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I'VE never been an envious person, but the winter of 2001 pushed my typical have-and-let-have temperament to the breaking point. It seemed that everywhere I looked, friends were buying new cars, remodeling kitchens, and trading juicy tips from their burgeoning stock portfolios.

I'm standing on the shore of a small island tucked away in the corner of a remote Canadian wilderness lake. My friend and I have come by canoe, some 40 miles by paddle and portage, to be watching now on this special spot as the sun rises.

The notes poured over me, sweet and mellow, echoing with a resonance that raised goosebumps on my arms. This music, mostly improv, was, in a word, exquisite.

Sometimes it seemed like I was dealing with little more than a stable of quirky, moody authors. As a copywriter for a small publishing company, I guess I got used to their occasional flare-ups and irrational behavior.

I was in college and had come home to Connecticut for Thanksgiving. As always, my mother had planned the meal down to the last detail.

Mary Baker Eddy's church design encompasses institutions of higher learning. In 1904, she provided for the formation of Christian Science organizations at universities and colleges, and her Church Manual gives the green light for those CSOs to sponsor lectures by members of the Board of Lectureship.

When branch churches have good relationships with groups in the community, it can often lead to successful lectures. Lecture chairman David Jackson, at the Christian Science Society in Merrill, Wisconsin, discovered this recently when arranging a lecture-workshop conducted by Board of Lectureship member Cynthia Neely, who is also now serving as President of The Mother Church.

L'vov does not have a group of Christian Scientists, but it does have a dedicated reader of Science and Health who is single-handedly responsible for bringing a lecture to this city in the Ukraine. Dariya Vladimirovna is a medical doctor who first heard about Christian Science from a Russian Herald shortwave radio program.

Over 2,000 people came to hear a talk last March by Chris O'Riordan-Adjah in a village outside Kampala, Uganda. The village is the home of Lamech Katamba.

Today's newest venue for Christian Science lectures is the World Wide Web, where one event can reach around the world. Just after September 11, 2001, spirituality.