This article is part of a series appearing occasionally in the Journal, the Christian Science Sentinel, and The Herald of Christian Science. Each article aims to correct some misconception about Christian Science that would keep us from having the results we so desire as spiritual healers.
Do you ever feel as though there is something more you need in order to have a healing? Well, you’re not alone. Here’s a poignant statement that Christian Science practitioners hear a lot: “I just need more faith and/or spiritual understanding in order to get healed.”
Having faith and understanding is important. But according to the Discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, who gave us the complete explanation of how to heal spiritually, there is a need for something more.
On page 1 of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, she explains, “The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God,—a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love.”
The most powerful aspect of Jesus’ healing ministry was that he was moved with, or felt, compassion before the person was healed.
This explanation of healing is based on Jesus’ teachings. He often told people he had healed that their faith had “made them whole.” He also had an awesome understanding of God as the doer of the works. But arguably, the most powerful aspect of his healing ministry was that he was moved with, or felt, compassion before the person was healed. You’ll find this mentioned numerous times in the Gospels, showing the importance of love in healing.
We all know what it’s commonly thought to mean to experience love. It’s a warm and fuzzy sense of well-being. Love tends to override negatives such as irritation, disappointment, frustration. But does this description of love adequately capture what happened when Jesus healed? Or what Eddy describes as “unselfed” love?
Love is God. Therefore, it includes all that God is. It fills all space. It is a power. It’s universal, impartial. It liberates, inspires, heals. It is both a noun and a verb. You might say Love is the atmosphere, the reality in which we exist.
Love is also something that isn’t just a thought. It’s a feeling. It’s a heart thing rather than a head thing. Maybe this is why both Jesus and Eddy considered it to be so important. So it’s curious that when people think about what they might need for healing, this quality of “unselfed” love doesn’t often come up.
The descriptive word, which characterizes the kind of love that heals, is hugely significant. The word used by Eddy is unselfed, not unselfish. The Oxford Dictionary defines unselfish as “willing to put the needs or wishes of others before one’s own.” Sounds good, is good. But evidently it’s not always what heals.
The prefix “un-” can mean a variety of things. One is “not.” For our purposes, unselfed may mean “not selfed.” “Un-” also can mean to reverse. What could be the reverse of an incorrect sense of self? Being God’s expression? And “un-” is sometimes used to mean released from. So unselfed could mean released from self.
When it comes to prayer, understanding the word unselfed can make a huge difference in our healing work. Basically, Eddy is telling us to leave any sense of self out of prayer. So it isn’t that our efforts heal. Or that we have to feel responsible for healing any situation. What is required, however, is to get completely out of a sense of mortal selfhood. In other words, divest our thinking of any consciousness of personal effort.
What does that do? It puts us completely in the role of seeing God work and reflecting that work. We bear witness to what God knows about any situation. Understanding that this is the purpose of our prayer, we aren’t tempted to go down the road of trying to fix something. Rather, we see that God’s allness has already excluded all evil, that His creation is already completely good.
As the Founder of Christian Science, Eddy put her discovery of the divine laws that govern the universe into practice. She was a remarkable healer. Explaining how to heal instantaneously, she said, according to a student’s recollection: “I will tell you the way to do it. It is to love! Just live love—be it—love, love, love. Do not know anything but Love. Be all love. There is nothing else. That will do the work. It will heal everything; it will raise the dead. Be nothing but love” (We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, Expanded Edition, Vol. 1, pp. 296–297).
This action of unselfing our love removes any sense of separation. It isn’t that we are experiencing God as if we were here and God were over there. We find ourselves “in the Spirit” as St. John says. We become conscious of all good, complete harmony, pristine clarity.
How do we know if a sense of self is standing in the way of healing? One example could be when we worry about whether our prayer is going to work. Or if we feel responsible for doing a good job.
What can we do about that? Get very still. Hush the chatter that would make us feel afraid that we might fail. And then listen to God.
When we take any sense of self out of our prayer, all that is left is divine Love and its expression. It is All. The only. The real. What happens as a result? We become aware that Love fills all space, including the very place where there seemed to be a problem. And this is often when we experience healing.
My sister was once confined to a psychiatric hospital, where she hadn’t said a word since being admitted. I wanted to go see her, but I was told it was pointless since she was basically catatonic.
As I prayed about it, Jesus’ words came to thought. He asked the question, “What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind?” (Matthew 11:7). Eddy wrote, “ ‘What went ye out for to see?’ A person, or a Principle?” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 117).
That was my answer. I realized I was not going to see a mentally disturbed sister. Because God is Love, there was nothing but Love to experience. It wasn’t me trying to be helpful in going, but Love showing me what was true.
As the nurse took me to my sister’s room, she apologized and said there’d been no change. The locked door had a window, and I could see my sister standing across the room by the other window, staring out. The nurse unlocked the door and let me in.
When we take any sense of self out of our prayer, all that is left is divine Love and its expression. And this is often when we experience healing.
My sister turned, saw me, and exclaimed, “Debbin [that’s what she called me], I’m so glad to see you!” We then had a perfectly normal conversation. She was released two days later, with “sudden unexplained remission of symptoms” written on her chart.
This didn’t seem surprising to me. It was God being God, Love being Love, and I was privileged to see it. I wasn’t trying to heal my sister; I just endeavored to see Love expressed. And of course it was, as it always is.
For me, this has been an example of how important this third ingredient, unselfed love, is to healing. Yes, of course, faith and spiritual understanding are necessary. But unselfed love lifts our efforts from limited, circumscribed attempts to see good reign into the consciousness of infinite, ever-present, divine Love. It’s not declaring truth; it’s witnessing Truth. It’s not trying to love another, or even love God. It’s being in Love, knowing only Love, because Love is truly All.
