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Many years ago , I was asked to take on the duties of a substitute Reader at a Christian Science informal group I attended, which meant that some weeks I would need to read the weekly Bible Lesson-Sermon to the congregation. But for about as long as I can remember, any activity that required speaking in public, even talking to a clerk at a store, was fraught with anxiety for me.

Years ago, while attending college, I had the privilege of living in the home of a Christian Science practitioner. She became my “college mother.

I’m a Christian Science Sunday School teacher, and I love sharing the Bible and Christian Science with the students—especially the healings and teachings of Christ Jesus.   I always pray to see the children as pure and innocent expressions of God.

For ages mankind has endeavored to discover what is real, lasting, and meaningful in life. This has involved a lot of soul-searching and sometimes looking in all the wrong places.

What knowledge would be available to us without sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch? Could we experience materiality, or even know of an existence in a corporeal body? In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, the Discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, states, “All human knowledge and material sense must be gained from the five corporeal senses” ( p. 532 ).

One night, many years ago, when a friend came to visit, he invited me to have sex with him. Although I cared very deeply for the man, he knew that I believe that celibacy outside of marriage is an expression of spiritual integrity.

It’s been happening more and more frequently. I’m going about a normal day when a small spiritual insight, barely discernible, comes to me.

One winter evening, while I was driving back to my college with two friends after an evening out, my car hit a patch of ice and spun out. We were all pretty scared, but I was so grateful that we were very quiet and nobody panicked.

For many months I had been deeply contemplating the metaphysical concept that there is no matter. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, is adamant on this point.

Growing up in a devoted family of Christian Scientists, I resonated positively to this call to duty—to love God with all my heart, to faithfully follow the Leader of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, to serve The Mother Church and my branch Church of Christ, Scientist, consistently, and to embrace the healing practice of Christian Science.   In her writings, Mrs.