Willingness to relinquish fixed impressions of time is a step toward healing chronic illness through prayer as practiced in Christian Science. (Interestingly, the word chronic comes from the Greek word kronos, meaning "time.")
Perhaps one of the first things to become more aware of when praying to heal chronic illness is simply this: We are not living in a time that makes Christian Science healing less likely, or even impossible.
Someone might argue, But isn't this a materialistic age, with a significant loss of the idealism that was characteristic of an earlier century? Hasn't the role of medicine expanded greatly, and hasn't it gained power and authority in human consciousness that it didn't have before?
Anyone would have to answer, "Yes" to the above. But to the question "Has this made it less likely for Christian Science healing?" the answer would still have to be, "No."
I had an experience that may help illustrate this point.
Some years ago, I couldn't help noticing that many of my Christian Science friends and acquaintances were wearing glasses, occasionally even as a matter of accessorizing and style. Contact lenses hadn't become the standard at that point.
It wasn't a case of my becoming critical of my friends. After all, I'd started wearing glasses, because my first job required hours and hours of close reading of proofs and galleys in fine print, which left me with greatly reduced distance vision. And even though I'd long since left that particular job, for close to 40 years I hadn't seriously challenged the cause and effect relationship I sensed between the public's growing acceptance that material aids, such as glasses, were increasingly necessary, and my own need for glasses. But more and more, I felt impelled to come to terms through prayer with this continued dependence.
I began by confirming that the healing of sight was entirely possible. I vaguely remembered that I had read many healings of eyesight problems in Christian Science magazines. I found scores of these healings, and they were tremendously strong and inspiring.
After further consideration, I realized that not very much about the human body and the mechanics of physical eyesight had changed over time. And nothing, of course, had changed about the basics of Christian Science healing. The only thing that had changed, really, had to have been my thought—the feeling that eyesight is difficult to heal, and that because glasses (and now, contacts) are so convenient today, it's easier to use corrective lenses than to pray about the challenge of poor eyesight.
Seeing this and being willing to give up the notion that elapsed time made illness more real, led to my greater expectancy of healing. Gradually, I found myself picking up my glasses less frequently in order to see at a distance.
In my prayers, I was greatly helped by starting from the absolute truth that the faculties of divine Mind and Soul are undiminished. It helped, as well, to realize that it is the very nature of every man and woman to see because we are the expression of the all-seeing and all-knowing divine Mind. In fact, we could say, "God sees, and therefore, I see." Soon my eyesight had improved to the point where I was able to put away the glasses for good.
The impression that healing was possible in Christ Jesus' time, but isn't practical for modern Christianity, has long been rejected by Christian Scientists. That rejection was, in fact, central to the founding purpose of the Church stated in 1879—to "reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing" (Church Manual by Mary Baker Eddy, p. 17).
To suppose that Christian healing isn't possible today would be to misunderstand the revelation of the Science of Christ and the basic fact that the Mind that does the Christianly scientific healing is divine, not human. That divine Mind certainly hasn't been influenced or overshadowed by society's changing views. If we are deeply absorbed in making our own discoveries that this divine Mind is very real, and in fact is so all-encompassing it is the one real intelligence of the universe, we are much less likely to be influenced to feel that many minds and changing opinions have made healing through prayer more difficult.
To think that we live in a time when the weight of human opinions can outweigh the mighty power of God isn't just to be intimidated by scientific theories and the authority they claim. It would be to revert to entertaining many of the same scholastic theological views that deprived Christianity for centuries of the healing that Christ Jesus himself had done and wanted his followers to do.
What theological views? For example, the scholastic view that reality is as we perceive it with the senses—material, imperfect, and mortal—so that we're then in the position of trying to redeem or fix it. (Wasn't it Jesus who asked the disciples, "Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not?" [Mark 8:18].) Another example would be the scholastic conclusion that man is probably too sinful and guilty to really deserve very much physical healing or relief. (Do we imagine that Jesus would have employed extensive clerical help to get the biographical details before deciding whether multitudes deserved to be healed?) Neither one of these scholastic views, obviously, is inspirational nor does it contribute to healing. But in whatever subtle form it comes to thought, Christ, Truth, has implicit power to expose and destroy it!
