I believe it’s possible to say that the oldest natural activity is nursing! The word nurse is derived from the Latin, nurture, meaning “to nourish.” An expectant mother naturally nurses (nourishes, feeds, enfolds) her unborn child. When the child appears, it’s natural for him or her to be nursed gently by the mother. In fact, the child naturally seeks the mother’s nourishment. The Bible speaks with great tenderness of nursing: “. . . thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side” (Isaiah 60:4). “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you” (Isaiah 66:13).
With their natural tendency to protect, support, restore, resuscitate, and uplift, women were needed early on to fulfill a drastically needed role in caring for the sick. For example, during the Revolutionary War in 1775, Major General Horatio Gates reported to Commander-in-Chief George Washington, “The sick suffered much for want of good female Nurses” (army.mil/women/nurses.html).
The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, cited the selfless accomplishments of an English woman, Florence Nightingale, who came to prominence through her aid to the sick and wounded during the Crimean War in 1853 (see Science and Health, p. 385). She was known as “The Lady with the Lamp” because she made her rounds during the dark of night.
Christian Science has been committed to healing the sick through spiritual means alone for well over 100 years. Its metaphysical system of healing is outlined in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, written by Mrs. Eddy. In support of this healing ministry, and with motherly love, she provided for the activity of a Christian Science nurse—be the nurse male or female (see Church Manual, p. 49).
The Christian Science nurse brings all comfort, compassion, care, wisdom, efficiency, patience, professionalism, and proper care of the sick to his or her patient. But, as the Manual requires, the uniqueness of the Christian Science nurse is that there must also be a demonstrable knowledge of the healing practice of Christian Science, and that can only be gained by deep study and practice of the writings of Mary Baker Eddy—specifically those in the textbook, Science and Health.
The responsibility to have a demonstrable knowledge of the healing practice places the Christian Science nurse in a completely different category from any other professional nurse. Humane nursing—as unselfish, compassionate, and professional as it is—responds generally to meeting the human need of the patient. The Christian Science nurse has the added dimension of holding in thought the spiritual, real, divine nature of the patient.
The Christian Science nurse’s knowledge of healing must be shown as practical and provable. The Christian Science nurse is not the healer, or practitioner, on the case, but supports the healing thrust of the practitioner and does nothing contrary to it.
The Christian Science nurse's knowledge of healing must be shown as practical and provable.
The practitioner visits with the patient either in person, by phone, or by e-mail, and then goes up the mental mountain to contemplate the patient’s true spiritual status as God’s pure self-expression, or image and likeness, as stated in the first chapter of Genesis in the Bible. The Christian Science nurse, however, remains with the patient, compassionately cares for the patient’s practical needs, and has the responsibility to express the discipline and inspiration needed to keep thought on the spiritual facts, and not be impressed by what might sometimes appear to be continued alarming conditions.
Many years ago, an experience during a church building project gave me a slight indication of how important it is for the Christian Science nurse to maintain spiritual clarity in the face of constant pressure to be impressed by physical conditions. I was to select 500 pure white tiles from a few thousand tiles of varying qualities to be used for a lobby floor. As I began to sort through the tiles, I put the pure white ones (or so it seemed) in one pile, and the rejects in another. In actual fact, after sorting through large numbers of tiles, I would continually find inferior ones in the pile of supposedly pure white ones and have to start over! I had to find a way to maintain a clear standard moment by moment so that my judgment wouldn’t be skewed. Finally, I selected one pure white tile, placed it in front of me, kept looking at it, and was able to quickly compare each tile to it. I never made another mistake with that project because I kept my eye on the pure model.
Just so, caring for the patient while keeping one’s spiritual vision pure is the challenge and joy of the Christian Science nurse. That direction is put clearly in Science and Health in a chapter titled, “Christian Science Practice,” where it instructs: “Let the perfect model be present in your thoughts instead of its demoralized opposite. This spiritualization of thought lets in the light, and brings the divine Mind, Life not death, into your consciousness” (p. 407).
The spiritual truth that God has made His creation in His own likeness, as perfect as Himself, is a changeless fact. All-knowing God, in His ever-presence and omniscience, knows all within Himself. Since there can be nothing beyond, or outside, ever-presence, He can know only Himself. The Apostle Paul alluded to this when he explained to the Athenians that God had made everything, and that “. . . in him we live, and move, and have our being” (see Acts 17:22–28).
