Almost 20 years ago Curt Wahlberg made what many would say was a courageous, life-changing, decision. A successful mechanical engineer, Curt called his boss one day and told him he wouldn’t be returning to work—and he wasn’t sure what he’d be doing next.
“It was a difficult conversation,” Curt recalls. Yet, he had had a growing conviction for some time that his contribution in life lay apart from his attainments at work and his college degrees. “I was convinced it related to spiritual things, to being willing to follow the calling of God,” Curt explains by phone from his home in Lake Forest, California. “And I felt I was making a commitment to do that when I made that call.”
Shortly after, Curt launched into the public practice of Christian Science and later married and had three children with his wife, Melanie, who is also a Christian Science practitioner. Curt became a teacher of Christian Science in 2006 and then served as First Reader of The Mother Church in Boston.
Curt and his three children at the school playground down the street from their home.
MELANIE WAHLBERG
Curt, you’ve given a great deal of thought and prayer to the issues of identity and purpose throughout your life. Can you tell us why that is and what insights you have on the subject?
In high school I started attending a Christian Science Sunday School, and that was a wonderful support in terms of understanding that we all have a purpose, and, of course, that purpose is to do good, and God has given us the means to fulfill that purpose. I had a desire not just to enjoy the day-to-day of my little world but to get a better sense of my place in life, and do something that was deeply meaningful. I wanted, at the end of the day, to feel like I was making some
traction toward fulfilling my purpose, and maybe helping others do that, too.
I had a period of my life beginning in college when I was dealing with what I guess you would call depression, wondering, “Why do I want to live?” One day I’d think, I want to be an engineer, and another day, I want to be an educator, or I want to be a politician. You name it. And then these periods would sneak up on me when I was like, “I don’t know that I want to get out of bed today” or “I don’t know that I want to turn off the TV because I don’t know what I’d do.” I particularly had these days in graduate school, where I had a hard time keeping the momentum. I’d try to work hard in school, but whenever there was even a little lull in my schedule, I’d sit in front of the TV and channel surf.
It’s not an insignificant thing when you wake up in the morning and don’t feel like going to work or doing anything. Maybe it’s when the pursuit of a better human experience grows hollow. There are significant issues behind these feelings of lethargy and despondency that are not solved with a cup of coffee or planning a fun lunch.
But you had Christian Science, and, with that, the hope of healing.
Well, I certainly had some superficial answers in terms of my life being an expression of God and that it was intended to fulfill God’s purpose for me. But what did that mean? How could I feel it in such a way that it moved me through each day and gave me specific guidance about how to go forward in my life?
These questions really go to the issue of identity—our spiritual identity—and we can’t keep ignoring them. We have to address them. That may not sound exciting to people, but it’s imperative for finding permanent joy and dominion.
In many respects, while I was wrestling with these issues, it was day to day for me. I tried
doing what seemed right at the moment in terms of pursuing more education and setting a career path, while looking for answers in the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy. Jesus’ teachings, the experiences of the men and women in the Bible, as well as Mrs. Eddy’s teachings and her decades of struggles and triumphs, were so helpful to me.
There are a lot of self-help books and human ideals that get passed around that put a rosier picture on the day, but there’s nothing like the guidance we get from those two books. For example, Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33). And then there’s the passage that had been a daily support to me: “He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it” (Matthew 10:39). There’s no other counsel like that. It’s radical.
What did that Bible passage mean to you in the context of this healing?
That what I needed to do was to glorify God each day by yielding to His will, and not try to use God to bring about something I wanted, or that seemed right to have. And to honor God by trusting what comes as a result of doing that. I’ve come to have a constant, intimate relationship with this idea. Nothing in my life moves forward without yielding to the Christ, to what God is telling me about the life that He has created. Acknowledging God, Spirit, as the only Life involves a denial of the existence of life in matter. This is essential for success in any healing.
When did you decide to take that step of Christian Science class instruction?
I had just finished my master’s degree in engineering and was starting a doctorate. I was working for a company in product development and was unsure about my next steps. It was then I decided to take class.
Was there a catalyst for this decision?
Well, the Oklahoma City bombing here in the US, in the spring of 1995, occurred in the context of all the questions I had about my life and purpose. That was a tough moment. So many lives were lost. Here I was, working on a design for a better refrigerator—and that’s a good thing. But while my work felt meaningful to me, it made me wonder, What can I be doing that will be building on the Rock, the Christ, spoken of in the Bible—on something that is permanent, and safe, and secure—and not just giving people a better refrigerator than they had last year? What’s going to help us all keep our lives on a sure foundation?
Jesus says: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:19–21). I felt class instruction would give me that spiritual foundation I was looking for that couldn’t be taken away. Halfway through class I was convinced I wanted to be a Christian Science practitioner.
