Welcome
Journal Cover 2007 Searching for a compelling New Year's message? I am, too. But hold that thought.
WHEN I WAS GROWING UP, EVERY CHRISTMAS MORNING AS MY BROTHER and sisters and I tore open our gifts, my dad never failed to remind us of his own poverty-stricken childhood. And he would once again recount for us—in ever more exaggerated detail—the sad Christmas when his father was away in the First World War, his mother had passed on, and he and his siblings, cousins, and neighbors gathered for a Christmas celebration.
IF YOU'VE EVER BEEN PROSELYTIZED BY SOMEONE intolerant of all but his or her own beliefs, you know how uncomfortable that feels. You want to express kindness, even forbearance, but you find it difficult.
WHEN I BEGAN STUDYING CHRISTIAN SCIENCE, WELL, ACTUALLY even when I first heard about it from my roommate, I constantly kept my antennae on alert for anything that sounded suspiciously like "magic" answers. I didn't want any part of a religion that didn't make sense, that explained away difficult questions as "mysteries," or that didn't present logic I could follow and ultimately prove.
SOMETIMES THE WHOLE NOTION OF WORLD PEACE JUST SEEMS overwhelming. News reports about crises all over the globe can dishearten me—what can I do about these events taking place so far out of my own sphere? But then I see a DVD like Peace One Day —which Tad Blake-Weber writes about in this issue.
I'LL NEVER FORGET MY FIRST CHRISTIAN SCIENCE SERVICE when the subject of the Lesson-Sermon Found in the Christian Science Quarterly. for the week was "Sacrament.
LIKE A LOT OF PEOPLE, I SPENT YEARS TRYING OUT churches. Growing up in a traditional Protestant denomination gave me a wonderful foundation in church community and in the teachings of basic Christian theology.
HOW DO PEOPLE DESCRIBE IN MERE WORDS THE REVOLUTIONARY , infinitely compassionate, and healing truths they find in Mary Baker Eddy's book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures? How do they describe Christian Science? In myriads of ways. Almost inevitably, though, they reach for expansive words like mighty, all-encompassing, magnificent, sublime, supreme.
THE FOG WAS THICK, OUR NAVIGATIONAL SYSTEM nonfunctional, and the coastline we were following back to port rocky. Once he'd realized the trouble we were in, our sailing instructor had stationed my husband on deck to warn passing boats of our presence, charted a course to the marina from a nearby buoy, and assigned me the task of steering us to safety with the compass points he provided.
SHE HAD A REPUTATION—AND IT LOOKED LIKE SHE WAS GOING TO LIVE UP to it. Notorious for being difficult, rude, and sometimes downright nasty, this woman exhibited all of the above behavior as my writing partner and I attempted (repeatedly) to meet with her about a potential assignment.