The result of the self-knowing of the one changeless, perfect God, has to be an image or manifestation as perfect as Himself. That self-image is man and the universe in God’s own likeness. The understanding of that fact has a profound effect on our daily experience. The result of my continuous looking at the pure white tile gave me a slight hint of Christ Jesus’ words in his loved prayer: “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). To me that means we experience in our daily life what we understand, what we “see,” of pure divine reality.
The conscientious Christian Science nurse, while professionally caring for the patient's needs, continuously strives to see the patient's unbroken unity with infinite Love.
That spiritual understanding of divine reality is the Holy Ghost, defined in the Glossary of the textbook as “Divine Science; the development of eternal Life, Truth, and Love” (Science and Health, p. 588). This Science is the law of God, the vital connecting link that maintains the oneness of God and His idea, man. In fact, it is the often-overlooked link between prayer and effective healing. The compassionate Christian Science nurse finds the activity of the Holy Ghost, the movement of divine law, to be a constant mentor, companion, and guide. One could even say that the Holy Ghost is the comforting, healing truth that nourishes those who yield to its ministrations. The Bible indicates that those who received the Holy Ghost were refreshed, inspired, and regenerated.
The Bible also tells us that Jesus came into this experience through the Holy Ghost—the law of Spirit that displaced material law in his conception (see Matthew 1:18)—and that he baptized with the Holy Ghost (see Mark 1:8). He said that receiving the Holy Ghost would bring healing power, and he spoke of it as the Comforter (see John 14:26). It is this very Comforter promised by Jesus that has appeared today as divine Science, the law of God that energizes, adjusts, directs, and firmly establishes all good. By its very nature, it also negates and obliterates that which is not good.
One could say that for the patient in the “sickroom,” the Holy Ghost, the operation of divine law, normalizes every secretion, harmonizes every function, governs every action, and dissolves every obstruction. And it does this by the very fact of its own perfection, as when pure water flows continuously into a muddy pothole and displaces the mud by virtue of the water’s own purity.
The Holy Ghost accomplishes in the sickroom, with the authority and power of divine Love, what beholding the clear tile did for me in eliminating substandard tiles. The presence and power of the Holy Ghost establishes harmony and healing while it neutralizes, subdues, and annihilates whatever is unlike itself.
The Holy Ghost assures the development of natural freedom for the patient. If what appears to the Christian Science nurse to be something abnormal developing in or on the body of the patient; if something appears to be developing into a more aggressive form; if something appears to be developing its own timetable toward a termination of human experience—this pseudo-development is the opposite of the irresistible “. . . development of eternal Life, Truth, and Love.”
The conscientious Christian Science nurse, while professionally caring for the patient’s needs—bathing, feeding, turning, bandaging, walking with the patient—continuously strives to see the patient’s unbroken unity with infinite Love. Effective Christian Science nursing supports the healing operation of the Holy Ghost, blowing away the chaff with the uprooting wind of Spirit, and refreshing with the cleansing bath of Love.
I was able to view all this firsthand when someone I knew well had to seek care in a Christian Science nursing facility, requiring specific attention to all his daily needs. A Christian Science practitioner was engaged to understand his true, spiritual status and to negate the unnatural functions of the body that were causing concern and suffering. Christian Science nurses attended to his needs day and night. They were professionally, properly, and tenderly caring for him. They were also communicating regularly with the practitioner, apprising the practitioner of the specific needs and progress of the patient.
With the Christian Science nurses ministering to his practical needs and the practitioner giving specific Christian Science treatment, all three (the Christian Science nurse, the practitioner, and the patient) were united in keeping their view on the “pure, white tile,” or the perfect spiritual model. The textbook explains this process and its effect in this way: “Christian Science impresses the entire corporeality,—namely, mind and body,—and brings out the proof that Life is continuous and harmonious. Science both neutralizes error and destroys it. Mankind is the better for this spiritual and profound pathology” (Science and Health, p. 157).
The patient gained in strength and normalcy. The support of the Christian Science nurses was no longer needed, and shortly the practitioner’s specific treatment (specific understanding of the Holy Ghost, divine Science, in operation) ended with the patient’s return to normal living.
The activity of Christian Science nursing is always vital, active, and rewarding, never stagnant or boring, because it originates perpetually in the divine Mind. Since it companions with the Holy Ghost, it develops safely under the sheltering wing of divine Love. Its tone is described by Paul when he wrote: “We were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children” (I Thessalonians 2:7).