I remember that during class the world just shined. I don’t know another word to describe the feeling. I did have some struggles as I thought about the steps ahead, but everything felt so right. I think it was a big taste of the fulfillment I had been looking for, and I wanted to hang on to it and help others find the security and satisfaction of building on that spiritual foundation I was given.
But the heaviness I felt at times was not totally behind me—far from it, actually. As a result of class, I had a better idea of what God intends with our lives. But still I wondered, What does it all mean? How do I fulfill God’s purpose for me? How do I fully see in myself, in others, this deeper meaning and significance of our lives?
Nobody can give us those answers, can they?
I hear you! Only the Christ can do that. I found that I had to work these questions out with God, whether it was praying and talking to God in bed at night or in a chair during the day. You are essentially alone with God in the journey. No human aid can transition you from the experience, or dream, of the senses—being possibly hung up on them and disillusioned by them—to the reality that our life is in God, and that life is filled with hope and purpose. Only the Christ, God’s healing message, can convince someone of that. As a practitioner I can support someone through prayer by seeing more of how the Christ is active in human consciousness and doing the convincing.
The transition you mentioned sounds like the “change of base” Mrs. Eddy refers to when she says of Christian Science, “The effect of this Science is to stir the human mind to a change of base, on which it may yield to the harmony of the divine Mind” (Science and Health, p. 162).
That’s right along the lines of what Jesus was saying about losing our life to find it. We ultimately can’t rely on the human mind to bring about some good that we’ve cherished, or bring God on board to enable it. We have to find what it means that God is our Life and Mind, and this discovery doesn’t happen overnight.
Nothing in my life moves forward without yielding to the Christ, to what God is telling me about the life that He has created.
— Curt Wahlberg
I found it to be a gradual transition from thinking that the five senses can give me joy, or purpose, or identity, to finding them in God. At times, it felt to me like an acute struggle, but I sensed that the answer came from “the things of the Spirit” (Romans 8:5). I think I knew that intuitively—that I needed to be moved spiritually and to let God, divine Mind, be my Mind. But there’s often a struggle, because the yielding to the one divine Mind challenges the materialism in human consciousness. The carnal mind would prevent us from being alive to our identity as a reflection of God, divine Love.
This materialism—the mortal views we have of ourselves and of one another and of the world—continually disappoints us. So we come to see that our purpose, the way we think about ourselves, our relation to anybody, anything, has to be based on the spiritual, eternal qualities of God that He would have us bring out and bear witness to.
So often we think we need to have life all figured out before we can help another, but you went into the practice soon after finishing class instruction and while you were still working all this out.
I did. It meant I would be contributing to the healing of the world. So I moved to a town near where I’d grown up and had an uncle who owned a big house that he had divided up into
apartments. I rented one of the apartments and helped pay for my rent by helping him keep the place up.
But, you know, when you start in the practice, it all seems so wide open—hard to pin down. I’d wonder: How will I spend the hours of the day this week? How will I pay the bills? What do I do today? And that kind of questioning forces us to put our full trust in God to sustain us. I found that the goal was to listen to God for answers to those questions.
What were those first few months like?
By and large, it was just me alone in my new apartment, reading the Christian Science Bible Lessons and growing spiritually. My life had changed a lot, so I was having to pray through that, along with how I would pay my bills. I saw those fears as no more than suggestions that I wasn’t being sustained because I was serving God. I keep finding myself having to prove over and over that my life is sustained by the love of God that I reflect.
I remember the first time I went to church in my new town and started meeting people, and within the next week or so two or three people asked for Christian Science treatment. That was a neat indication for me that I’d made the right decision, particularly considering that some nice healings followed.
Taking that courageous leap into the practice must have supported you as you continued to work things out.
Certainly we are best served by having our thoughts turn outward toward helping others, and away from self. On the other hand, I’ve found that the more we’ve conquered our own fears, the better we then do the work of the practice and are a transparency for God, Truth.
But to your point, yes, the practice is a huge support. It’s important not just to be a student of Christian Science but to practice it. I certainly found this out from experience. If I want to feel safer or to experience more physical or mental well-being, I need to recognize safety and health as a universal fact for all, because of the reality that we all live in God, divine Love. In order to experience more of this universal Love, one needs to feel, to some degree, his capacity to express that Love. And as we love, we get more of the sense that the light we need for our healing is a light that is intended to brighten and heal the entire world.
As we love, we get more of the sense that the light we need for our healing is a light that is intended to brighten and heal the entire world.
