I used to be very anxious about talking with others about Christian Science. The root of this anxiety may have been partly nervousness, but there was also a deeper issue: I was holding on to a belief that understanding Christian Science made me different—or even better—than everyone else.
New England artist James F. Gilman, who collaborated with Mary Baker Eddy on the illustrations for her poem Christ and Christmas, writes about this feeling: “… this view of my intuitive perception as being spiritual and superior to the general thought was nothing but a more subtle form of materiality—self-love” (Painting a Poem, p. 159).
I yearned to cast out this “subtle form of materiality” and follow more fully Jesus’ command in the Sermon on the Mount, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
