Mary Baker Eddy once wrote to a clergyman: “Those who look for me in person, or elsewhere than in my writings, lose me instead of find me. I hope and trust that you and I may meet in truth and know each other there, and know as we are known of God” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 120).
I grew up hearing and reading the words of this remarkable woman, but in the beginning little did I know that Mrs. Eddy’s words would find their way to guiding me during virtually every turn in my experience. It wasn’t that I had to go find them; somehow they always found me. It has been truly a fulfillment of the wish “that you and I may meet in truth and know each other there.”
Maybe the first time Eddy’s words found me was when I was asked by a close friend in high school, “Why are you a Christian Scientist?” I could have said, “Because the teachings of Christian Science have given me such dominion in my life” (at least up to the mighty age of 16), or “Because Christian Science has answered some of the deepest questions I have about life,” or “Because it’s given me such a freedom to be myself,” and all of those things would have been true. But I didn’t say any of that. In fact, I couldn’t answer him at that moment so penetrating was his question. It wasn’t that I couldn’t have answered him; it’s just that it got me really to thinking.
