February 12, 2025
Dear People,
Someone I met at a lecture described a recent talk at The Willows, a residence for Christian Scientists, where the speaker, a practitioner, remarked that she regularly asks her patients if they are praying with the three daily prayers in The Manual ("Discipline"). She said the response is 0%.
Pause for a moment and consider what that means.
Those patients are all self-described Christian Scientists, and yet beyond hearing it read on the first Sunday of the month, they don’t give any thought to the Rule for Motives and Acts. Beyond hearing it at a business meeting they don’t give regular consideration to the Daily Prayer. And because they don’t encounter it anywhere but in the Manual, they probably don’t remember that they should "not be made to forget nor to neglect their duty to God, to their Leader, and to mankind”. Beyond those, we know there are at a bare minimum, four more Daily Duties that are supposed to be getting our attention every single day. These aren’t casual suggestions, they’re rules, not options for a practicing Christian Scientist.
I’m reminded of a saying from the Gospel of Thomas: "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.” If we faithfully practice and live in accord with these touchstones of Christian Science, we will find ourselves blessed by them. The Thomas Gospel goes on: "If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” It sounds a little scary and harsh, but when you think about it, all that Jesus is saying is that we ignore Truth and Love, we leave God out of our lives, at our own peril. Our lived experience is proof of this. It isn’t a threat, it’s merely an accurate description of reality.
How are you doing with this year’s Association Assignment?
Many of you started out strong but we are now at the fourth check-in point in this assignment and this time around only one of you has reported in. The third check-in took place over the holidays and response wasn’t much better.
You weren’t asked to do all the Dailies, every day. Just one at a time for a couple of months. I would love to hear from you why that seems too much to ask. You are class-taught Christian Scientists. Your churches have need of you. The world has need of you. If you’re waiting for someone else to carry this most precious Science into the future you need to understand that there’s just us and what you do matters.
As I go around the country I hear church members lament shrinking congregations, lack of healing, lack of willingness to share Christian Science. And they’re honestly without a clue as to what might be behind this dearth of demonstration and enthusiasm. I show them the video of James Neal’s introduction to Christian Science from Longyear and ask them if they think Neal was any different than they are - was he special? Were all the early workers super human? Are the people we see in the Annual Meeting reports at The Mother Church of a different species? Is there really any reason that we all shouldn’t respond to the Discovery with our whole heart and mind and soul?
I suspect we may talk more than usual this year at Association about animal magnetism.
Meanwhile, you have two more two month opportunities to take living like a Christian Scientist out for a test drive and report back. Maybe you’ve been earnestly working on the assignment and just haven’t been able to marshal the energy to share your experience. Maybe you think it can wait until right before we meet in August. Let me urge you to put aside this species of mesmerism.
"... now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.” (Rom. 13:11 now) Doing this work makes a difference!
Please, within the next week, reply to this email with an honest account of what is going on in your practice. By honest I mean both the victories and the "field conditions”. What is it that you think hinders you?
“...we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.” (I Thess. 4:1)
with love,
Caryl