— Curt Wahlberg
Healing and progress depend on something more than trying to improve our individual human lives. We need the basis of Christian Science practice—bearing witness to life as being in no way or place separated from the divine reality. This means striving to see good as a universal fact and not just something that we’re attaining through our personal effort. It means uniting with the purpose or “The Christ-mission” that Jesus revealed. Next to that marginal heading in Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes: “Jesus established his church and maintained his mission on a spiritual foundation of Christ-healing. He taught his followers that his religion had a divine Principle, which would cast out error and heal both the sick and the sinning. He claimed no intelligence, action, nor life separate from God. Despite the persecution this brought upon him, he used his divine power to save men both bodily and spiritually” (p. 136).
In this work to see all life as inseparable from the divine Spirit, I’ve found the basis for the good that I can do for myself and others.
Curt, what do you see as the greatest challenge in the practice today?
There’s a humanism in world thought that would keep us from being effective witnesses to God’s creation as inseparable from Spirit. Humanism promises a good life, but one that’s materially brought about. For example, trying to improve health and well-being through an increase in material knowledge, research, social connections, and spending. Humanism insists that we never give up looking in its direction—that human minds can do anything and that the experience through the senses can always be molded to look better. This thinking is based on the fundamental error that many minds are creating an experience in matter or physical sense. And this thinking even portrays itself as divinely supported, as Christian and scientific.
Yet, Mrs. Eddy said, “No analogy exists between the vague hypotheses of agnosticism, pantheism, theosophy, spiritualism, or millenarianism and the demonstrable truths of Christian Science; and I find the will, or sensuous reason of the human mind, to be opposed to the divine Mind as expressed through divine Science” (Science and Health, pp. 110–111).
Humanistic reasoning keeps people in the experience of the material senses, thinking that they are best addressing their need by being caught up in this sense experience. They’ll try to manipulate a situation to deal with others from the basis of the belief that there are many minds or spirits involved. And as it relates to the work of our healing practice, we risk making Christian Science merely a philosophy for discussion, a means for trying to mold mortal minds and conditions of matter.
Rather than?
Life itself. In other words, Are we really practicing this Science? Are we asking ourselves, “Wow! How do I more fully see that God is already our Life—that man is already spiritual—that this is the only reality, the reality God has created?”
We can talk about Science and study it, but do we really find opportunities to live it more fully and to spiritualize thought? When we do, we behold our neighbor in a truer light. We correct or heal the human sense we have of him and reveal to humanity more of God’s allness. The practice of Christian Science is not about supporting more conversation about Science; it’s about realizing God’s presence, and, as a result, redeeming lives.
You went to Sunday School in your teen years, and you’ve also taught Sunday School as an adult. How does all you’ve been talking about relate to helping our youth?
I so wish to offer students more than a spiritual approach for considering life or for being healthy. What they need most is for us to impart a sense of our true, spiritual identity so they see that life is for the purpose of living God. When I teach Sunday School and Primary class, this is fundamental. Our purpose is to demonstrate the Science of the Christ, and so be “the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14).
Such instruction is certainly happening in our Sunday Schools, but I think we need to do it
better. How can we see this Science in operation for our students? It’s not enough for the students for us just to talk about Science and about healing.
When it comes to teaching “the things of the Spirit of God” (see I Corinthians 2:14)—love, patience, forgiveness, and so on—it’s living those qualities that teaches our children. That’s such an important issue in the home.
As a father, what do you feel is your role in your children’s spiritual education?
I want to support their expression of God—to help them feel what we are in terms of God; that their identity doesn’t come from mimicking some behavior or culture that they’ve seen in others, and that would include a so-called Christian Science “culture.” For example, thinking they can say, “I’m a Christian Scientist because I pray instead of take medication.” Being a Christian Scientist is much deeper than that. Christian Science is about life, and life is about God. He is the source of our identity, and He defines us—not a human experience or label.
I feel it’s important to specifically address, through prayer, the carnal element in human consciousness, which aggressively denies Christian Science by suggesting that matter has all power and that it maintains a life of many minds and identities. This prayer, of course, relates to something much bigger than just being a supportive parent. It’s about being a good Christian, or witness for God. It’s doing the work of bearing witness to the universal Christ, a work that’s needed for the whole world, which in turn actively supports our kids’ connection to Science.
Any final thoughts, Curt?
I think of the great increase in spirituality and watchfulness that’s needed of us. I’m learning not to be surprised or daunted by how much more is needed for us to place our lives on, and to support humanity in finding, that rock of Christ.
But I’m convinced that we can attain the spiritual growth required of us to do the greater works Jesus expected of us. He showed us the way. And Mary Baker Eddy, through her writings, leads us in each step. What’s more, the eternal Christ constantly encourages us, revealing the great joy and dominion that comes in the spiritual awakening to this higher purpose.
