In this edited podcast excerpt, we hear from Kim Proctor from Boston and Christine Raymond (who goes by “Chris”) from New London, New Hampshire. Kim is the product manager of The Christian Science Monitor, and Chris is on a team providing environmental solutions for ecological catastrophes in the Caribbean. Both Chris and Kim are students of Christian Science and have had much experience working in the business world and as entrepreneurs. You can listen to the full podcast at sentinel.christianscience.com/mary-baker-eddys-ideas.
Tony: Today, we’d like to especially focus on the empowerment of women in the context of business, thinking about the leadership of the Discoverer and Founder and Leader of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy. Chris and Kim, can we talk about the role of Mary Baker Eddy as a mentor to you?
Chris: Mary Baker Eddy has been a real inspiration to me for most of my business career, because I admire how spiritual understanding really guided her business practice. The more I read her biographies, and of course the more I learned about Christian Science from her seminal work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, the more I understood how to put Christian Science, the truth of God and man, into day-to-day practice. And then the spiritual understanding informed the motives and execution in my business dealings. It didn’t matter which business I was involved in. Every one of them had challenges, and sometimes I felt like I was jumping into the unknown.
You know, especially when you’re an entrepreneur, because there’s this new idea, it’s not known where the end might be. However, Mrs. Eddy proved that the more you understand about God and your relationship to God, and know God as Love and Spirit and Mind, then there is nothing unknown. It might be unexplored to you, but it’s not unknown. When you have Science and Health as your best business book ever, then you have the ultimate opportunity for exploration.
I was thinking about something in the Glossary of the book you mentioned, Science and Health. Part of the definition of the word unknown is: “That which spiritual sense alone comprehends, and which is unknown to the material senses” (p. 596).
Chris: Yes, that’s it. And as you exercise spiritual sense in business, it’s so crucial to turn around and help somebody else, because really undergirding Mary Baker Eddy’s light and life is Christ Jesus’ teaching, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” That to me is what business is an opportunity to prove. Love your neighbor. Love your customers. Love your employees. Love your clients. Love your competitor as yourself.
I remember several years ago when I was involved in the early days of web development and we were building a website and client base. A competitor who loved what we were doing started absorbing some of our ideas into his ideas! And then this competitor started talking to our clients, because he wanted our clients too. And so he began telling lies about us. When I heard this from a good client who called me up to tell me, I was just shocked.
I called up a Christian Science practitioner and started to sputter out what was happening—this terrible thing, this dishonest thing. There was a pause on the other end of the line, and the practitioner said this about the competitor: “Well, what are you thinking about him?” And it just stopped me, because I realized I have to see him as God sees him. Not only that, I have to see the clients as God sees them in spiritual reality. They’re not being duped. They don’t believe lies. And the competitor, he doesn’t tell lies. And I can’t be harmed by lies.
So it’s seeing each of us—the competitor, the clients, and me and my colleagues—as the image and likeness of God. We are sinless, in reality. We can’t tell lies. And we can’t be harmed by lies. And you know what happened? About a week or so later, one of the clients called and said, “Yeah, we didn’t believe those things he said anyway.” But here’s what happened about six months later. The competitor called us and apologized. Isn’t that great?
That’s lovely, Chris. Thanks so much for sharing.
Kim, now let’s go to you. I know you’re not so much involved in the editorial side of The Christian Science Monitor, but the side you are on [the business side] is just as crucial. Making sure that people know about the Monitor and read it and share it. So please share regarding this idea of Mary Baker Eddy’s mentorship.
Kim: What Mary Baker Eddy has done for the world is obviously awe-inspiring. And I’m very excited to be working at the paper. Yes, I do work on the business side, meaning, I don’t have to write the articles. Phew! I’ll leave that to the professionals. I absolutely love to think about the importance of her work and what the Science is telling us and how it’s directing us.
Actually, let me add this note that’s pretty amazing. A 2008 Sentinel article actually said this of Mrs. Eddy: “For her, there was a natural synergy between studying Christian Science and applying its theology to world events. After all, it’s the Science, along with the demonstration of the Science, that promotes spiritual growth—and healing solutions in individual lives as well as in the world” (Mary Trammell, “Engaging with The Christian Science Monitor,” November 24, 2008). By Science, I mean Christian Science, the divine laws of God operating everywhere. And I invite everybody to think about what that could mean in your life. I know it inspires me in my work for the Monitor.
Mary Baker Eddy didn’t give in to the belief in her day that a woman couldn’t do anything.
I must say, one of my great feelings of gratitude for Mary Baker Eddy was her giving us Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, which really has brought the Bible to life for me. But then to take it all the way to The Christian Science Monitor, where her sense of loving your neighbor as yourself just had no limits to who that neighbor would be. You illustrated that, Chris, as well, in loving your competitor as much as your clients.
Chris: One of the things it seems that we’re really talking about is, Do we love our neighbor enough to help them be better? Mary Baker Eddy for half of her life was sickly and was trying to find different treatments to be better. And when she had that glimpse of God’s allness, when she had that glimpse of Spirit and Love as being the healing agent, it wasn’t enough for her to say, “That’s it—I found it for me!” It was, instead: “I have to share this with others. I have to help others be better.” And so that’s why she wrote Science and Health. And that is why the book had to be published, and then it had to be distributed, which in a way is like a business right there. I love my neighbor. I love humanity so much that I am going to make this available in every way that’s possible.
