Articles

Been elected Reader in a branch Church of Christ, Scientist? Or are you president of your church or a committee chairman, and do you give readings and reports at meetings? Ideally, what do you hope people will get from your reading most of all? Healing? New direction? At least some gleam of inspiration? If we're to read with spiritual inspiration, we must start not with self but with God. "The intercommunication is always from God to His idea, man," Science and Health , p.

Sometimes a beginning student in Christian Science hears much about animal magnetism, or the belief that evil is real and powerful—about what it has done and can do to him. Perhaps he begins to fear it.

If some Christian Scientists are accustomed to thinking that church fellowship is an outmoded, other-denominational concept they have progressed beyond, they are wrong. It is true that there is no provision in their church for Sunday night socials, men's clubs, and sewing circles.

I once went through a period when articles I hopefully sent to the Editors of the Christian Science periodicals were consistently rejected. I talked the situation over with my teacher in Christian Science, who asked, "Have you thought of your writing as an expression of love for your readers?" When I saw writing as an opportunity to love, I sat right down and wrote about an experience that had proved to me that scientific prayer can nullify in moments the threat of unavoidable evil.

The telephone rings. A Christian Science practitioner picks up the phone and hears a frantic call for help.

Much of human life involves cycles— some almost unnoticed, others obvious and troublesome. We instinctively accept the regular cycle of day and night, but we may be troubled by the ups and downs of our fortunes, our moods, our health.

Homemaking is not just being a housewife. Although household duties may take up much time and require loving attention, homemaking includes much more than the care and maintenance of a house.

Abraham, in Bible terms, was a spiritual explorer. When he headed his caravan out of moon-worshiping Haran toward the unknown homeland God had promised, there began a journey of great significance to every one of us.

How often do our prayerful treatments for ourselves and others get immediate results? Of these, how many bring instantaneous healing? Do some of our results in the practice of Christian Science seem slow and possibly attributable to "natural causes" rather than fast and definitely breaking all so-called laws of material causation? We should not hesitate to evaluate our attainments in healing. Our need may well be to ask ourselves the simple but basic question, Do we really understand what it is that heals? If we can answer this question in simple direct terms, it is possible for us to be really effective in our healing work.

A human being at all times has the God-derived ability to pray. Through inspired, correct prayer he can claim and exercise his inherent dominion and overcome subjection, make strong progress toward controlling his life.