Check Google Maps and you'll see that Claygate, in the county of Surrey, England, lies some 15 miles southwest of London—"at about 7.30 on a clock" as Christian Science practitioner and teacher described it when I called her recently. Fenella grew up in Claygate in a family of Christian Scientists, and as she explains in our following conversation she embraced the religion for herself at a young age. She also studied piano and music composition as a young person, earning a degree in music from Cambridge University. Listen in as Fenella explains how these two themes, music and Christian Science—one minor, the other major—counterpoint one another and reveal Life's great rhythms of harmony.
Fenella, you became a Christian Scientist when and how?
Well, I have been a Christian Scientist all my life. Christian Science came to our family when my grandmother was healed nearly 100 years ago. She was dying. Her brother who had found Christian Science in Holland (my grandmother and her brother were Dutch) came here to England and introduced Christian Science to her—and she was healed. My mother started attending Sunday School, and she became a devoted student of Christian Science throughout her long life. One of my father's parents had also been healed at a critical point. So I grew up in a family where the practice of Christian Science was the natural way of life. I am the third of now five generations in our family who've been students of Christian Science.