Kim: We can learn so much from reading biographies of Mary Baker Eddy. The message for me is: Don’t be stopped by what you think is impossible. Mary Baker Eddy didn’t give in to the belief in her day that a woman couldn’t do anything. She could have thought, “Well, I’d better know my limitations.” Instead, oh my goodness, she overcame every obstacle in life, in finances, in health. She needed to find housing at times. I mean, there were everyday needs to be met. And she broke through what people thought women could do.
For some context, at the time women couldn’t vote. They couldn’t have their own property. They were in danger of losing their own children when there were family disputes. But Mrs. Eddy did not let societal limitations deter her from moving forward in sharing Christian Science with the world.
Mary Baker Eddy was a pioneer of the franchise model with Christian Science Reading Rooms. She built an entire business to promote Science and Health. And you can just see everything that she did as telling you it’s possible to do things you didn’t think you could do, because God is on your side.
In Christian Science, you learn that you have an unbreakable relationship to God. You are always, every moment, connected to God. And every moment you can have ideas, you can have direction from the divine Mind, the only power in the universe. God is helping you move forward regardless of what looks like any material obstacles. Mary Baker Eddy broke through all of them to be able to tell us you can do this, too.
I think that’s so important. To know that we are all spiritually empowered to accomplish whatever good it is in us to do. Mary Baker Eddy felt empowered to do what was uniquely hers to do. And one of the things I think the teachings of Christian Science bring out, and really the examples of the Bible characters as well, is that it’s a rule that applies to all of us.
One thing I’ve always appreciated is that Mary Baker Eddy said very clearly, “. . . follow your Leader only so far as she follows Christ” (Message to The Mother Church for 1901, p. 34). And everything she did and said was rooted in the Christ, the true idea of God, and in an understanding of what Jesus did, what he taught in his healing ministry.
Do either of you have a healing you’d like to share?
Kim: Actually, I had one very recently, Tony. I was reading a book called We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, Expanded Edition, Vol. 2. In this book, a lot of the people are recalling what Mary Baker Eddy told them specifically. In one part, on page 424, Mrs. Eddy was telling somebody that no matter what is happening, evil can’t hurt you. I realized we can thank God for the truth about our being that’s present right now, and know that a difficult experience hasn’t actually touched you, because you haven’t actually fallen out of God’s care, God’s love, God’s continuous holding of you in His precious hands. God is making sure you are well and making sure your health is intact all the time. You just immediately affirm what’s already true about your being. I put these thoughts into use.
I fell while carrying a kayak downstairs to the basement with my husband. I immediately went to this idea of: Thank you, God, for protecting me and caring for me and holding my perfection. I can right now affirm that I have not experienced something where I fell out of Your care and somehow could be hurt by an accident of any kind. I stood up right away, and I was able almost immediately to have no pain. I put some bandages on my knee, foot, and toes, and was able to move on with my day. Later that day the pain I had was gone.
There are so many applications for not being duped by matter. Matter’s constantly trying to say: “This problem is who you are. This is what’s going on. This hurts. This is hot. This is cold.” It’s constantly trying to tell you things that are not from God are true. But God did not make a material man. Right?
So Genesis 1 tells us what God really made, which is spiritual man in God’s image and likeness. So as we understand that, that is the entirety of our being. Learning this and sticking with it does take some work. And so we can really understand that our entire identity, our entire being, the substance of our being, is spiritual; it’s never been touched by a material limitation of any kind.
As you understand that for yourself in Christian Science, you find the strength to be able to turn away from those things that try to tie you to matter. When you stand with that truth of who God really made you to be, you really have the strength of God. You have the strength of Truth.
In Christian Science, you learn that you have an unbreakable relationship to God.
A lot of people talk about Jesus as if he’s a personal presence. But as a Christian Scientist, my understanding is that that’s not the case. The Christ, the healing power, the spiritual idea of God that he embodied, is present. And that’s something we all have access to. So let’s just wrap up by talking about Mrs. Eddy in terms of not so much the person, but her legacy, which has really been to leave us an understanding of the ideas of Truth that can still be our mentors, moment by moment.
Kim: To your point, Tony, we’re talking about Mrs. Eddy’s life as a woman, and she did these amazing things, and aren’t we grateful? We are. But it’s the light she expressed—the light of the Christ—that we need to recognize. The light and the life that go together. It’s those two things that bring us forward and allow us to bless our business, bless our communities, bless our neighbors, bless all mankind. The life is, yes, her and her example. And to me, the light is the discovery of Christian Science and what’s brought to life in her works and her writings. And so when you actually put those together, they’re powerful.
Chris: You know, Kim, this relates to our daily practice. Whatever we’re currently doing is our practice of Christian Science, our public practice. If we’re interacting with the community, interacting with our neighbors, our business associates, that’s a public practice. When we’re helping our neighbors, we’re living it.
You know, it reminds me of one of my favorite passages. It’s from “Pond and Purpose” in Mrs. Eddy’s Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896 on page 206 when she says: “As you journey, and betimes sigh for rest ‘beside the still waters,’ ponder this lesson of love. Learn its purpose; and in hope and faith, where heart meets heart reciprocally blest, drink with me the living waters of the spirit of my life-purpose,—to impress humanity with the genuine recognition of practical, operative Christian Science.” That’s the practice. That’s a practice for all of us as we journey on in whatever we do, in business and in daily life. That’s it. Practical, operative Christian Science is here to benefit humanity.
What a lovely note to end on.
