Years ago, after graduating from high school, I entered a three-year training course for Christian Science nurses and then worked for several years as a floor supervisor and on-the-job instructor for other Christian Science nurses. Though the work was rewarding, after a time I began to feel that what I really wanted was to go to college.
My employer agreed to a leave of absence for a semester, but just as classes were about to begin, staffing problems arose and I began to think twice about leaving my fellow Christian Science nurses. At the same time I also developed a back problem—not just a pesky ache, but a debilitating pain so severe I could not stand up straight. One night, desperate for comfort, I reached for one of Mary Baker Eddy’s books. As I opened it at random, my eyes fell on this passage: “ ‘These are but parts of Thy ways,’ says Job; and the whole is greater than its parts” (Unity of Good, pp. 5–6). Instantly I knew there was a healing message for me in those words.
For the past nine years I had devoted myself to Christian Science nursing; it had been my whole life, my whole love. But I suddenly realized that Christian Science nursing is only part of a wonderful whole. Mrs. Eddy’s 1908 By-Law establishing Christian Science nursing fell into perspective as I grasped its relationship to the whole Church organization. The whole of the Church Manual is greater than any one By‑Law—although each of the By-Laws met a need for Mrs. Eddy’s growing Church.
The Apostle Paul put it this way: “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ” (I Corinthians 12:12). Each By-Law in the Manual is part of the wholeness of Christ; each must perform the function it was intended to fulfill, thus maintaining the Cause of Christian Science. Church would not be whole without the part represented by Christian Science nursing.
With these insights I dropped the burden I had been carrying around. Being a Christian Science nurse could not deprive me of an education; rather, I saw that the skills gained from my higher education would enrich my Christian Science nursing practice. The staffing situation turned around quickly, and the pain in my back disappeared, never to return. And I was able to attend college for a year.
From then on, I committed myself to serving the whole Cause of Christian Science, recognizing no one part of the Church Manual as more or less important than another. My life experience broadened, beginning with that one year of college. I married and became a visiting Christian Science nurse and later a foster mother. I had many opportunities to serve my branch church in other positions, and the more I saw and served the whole of Church, the more I learned about myself as a whole person. Later I felt led to become a full-time Christian Science practitioner.
As a wife, foster mother, and practitioner, I found, more than ever, that I needed to understand how all the parts of my life fitted together. I often prayed to know my life could not be fragmented, the parts separated from the whole. I took comfort from Mrs. Eddy’s words: “The divine Science of man is woven into one web of consistency without seam or rent. Mere speculation or superstition appropriates no part of the divine vesture, while inspiration restores every part of the Christly garment of righteousness” (Science and Health, p. 242). So, when our lives or hearts seem to be divided by disparate interests, the Christ-idea we reflect—our real identity, the true man—remains intact. Even if we feel as if our lives are falling apart, we can claim our inseparable unity with God. We are clothed with heavenly garments.
Just as I was getting the balancing act of wife, mother, and church worker about right, I returned to college. Then suddenly there were unexpected tuition bills for my children’s education. I wondered, if money was my concern, should I leave church work altogether since there was more money to be made in the business world? After all, I had served church for many years already.
With new eyes I looked again at Mrs. Eddy's By-Law for the Christian Science nurse.
Instead, the idea came—strongly—to return to Christian Science nursing. But I had not nursed in over 25 years, and I wasn’t even sure I still could do it or keep up with the demands of shift work. Furthermore, I was tempted to believe that a return to Christian Science nursing would be a step backward from my job as a practitioner, as if Manual By-Laws were stairs in a hierarchical ladder. A few people asked me, “Isn’t being a Christian Science practitioner a more spiritually minded occupation than being a Christian Science nurse since practitioners deal more with thought than with bodies? Isn’t it easier to pray and keep thought spiritually uplifted if you don’t have to look at physical symptoms?”
I found the answer to my dilemma in Scripture. The Gospel of Luke tells us about Jesus’ visit with two sisters, Mary and Martha. Mary sat at his feet, a sign of being a student. Martha was anxious to get his meal ready. She was using her heart, fulfilling a woman’s traditional role. She wanted to please, to serve, to make a nice meal, to care for Jesus’ human needs. Mary was using her head. She wanted to be a good student, to pay attention to this great teacher without distraction. Each sister had good motives, yet there was a conflict between head and heart, between caring for the body and caring for the mind.
Jesus replied: “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:41, 42). I saw that he was restoring balance; bringing wholeness to fragmented lives.
Some might hear in Jesus’ words a preference for being a student over being a domestic; the placing of greater value on the things of the mind over the needs of the body. But now I read the story differently: Head and heart were coming together. I saw Jesus valuing women as spiritually minded students and placing discipleship in perspective with domestic economy. In other words, the meal is fine, but not the fretting about it. The story assured me there was no conflict, and that it was natural to do the “Martha” work with the thoughtfulness and devotion of a “Mary.”
It’s worth pointing out that Mrs. Eddy did not consider Christian Science nursing to be solely a female occupation, for she opens her nursing By-Law with these words: “A member of The Mother Church who represents himself or herself as a Christian Science nurse shall be one who has a demonstrable knowledge of Christian Science practice . . .” (Church Manual, p. 49). She recognized the balance of male and female qualities as natural in nursing situations. Men make great nurses!
In the Gospel of Luke, just before the Martha and Mary story, is the parable of the good Samaritan. A man was left half beaten to death on a roadside, when another man came by. He was a Samaritan, not traditionally thought of as neighborly, but “when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him” (Luke 10:33, 34). To illustrate compassion, Jesus tells a male nursing story, and then says to his audience, “Go, and do thou likewise” (Luke 10:37).
With new eyes I looked again at Mrs. Eddy’s By-Law for the Christian Science nurse. This time I saw in it the balance of the whole and the parts. It begins with the whole man: male and female, equal partners in care. The first paragraph has three main ideas. First, a Christian Science nurse must have “a demonstrable knowledge of Christian Science practice.” For me that meant that by leaving the public practice for a Christian Science nursing practice, I would not lose my practice. The form would change but not the substance. Second, a Christian Science nurse must have “the practical wisdom necessary in a sick room”; that means they must use good judgment in their care and oversight of those in need. Third, they must prove they are able to “take proper care of the sick.” They must have practical skills. Those three parts of the By-Law make a whole which is greater than each part standing alone. The final paragraph of the By-Law states that Christian Science nurses may advertise in The Christian Science Journal, as do Christian Science practitioners and teachers.
My return to Christian Science nursing was joyful. I was needed. I was wanted. And it helped me to understand Church as a whole, “in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord” (Ephesians 2:21). I also comprehended man as whole, resulting in more wholeness in my own life. This wonderful feeling of completeness continued to sustain me as I graduated from college. After a number of years as a Christian Science nurse, I eventually felt led by God to return to the full-time public practice of Christian Science, and this step, too, has been joyful and progressive.
Changing human circumstances have not fragmented the varied parts of my life, but have drawn them together seamlessly.
