Thinkin' about Church

I’d like to just take a quick moment and write a few words about church.

Church is a wonderful part of my life. Church is more to me than a Sunday service. Church is a power. It provides wonderful opportunities to bless the community in ways that couldn’t be done on my own. 

I love how church provides an opportunity to get to know God better. I think one of the best ways to understand God is through loving others. Through the activities of compassion, patience, and giving I am enabled to understand what God, divine Love, is. By learning to be more unselfish I am learning to comprehend divine Love’s infinite and eternal love for each one of Her children. Not to say I have it all understood — I don’t. But I am grateful for the opportunities that church affords to put Christianity into practice and to understand divine Love better. 

Plus there’s the important aspect of unity. I have found that through unification with Church, and by focusing on the oneness of God, I get countless opportunities to grow spiritually and serve my fellow members, as well as the community. Not to say that this is easy! Learning humility is very hard. But through the good times, and by overcoming strife, I feel this is how I can help the force of goodness to blossom in my community.

But I must mention healing. The Church I am member of is a Christian Science church. And what I love about this Church is that the core of our reason for exisiting is Christian healing. I love that we are unified by our desire to be active Christian healers, and I love that the foundation from which we act is the Bible and the example of The Master, Christ Jesus. I am in awe of my fellow members and the ways they put Christianity into practice. Their individual ways of giving, sharing, and healing is inspiring. And the best part is, I get to hear about it every Wednesday night at my church’s Wednesday testimony meetings. 

CHURCH. The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle.

The Church is that institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race, rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas and the demonstration of divine Science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick.

— Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p.583 

Health — a fact of life

I’ve often heard that our body is the barometer of health or sickness. I’m told through advertisements and the media that if my body is well I am well; if my body is sick I am sick.

Sometimes I’ve also heard that my personal fitness is in proportion to properly abiding by the rules of health. And yet I have also heard that if I experienced illness it was my own fault, or an invaded bacteria, that broke a rule of health and thus brought me into peril.

As I have thought about it, the rules of general health care can appear to go both ways—help or hurt us. And with so much medical research being published and overturned these days (see “Lies, Damned Lies, and medical science” in the Atlantic Monthly), how can anyone know which rules are reliable, let alone know all the rules to stay safe?

Gratefully, there is another another option, one that has given me a more reassuring rule of safety: Christian Science.

I have found that by relying on this spiritual form of health care, health is not a set of rules that can be kept or broken, but health is actually a fact of life. Health is not somewhere or something that is far away, but is part of our very being and existence. On top of that, our health is not at the mercy of matter or bodily results, but is a protected spiritual attribute of God, good.

I have learned to stick to one simple rule when dealing with sickness: I focus on the fact that Spirit, God, is the only source of health and harmony. As I pray with this in mind, I acknowledge that God, divine Love, is only good and that my being is the result of God’s eternal goodness.

I have seen my health improve in many different circumstances through a mental focus on my God-given safety. This has proven to me that my well-being is safe-guarded by God’s unbreakable law of harmony. And what is more, any thinker can do this! Anyone can find that their health is permanent and not subject to chance.

Mortals obtain the harmony of health, only as they forsake discord, acknowledge the supremacy of divine Mind, and abandon their material beliefs. Eradicate the image of disease from the perturbed thought before it has taken tangible shape in conscious thought, alias the body, and you prevent the development of disease.
—Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p.400