A Christian Science Healing

It has been several months since I have told here any of the story of my "spiritual journey." I would like to continue it now.

At last telling, I was living in San Francisco and attending Lone Mountain College. I need to backtrack just a bit here. Before I moved to San Francisco, when I was living in Palo Alto, I encountered someone on a street corner who handed me a publication from the Christian Scientists. It should be noted first-off that Christian Scientists do not proselytize and that this was therefore a very unusual happening. I took it as a sign.

My response was to find a Christian Science Reading Room and to purchase a copy of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, written by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science. I read it cover-to-cover, then began studying it in more detail.

At some point, I believe after I moved to San Francisco, I went again to a Reading Room to find the name of a Christian Science practitioner. Practitioners in Christian Science have completed very advanced studies in this persuasion and counsel people, most of them members of the Christian Science Church, guiding them in their understanding in such a way that a healing of a physical or mental state may take place. I chose a name from a list of practitioners and went to this gentleman, to speak more about Christian Science as much as to seek healing for any particular condition. Our meeting was fascinating.

Some months later, I was eating lunch with several other young women in the dining room at Lone Mountain. One of the women talked about a serious ear condition she was experiencing. She felt great concern, especially since the specialist who could perform the surgery she needed could not see her for several months, and she feared she would lose her hearing entirely.

I offered her my encouragement and proceeded on to the college library to listen to a recording of a piece of music we were to analyze for a humanities course. I put on the earphones and began to listen, but found I could not keep my attention focused on the music. The face of the young woman with the hearing problem crowded everything else out.

Finally, I stopped the recording and closed my eyes. I began to recite a few phrases I had memorized from Science and Health, and spoke silently as best I could in imitation of the Christian Science session I had had with the practitioner. I continued doing this until finally the woman's image faded, and then I returned to listening to the assigned music.

The next day in the cafeteria I happened to be sitting at a table next to the one where this same young woman was eating. She said to her companions, "You know, the strangest thing happened yesterday afternoon. All of a sudden there was a sound like an explosion in my ear, and now I can hear perfectly!"

I must emphasize that I don't take any personal credit for this happening. A healing like this occurs because of Truth, not person. In this shadow world we seem to occupy, many thoughts of limitation and suffering present themselves. When the omnipotence, the all-encompassing Reality of the One called God is realized, these limits can fade away.

Mary Baker Eddy gives seven synonyms for God: Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth and Love. She states in Science and Health (page 256, lines 1-8): "The finite must yield to the infinite. Advancing to a higher plane of action, thought rises from the material sense to the spiritual, from the scholastic to the inspirational, and from the mortal to the immortal. All things are created spiritually. Mind, not matter, is the creator. Love, the divine Principle, is the Father and Mother of the universe, including man."

This surprising introduction to the power of Christian Science was only one occurrence in a train of coincidences manifesting for me in California. Though I didn't see it at the time, this acquaintance with Christian Science was a preparation.