon," must be addressed and denied power. St. John, the Revelator, said this about such warfare: "There was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him" (Rev. 12:7–9). The threatening dragon is not a person or foreign government. It is impersonal evil that seems to be some other power besides God. But in truth, God is omnipotent, and that means there is no other power but good. And we can prove that in our lives.

And regarding AIDS—if God has any power or reality at all, persistent and focused prayer can surely shake the grip of AIDS from human consciousness and experience. Christian Science states that fear or ignorance is at the root of all disease—which must include the AIDS pandemic. So we must pray to deny the power of fear-induced diseases that threaten to dominate the world. And we pray from the understanding that God alone is our life—is everyone's life.

Any last thoughts, Scott?

I'm so delighted to have this conversation appear in the April Journal because I love the month of April. It is the beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. And a beautiful autumn month below the equator. The word April comes from the Latin, aperire, which means "to open." April is a time when buds open to become flowers. Trees that lost their leaves in the fall return to their full covering of green.

April is a time to open up to fresh ideas. Now—and always—is the time to learn to heal. Learn to love. To reach for new horizons. What I say is, Be an adventurer—be the man or woman God made you to be. That's the message of Easter—to resurrect out of old ways of thinking, out of old fears, and to live anew, as God intended. That's April to me: to live anew.