My son has an exceptional awareness and understanding of birds. Often when we’re outside, he’ll say, “Did you hear that?” And when I respond that I heard a lawn mower, children playing, or a dog barking, he’ll answer with something like, “No, I mean the black-throated green warbler!”
I’ve learned that while he is also hearing the sounds I’m hearing, he isn’t distracted by them. He’s there to listen for birds, and his fine-tuned attention enables him to distinguish each unique call and song, without allowing his thoughts to be pulled toward the other noises.
This has served as a lesson to me, showing how practicing undistracted attention toward God in church, as well as in my practice of Christian Science, can bring great spiritual growth and healing. Such focused attention on divine Spirit in a church service gets at the heart of the spiritual message found in the Christian Science Lesson-Sermon, hymns, and prayer, and does not divert from that message.
I’ve found some passages from Psalms helpful in directing the focus of my worship: “Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness” (29:2), and, “O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker” (95:6). Giving all glory to God naturally puts God at the center of the church service and gives us the humility to listen for the divine message.
The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, writes: “The vital part, the heart and soul of Christian Science, is Love” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 113). This statement leaves no question as to the absolute necessity and importance of the role of divine Love in our study and practice of Christian Science. This would also include a Christian Science church service. So we could say that the “vital part, the heart and soul” of church is Love.
We can unite in church because we have something very basic in common:
love for God.
The distractions we may need to heal, then, are not just little thoughts that periodically pull our attention away from an hour-long service, but anything that draws our thinking away from Love. For example, if we are critical (either silently or audibly) of someone in church, then we could lose the understanding and perception of Love, and the healing message of the church service would get lost in a clamor of human concerns swirling around in our thoughts.
However, when we give our full attention to God, divine Love, and His ideas, it naturally follows that we love His creation and recognize the real, spiritual identity of all of our fellow church members. We can unite in church because we have something very basic in common: love for God. Because love brings us together, love is the basis from which we can work together harmoniously and support our church services collectively. But this doesn’t happen by waiting for others to be more loving first. It begins with healing the distractions in our thinking.
I’ve found it helpful to turn to the Manual of The Mother Church in sharpening my understanding of the purpose and function of church. One time the following statement really caught my attention: “No objectionable pictures shall be exhibited in the rooms where the Christian Science textbook is published or sold. No idle gossip, no slander, no mischief-making, no evil speaking shall be allowed” (Mary Baker Eddy, Manual, p. 81).
As I considered those words, I thought of how I could apply the Manual’s requirement regarding “rooms where the Christian Science textbook is published or sold” more broadly—to any place, for instance, where the textbook, Science and Health, is read and shared with others, such as in church.
I also took the prohibition of “objectionable pictures” further, beyond artwork displayed on walls, as I considered what “picture” I might be exhibiting in church through my thoughts and actions. Was it always a beautiful picture, one of kindness, humility, honesty, and patience? Or was I sometimes participating in idle gossip, slander, mischief-making, or evil speaking? As I examined my thought, I realized there were times when I could answer yes to both those questions, which meant I had some work to do to clean up the picture in my thought.
This wasn’t easy, because I sometimes felt justified in harboring critical thoughts, especially if I felt maybe I could do a better job than someone else, or if I thought someone was being critical of me. However, as I continued to grow in my practice of Christian Science, I knew such thoughts were only hindering my spiritual growth and distracting me from the “vital part” of Christian Science, Love.
I found helpful counsel in these words from Science and Health: “In patient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error,
—self-will, self-justification, and self-love,—which wars against spirituality and is the law of sin and death” (p. 242).
Churches of Christ, Scientist, are meant to nurture and promote spirituality and a deeper understanding of God, so anything that would war against spirituality would certainly need to be dissolved and replaced with love. I worked at giving my full attention to divine Love as the source of all function and purpose of church and as my only guide and motivator in church attendance, work, and relationships.
As I continue to access that “universal solvent of Love” in my thinking and in my interactions with others, I am seeing more spiritual growth and healing in my life and in my church. And I know I’m not alone in these efforts. In recent months church members have expressed gratitude for greater love and unity in our church as a result of their prayers.
Love, the “vital part” of Christian Science, is not only what gives our churches life, but also what ensures their continuance. The more we hold our thoughts to divine Love as the only power and animating force in church, and do not allow distractions to usurp that spiritual understanding of Love, the more our churches will continue to bless and heal humankind.
And like the bird’s song that can be heard above all other noises when we listen for it, the sweet “still, small voice” of Love will ring above the din of human concerns with clarity, harmony, power, and vitality.
