Article November 17, 1980 Issue

Christian Science: the guide for true mothering

Written for the Sentinel

"And don't talk to any of your Christian Scientist friends about this, either," the letter from my mother stated emphatically. I had been doing research abroad when my Protestant parents joined a religious group whose teachings were opposed to Christian Science. Now my mother was presenting me with an ultimatum: to choose between their love and my church.

Although I was relatively new in Science, I knew that the real dilemma facing me was not so much a choice between parents and church as the need to grasp more fully just what mother love is and where it comes from. According to Science and Health, God is our Father-Mother. As Mrs. Eddy writes in this book, "Man and woman as coexistent and eternal with God forever reflect, in glorified quality, the infinite Father-Mother God."Science and Health, p. 516;

The protective nature of mother love is legendary, and what I was seeing in this case was certainly evidence of that strong maternal instinct—a good thing, when uncorrupted by possessiveness and compulsiveness. But at some point both parents and children have to reach a higher level of existence than the instinctive— namely, the spiritual. This requires us to spiritualize our view of each other, to stop allowing insubordination to masquerade as independence, or compulsive fears to be interpreted as genuine caring.

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November 17, 1980
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