Articles

I always had a yearning to find the true way to worship God. As a child, I thought of God as a very good, big man in the sky whom we can pray to.

I had recently been elected Reader of our branch church to conduct the church services and was sitting in the Reader’s room praying before the Sunday service. A ruby-throated hummingbird was enjoying his breakfast from the lavender in bloom outside my window.

In a recent article in the Journal (“Purify Your Thinking,” October 2011, p. 8 ), the writer explained how she took the commandment “Thou shalt not commit adultery” ( Exodus 20:14 ) and put the idea into simplified wording, applicable to her younger Sunday School students.

Our local branch church has a prayer topic that we address together every month. A recent topic was “Healing Partisanship.

“Honesty is spiritual power” ( Science and Health , p. 453 ).

I had an unhappy message on my answering machine. After listening to it, I elected to delete it—not to replay it, not to save it, not to mull over it, not to analyze it.

It’d been almost six months since our last phone call. Because we’re sisters, this was quite a departure from our normal, monthly hour-long calls.

Understanding our spiritual identity and our oneness with God is enough to shift our perspective. All it takes is one simple truth.

How often in our daily lives do competing personalities challenge us? How often do personalities seem to govern our experiences?  One of the biggest decoys to the practice of Christian Science is the acceptance that there are many minds operating, instead of just one Mind, God. This frustrating belief of many minds is seen in the form of opinions or agendas, and may even include personal criticism or malice toward another.

Forgiveness is an integral part of the Church of Christ, Scientist, and of Christian Science practice. And although forgiveness has always been central to Christianity, Christian Science elevates the meaning of forgiveness beyond even magnanimously letting go of a wrong, to metaphysically understanding the actual nature of that wrong as a mere supposition—that is, as something that exists to the human mind but not as something that exists in the Mind that is God.