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Imagine a windowless , bare room. Every corner and every square inch of the walls and floor are utterly without illumination.

Dear Reader, This note came to us: “It doesn’t seem like we could really ever do everything [including reading the Christian Science magazines] we ought to. ” Sound familiar? With a daily list of things to do, do we find it hard to squeeze in some spiritual nourishment?  All the things we think we need to accomplish sometimes turn spiritually promising activities—such as reading a Christian Science magazine—into a burden.

The question “What is my work today?” had been coming to me over a number of months. As I prayed to understand more clearly what my work was and how to do it well, my volunteer work in a Christian Science Reading Room helped me find an answer.

Even though I grew up attending a Christian Science Sunday School and was active in the Christian Science organization at my college, I never knew very much about Primary class instruction in Christian Science. I just knew it was a course conducted by a Christian Science teacher, an experienced Christian Science practitioner who has taken a course on teaching Christian Science, and it generally lasts about two weeks.

Sometimes it might feel as though we are trying to swim upstream, against the current. And even if we try to change our course to move in the right direction, it can still seem difficult to navigate the rough, deep waters.

All of a sudden something is “in your face”—a sudden pain, some threat to your safety—making you afraid. It all seems so real.

Editor’s note: The following are adapted excerpts from a talk given by the author in November 2018 to an audience from various faith backgrounds at the Parliament of the World’s Religions.   divider The 2018 Parliament theme, “The Promise of Inclusion, the Power of Love,” holds out hope for all men, women, and children—whether part of today’s millions of refugees, or a child bullied on the playground.

The healing practice of Christian Science includes the understanding that the divine Mind, or God, is the only real Mind, and that our only real selfhood is the expression of this Mind. This means that we don’t have a personal mind or ego-driven selfhood separate from God, the one divine Mind that includes all.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, explained that Christ Jesus’ “mission was both individual and collective. He did life’s work aright not only in justice to himself, but in mercy to mortals,—to show them how to do theirs, but not to do it for them nor to relieve them of a single responsibility” ( Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p.

For centuries, in some parts of the world, knowing and claiming one’s ancestry was a common practice in establishing one’s legal rights or other successions of entitlements sanctioned by law. In recent years, though, there has been a noticeable marketing effort to promote the search and discovery of one’s lineage for the purpose of establishing a sense of identity and social relatedness.