Growing up attending Christian Science Sunday School, I often heard people praise Mary Baker Eddy’s poems that have been used as hymns in the Christian Science Hymnal. I shared this appreciation to a degree; yet it was not until after studying Christian Science on my own that I really began to treasure them. I’ve come to especially appreciate how many biblical references they contain, and how well they bring out the spiritual sense of Scripture in beautiful and memorable ways.
When we read and sing these hymns, we unite with our Leader in her exalted prayers of praise, gratitude, and love for God, grounded in her Christianly scientific understanding of Scripture. This spiritualizes our thinking, bringing greater harmony to our lives.
I’ve experienced this effect many times, including in the following instance. Several years ago I was elected to the board of trustees for a condo association where I lived. Condo business meetings had often been chaotic, with people speaking out of turn, and there was a growing sense of contention and anger. One resident seemed particularly rude, sometimes yelling at the person conducting the meeting and even physically pushing other residents.
Prior to an upcoming meeting that I was asked to conduct, this man sent letters to others in the building that made strong personal accusations against the board of trustees. Most of these accusations seemed unfair and came from misconceptions of building and financial issues. He used words such as “criminals,” “fraud,” “lying,” and “mismanagement.” The other board members, while preparing a response to the accusations, became concerned about the meeting, and they made sure that the property manager was prepared to call the police, believing this would be necessary. So certain were they that there would be large, angry outbursts at the meeting, that they repeatedly spoke as if his outbursts were a preordained fact, and labeled the man as “Mr. Disruption.”
After I began hearing these expectations of discord, I turned to God in prayer. I was reminded of the biblical account where Christ Jesus was teaching in the midst of Pharisees and doctors of the law—those who were often antagonistic to his mission and would even seek to kill him—yet “the power of the Lord was present to heal them” (Luke 5:17). I knew Mrs. Eddy had experienced a similar kind of vicious persecution and responded with the same kind of Christly love that heals, such as when she healed an antagonistic newspaper reporter of a serious throat condition (see Irving C. Tomlinson, Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy, Amplified Edition, pp. 69–71). I also knew that her writings, including her hymns, make plain that divine Love’s healing power is a universal and eternal fact, present for each one of us to realize and demonstrate in our own experience.
A major turning point came when I thought about Mrs. Eddy’s hymn “Love” and began to prayerfully ponder the first verse, which reads in part:
Brood o’er us with Thy shelt’ring wing,
’Neath which our spirits blend
Like brother birds, that soar and sing,
And on the same branch bend.
(Poems, p. 6)
I had recently been studying this poem, and I had begun to see some important connections between it and the spiritual account of creation given in the first chapter of Genesis.
For example, on the first day of creation, where verse 2 reads, “And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters,” the phrase “moved upon” is translated from two Hebrew words that can be literally translated “brooded over” (The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible). In Deuteronomy, the same two Hebrew words are translated “fluttereth over” (32:11) when describing the brooding action of the mother eagle over her young. This Old Testament symbol of God’s motherhood in Mrs. Eddy’s poetic prayer enriched my sense of the overarching care of God as infinite Love.
Considering the line of the poem that says, “ ’Neath which our spirits blend,” I noted with interest that one dictionary definition of spirit includes “disposition of mind.” This helped me see that under the universal, supreme government of God, the true and only Mind, our mental dispositions always blend harmoniously, since they originate in and reflect that same perfect source.
Since only spiritual and loving thoughts come from God, they alone have power and authority.
Another important insight came from considering the words, “Like brother birds, that soar and sing.” In the Bible, birds are first explicitly mentioned on the fifth day of creation in Genesis, which involves the symbolic creation of “fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven” (1:20). In her exegesis of this passage in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mrs. Eddy states: “The fowls, which fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven, correspond to aspirations soaring beyond and above corporeality to the understanding of the incorporeal and divine Principle, Love.” She also refers to the fowls as “holy thoughts, winged with Love,” and “angels of His presence” (pp. 511–512). These truths helped me realize that not only do all thoughts blend harmoniously under God’s government, but they also “soar and sing”—their nature is spiritually exalted above mortality and is joyful, peaceful, glorious. I began to realize more clearly that since only spiritual and loving thoughts come from God, they alone have power and authority over everyone’s thinking and actions.
One could say that by prayerfully poring over these lines and applying them to my situation, I was following Mrs. Eddy’s counsel at the end of the second verse, to “Seek holy thoughts and heavenly strain, / That make men one in love remain.” The inspiration from that prayer stayed with me right up through the day of the meeting.
Just before the meeting started, I took a moment to pray silently, reflecting on the inspiration that had come to me from Mrs. Eddy’s poem. There was no angry outburst at the meeting, and hardly anyone spoke out of turn except to ask for clarification. The other board members couldn’t believe that the meeting had gone so smoothly and without disruption, and many residents noted that it had been the most harmonious meeting in recent history. I am, of course, deeply grateful for that evidence of the power of divine Love to bring harmony and peace to human experience. But I am even more grateful for the enduring, practical inspiration and insight into the Scriptures that I gained from pondering Mrs. Eddy’s hymn, which I now recall whenever I sing it.
I’m grateful to have heard all of our Leader’s hymns read and sung so often in Sunday School and at branch church services over many years; and I can now understand why she once wrote to the Board of Directors of The Mother Church: “It would be a good thing to have one of my hymns read and sung about every Sunday. It would spiritualize the thought of your audience, and this is more needed in the church than aught else can be” (“Our Leader’s hymns,” Christian Science Sentinel, August 29, 1914).
