As avid hikers know, bushwhacking means making your way through thick woods without a trail. It’s tough going. Personally, I prefer to hike on established trails, and, thankfully, there are plenty of them for people like me. In 1819, Abel Crawford and his son, Ethan, began the first cut of the Crawford Path in New Hampshire. Now considered the oldest continually maintained hiking trail in America, it leads to the summit of Mount Washington, the highest elevation in the northeastern United States. While the elevation of the mountain hasn’t changed, it was a more difficult ascent for the Crawfords because they were clearing the path as they climbed it. Thanks to their efforts, hikers now have the joy of climbing all the way to the summit on an established trail.
The White Mountains of New Hampshire are maintained in part by “trail adopters.” These are individuals who love the mountains, and, out of that love, “adopt” a given trail to maintain. This responsibility requires regular hiking on the trail and performing the needed maintenance to ensure that the path can be traveled by all.
I love to think about this concept of “trail adoption” in relation to Christianity and Christian Science.
Over 2,000 years ago, Christ Jesus established the original path of Christianity, which includes the vital element of healing. He is described in Acts this way: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him” (Acts 10:38). By his example and through his teachings, including the Sermon on the Mount, Christ Jesus gave us all the needed tools to keep us on the path of healing the sick.
About 300 years after his ascension, however, this path, or way, of primitive Christianity was lost sight of. Individuals caught glimpses of our Master’s work and practiced it, of course, but the regular, consistent healing work accomplished by the early Christian Church declined. You could say that the worship of Jesus’ personality, rather than proper recognition of the divine Principle he demonstrated, obscured the path he had established for his followers.
Fast-forward to 1866. Mary Baker Eddy (Mary Patterson at the time) was in dire straits. After a fall on the ice, and resulting injuries that the doctor who attended her said would prove fatal, she asked for her Bible, which she had loved since childhood. She opened to an account of one of Jesus’ healings in the Gospels. “As I read, the healing Truth dawned upon my sense” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 24), she later explained, and, much to everyone’s astonishment, she herself had a complete healing.
The work of a Christian “trail adopter” requires much, but the rewards are great.
This wasn’t enough; she wanted to know how her recovery had happened so that she could help others. And so began Mary Baker Eddy’s extraordinary lifework. Among other things, she went on to write a textbook explaining her discovery, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, and she taught others how to heal as Jesus did. In 1879, she established a church “designed to commemorate the word and works of our Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing” (Mary Baker Eddy, Church Manual, p. 17).
Mrs. Eddy’s lifework didn’t invent primitive Christianity; it reinstated it. You could say she came across a path that was badly overgrown, the one that Jesus had originally established, and she cleared it. It’s now up to us, as followers of their examples and teaching, to help maintain the trail by practicing Christian healing.
Here are a couple of things I have learned about my responsibility as a Christian “trail adopter.”
First of all, it’s what’s expected of us. Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father” (John 14:12).
Mrs. Eddy counsels, “May the Christians of to-day take up the more practical import of that career! It is possible,—yea, it is the duty and privilege of every child, man, and woman,—to follow in some degree the example of the Master by the demonstration of Truth and Life, of health and holiness” (Science and Health, p. 37).
Another thing I have learned is that being a trail adopter is a daily endeavor. If you were to ask any Olympic athlete how they arrived at their level of competition, most would probably say that it began with a love of their sport and a desire to compete. But that alone didn’t take them from beginner to world-class athlete. It was the daily training that made the difference.
In Mrs. Eddy’s published writings, there are many references to what is expected of us on a daily basis. Take, for instance, this passage: “Simply asking that we may love God will never make us love Him; but the longing to be better and holier, expressed in daily watchfulness and in striving to assimilate more of the divine character, will mould and fashion us anew, until we awake in His likeness” (Science and Health, p. 4).
There are also references to daily in at least three Manual By-Laws, including “A Rule for Motives and Acts” (p. 40), the “Daily Prayer” (p. 41), and “Alertness to Duty” (p. 42).
For many years I’ve had the opportunity to witness how daily watchfulness and daily striving to “have the mind of Christ” (I Corinthians 2:16) results in healing. To name just a few examples, I was instantaneously healed of smoking years ago, with drinking falling away shortly thereafter. I was also healed of complications during pregnancy and childbirth. Our children have had healings of whooping cough, colds, a broken shoulder, and symptoms of mononucleosis.
This Science of Christianity has brought peace to my life in the midst of upheaval, order in the place of chaos, patience under even the most trying circumstances, and joy when things seemed gloomiest. And when the way has seemed roughest, the path most obscure, the lifework and teachings of Christ Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy have repeatedly placed my feet on the right path, the only way to salvation.
Finally, perhaps the most important thing I’ve learned is that we can’t expect anyone else to do this work for us. If we are going to maintain the Science of Christianity established by Christ Jesus, and later reestablished by Mary Baker Eddy, we have to do our part. The work of a Christian “trail adopter” requires much, but the rewards are great. Mrs. Eddy explains it this way on page 206 of Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896: “Beloved students, you have entered the path. Press patiently on; God is good, and good is the reward of all who diligently seek God. Your growth will be rapid, if you love good supremely, and understand and obey the Way-shower, who, going before you, has scaled the steep ascent of Christian Science, stands upon the mount of holiness, the dwelling-place of our God, and bathes in the baptismal font of eternal Love.”
