MY INTRODUCTION TO CHRISTIAN SCIENCE came about this way: My husband and I had both gone to a Sunday School as children, and had been churchgoers as teenagers, but as soon as we became adults we stopped attending church. We preferred to sleep in and then have brunch late Sunday mornings. When we had children, I realized the need for regular religious instruction in their lives, so we began to look around for a good Sunday School. We embarked on a search, trying out domestic and international spiritual systems, but were never satisfied with any of them.
At a gathering one day, I was speaking to someone about the need for more income, when she pointed to a man way across the room. "You should go and speak to him," she said. "He has two grandchildren he's caring for on the weekends that are proving too much for him." I introduced myself to the man, and offered to care for his granddaughters on weekends. He took me up on my offer immediately, and we agreed on a price.
Soon after, the man showed up at my doorstep with the two girls in tow, and my husband and I began to baby-sit for them. Unfortunately, my two sons were not at all pleased by the arrangement, and I decided I needed to find a place for the girls to go on Sunday mornings. Riding the bus during the week, I passed a big church with a sign that said, "Sunday School, 11 a. m., All Welcome." I had passed the church and the sign for at least 20 years and never noticed either of them. It was First Church of Christ, Scientist, New York, and as soon as possible I stopped in on a Sunday, introduced myself to the Sunday School Superintendent, and asked if I could bring two girls to church the following Sunday. I was welcomed to do so. After dropping the girls off at the Sunday School, I decided to attend the church service. Soon after I sat down, I heard the words, "The canonical writings, together with the word of our textbook, corroborating and explaining the Bible texts in their spiritual import and application to all ages, past, present, and future, constitute a sermon undivorced from truth, uncontaminated and unfettered by human hypotheses, and divinely authorized" (See Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lessons, p. 2).