Quick and instantaneous healings can be inspiring and instructive in exposing the nature of sickness as illusion. But so can healing of chronic conditions that we may justify as being real and substantial. Among healings through prayer alone of chronic problems that friends have described to me in recent years are those of cataracts, hernia, diagnosed thyroid conditions, the persistent aftereffects of a broken arm, lifelong depression, diagnosed homicidal schizophrenia, heart problems, cysts of 20 years' standing, and threatening, lingering symptoms of menopause.
If we feel that a physical infirmity has continued so long that there's very little hope it can be healed, we're not only doubting the power of prayer, but actively putting faith in the authority and power of time. It's an unfounded faith.
We get some insight into the relative nature of time from ordinary experiences. The same amount of time, depending on our own outlook and attitude at the moment, can be exhausting and wearing, or can seem to have gone by inexplicably quickly. Think, for instance, of how we might feel sitting for a half hour in heavy traffic as opposed to a rare half-hour visit with a greatly loved friend.
Disease or any discord cannot be considered real—or more real—by the length of time it has persisted. Nor does the time we've been dealing with a problem justify discouragement. I often used to think of this when watching a friend who had been healed after being confined to bed for a ten-year period with chronic illness enjoy his brisk morning and afternoon walks between his office and his home.
Healing comes when we are not caught up in measuring our progress toward health according to the human mind's chronicle of time—days and nights succeeding each other—but are instead busy with understanding the radiance of divine Life that is God, Spirit.
Science and Health in the chapter "Glossary" says: "Day. The irradiance of Life; light, the spiritual idea of Truth and Love.
" 'And the evening and the morning were the first day.' (Genesis i. 5.) The objects of time and sense disappear in the illumination of spiritual understanding, and Mind measures time according to the good that is unfolded. This unfolding is God's day, and 'there shall be no night there' " (p. 584).
Healing comes when we are busy with understanding the radiance of divine Life that is God, Spirit.
As a Christian Science practitioner, or as a patient, are we feeling that our knowledge of Christian Science is already extensive, but it just isn't working the way it used to? Are we feeling that we've done as much as we can and so deserve to see healing? We may need to honestly answer the question Mrs. Eddy proposed in Science and Health: "We all must learn that Life is God. Ask yourself: Am I living the life that approaches the supreme good?" (p. 496).
Mary Baker Eddy urged us not simply to be good people, but to approach "the supreme good" by living increasingly the amazing truth that God is our life.
Next to the mentioned question in Science and Health appears the marginal heading, "Condition of progress." You could at first read this marginal heading as underscoring the point that progress is conditional. But a deeper meaning appears when we remember that there is a law that impels progress—God's law. Real progress therefore doesn't lie so much in the sense of gradually managing to have a different outlook. The realization that our life is something remarkably different than we thought it was—that it is God who is our Life and expresses our being—is the spiritual condition of thought that impels progress.
Is this too much to reach for in regard to someone who is struggling with a chronic illness? Some people might say that it is. And we could see that it might be, if it were up to the human mind to cope by itself. Actually, at the very moment of greatest despair, it is possible to feel something that this limited mind can't imagine. The light of spiritual understanding pierces the darkness of mortal thought. That Biblical "company of angels"—true ideas flowing from infinite Mind and Spirit—brings human progress and the hope of healing into view, like an undeniable dawning. As Mrs. Eddy promised, "... the way will grow brighter 'unto the perfect day' " (p. 496).
One of the reasons that preoccupation with time isn't helpful is that it causes us to focus on the past—past regrets, past history, past problems—when the past has no bearing on the present. What is all-important to us is that God, being the only Cause, has the effect of producing that newness of life that is such a frequent theme in the New Testament.
Mortal mind, which is a form of animal magnetism or mesmeric illusion, says, "Look, you're human, so many factors may limit the good you can expect in life—possibly your own previous sins, your age, the time an illness has gone on, the times we live in."
The great discovery and the great revelation of the Science of Christ says, "On the contrary, because of the wonder of an infinite, loving God, you have health and immense good now."
