Being an accountant by profession, and thus much more comfortable with number-crunching than letter-writing, I have found it easy to find excuses to avoid writing for the Christian Science periodicals.
However, it became difficult to ignore the insistent thoughts that I should at least give writing for these magazines a try. After all, they provide a space for Christian Scientists to share their Christian Science healings and spiritual insights to help the many readers these periodicals can reach. On several occasions, the thought came that writing was not a matter of personal choice, but rather of duty and unselfish love for God and my fellow man. These thoughts led me to look up what the founder of these magazines, Mary Baker Eddy, actually said about writing for them.
Speaking of students of Christian Science, our Leader writes: “They should take our magazine, work for it, write for it, and read it” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 271). And on pages 155 and 156 of the same book, she says: “If my own students cannot spare time to write to God,—when they address me I shall be apt to forward their letters to Him as our common Parent, and by way of The Christian Science Journal; thus fulfilling their moral obligation to furnish some reading-matter for our denominational organ. Methinks, were they to contemplate the universal charge wherewith divine Love has entrusted us, in behalf of a suffering race, they would contribute oftener to the pages of this swift vehicle of scientific thought; for it reaches a vast number of earnest readers, and seekers after Truth.”
