My mother was a Christian Science practitioner; she practiced faith healing. She took telephone calls from people with problems at all times of the day and night. I frequently overheard these conversations and, while the specifics elude me now, I have a distinct memory of the firm, affirmative and supporting tone in her voice as she quoted the Bible and the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. It is fair to say my mother was a preacher, a psychologist and a social worker blended together. I thought she was powerful and mysterious.
Born into a Roman Catholic family in the early 1900’s, she distinguished herself early on for the ability to see things before they happened. As a consequence of this clairvoyance, she was tapped to enter a convent. She failed however to make the grade when she challenged how Mary could be the Mother of God. She was cast out, disowned by her family, went on to take a job and marry outside the faith, and was, ultimately, excommunicated. Only on her death bed some fifty years later did she get a call from the diocesses inviting her to return. In between, she raised a family of four children in a small town in central New York. Isolated and challenged with a handicapped child (that was the right term back then), she found Christian Science, a religion that espoused a direct and open relationship with God. How different it would have been from the faith of her youth that required an intermediary to communicate with God. What a transformative experience this must have been for her. And, what a gift it was for me.
While I witnessed many so-called miracles growing up, I was not up to the challenge of practicing Christian Science as I entered adulthood. My mother never questioned that choice. She knew that she had provided me the essential tools to ground me in life. Christian Science is, after all, as much a way of life as it is a religion. The teachings are lifelong and everlasting.
It’s been way too long for me to know any specific guiding principles or teachings of my youth as a student of Christian Science and the offspring of a practitioner. Some years back a friend remarked that “knowing your mother was a Christian Scientist explains everything,” so I probed deeper. “It explains your deep seated belief that each person can always rise to levels needed to be a good person,” she responded. “I can see why you gravitate to whom you do,” said another. “It affirmed the type of an individual you are and might be one of the reasons you have the gift to reach out to lots of different people,” said another. In Christian Science, students “demonstrate” their understanding of God’s love and it seems that lesson was not lost on me.
Summed up I would say that my mother taught me by example that life is a journey, that living is a process of discovery, discernment and making connections among a multitude of ideas. It’s why I find myself frequently in the midst of a “eureka moment.”
This blog is a journal of those epiphanies.
epiphanyjournal 