"Wherever primitive Christianity is lived, there is healing. Simple but profound healing. Healing after healing." That was my instant response when asked recently about my travels to remote mountainous areas of the Philippines, where I visited people who gather to practice Christian Science.

I found myself among people so eager to love each other, to heal as Jesus did, and to learn from Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. This made me think of what it must have been like in Jesus' time. These words of a hymn describe my feeling well: "Where'er he went affliction fled,/The sick were healed, the hungry fed" (James Montgomery, Christian Science Hymnal, No. 388).

Christian Science is quietly spreading in these mountains, as members of First Church of Christ, Scientist, Baguio City, tell their families in the mountain areas of their healings and share the message of Science and Health in the people's own dialect. They've even formed a committee to translate bits from the weekly Christian Science Bible Lessons to share.

What I saw and felt on those mountaintops was a simple receptivity to the truth, unconfined by the ways of materialism; an innocence; a place where vanity finds no room and giving seems to define personal experience. I saw love expressed unconditionally in such a way that I became convinced that to love unselfishly is like breathing air. Love, like mountain air, is free, pure, and beautiful. Christianity thrives in it.

Does that mean that we have to move to the mountains to experience Christianity's essence? Yes—but only in thought. "Heaven is not a locality," wrote Mary Baker Eddy, "but a divine state of Mind [God] in which all the manifestations of Mind are harmonious and immortal, because sin is not there and man is found having no righteousness of his own, but in possession of 'the mind of the Lord,' as the Scripture says" (Science and Health, p. 291). This "divine state of Mind," and the freedom it brings, is as available to each of us as the air.

When I think of Church as representing a "divine state of Mind," it's easy to see beyond traditional views that can pull one into thinking of church as a building of particular size and design, requiring people and funds to maintain it. Considering Church and Christianity as all about a divine way of thinking brings the expectancy that God's law of love is in operation, without boundary or limitation. And it's that pure view of Church that I continually saw among the people I visited. They have services under a tin roof, in a little hut, or in a kitchen. They appear to do all that needs to be done for Church without giving undue credence to a material structure.

And most important, they strive to heal and be healed with their prayers. Their eagerness to share what they're learning touched me deeply. So let me take you with me on one of those visits:

I spend the night at a church member's home at a remote mountaintop. The next morning I'm wakened early to see a woman's face grinning at me with great delight: "Ah, you are awake. Now we can talk. I am so happy and have so many questions to ask you!"

It's impossible for me to feel sleepy; her childlike longing and hunger for the truth inspire a response. She comes in with her tattered copy of Science and Health, a notebook and a pen, and sits on my bed. Then another woman appears. And there we are, poring over the book, finding favorite passages, sharing ideas, laughing and crying. We're filled with the excitement of discovering our mutual awe and love for God, in the particular way Science and Health defines Him as Love and Life itself.

Everyone I meet seems eager to progress spiritually—to draw nearer to God. I see this in their questions, hear it in the healings they share and feel it in their desire to learn from the Manual of The Mother Church. It is evident in comments and questions such as these: "I am thinking about taking Christian Science class instruction, but feel I need to become holier first. We would now like to share more of what we have with the public. How can we form a Christian Science Society? How can I learn to heal quickly and help my family and my neighbors? Can you help us get copies of Science and Health for our Sunday School students?"

In their healing work, they strive to demonstrate the power of God by learning to study Science and Health (which is not in their native language) and rely on what they learn. They don't have Christian Science practitioners or telephones, and so they run to each others' homes to pray together.

I also hear grateful comments about the Church Manual. People say they are so happy that the "Daily Prayer" is in the Manual, for them to read and pray with. They say it keeps them safe. That they look at it many times and teach it to their children. They tell me the Manual helps them so much because it guides them in teaching the children who come to their Sunday School and is so simple to follow.

A table is laden with food for us after a church service—but no one is eating. People sit on the floor or at tables with their notebooks, writing furiously lest they forget ideas they want to cherish.

I attend another Sunday service, where dogs and hens appear and no one shuts them out. No one appears to be disturbed or even looks around. Again, I'm reminded of words from the Christian Science Hymnal:

I tangibly feel a peace brooding over them, a peace that comes from God alone. There are no complaints from those who have walked seven hours on difficult terrain to attend—no mention of exhaustion or time spent, only gratitude, smiles, and more smiles. No silent testimonies here. No gaps between the sharing. Just an overflow of grateful hearts. As at the other locations, I feel as if I'm in the presence of what Mary Baker Eddy referred to as "simple seekers for Truth." No one is bogged down in search of the right building or concerned with bank accounts or gaining members—they focus on spiritual healing and sharing its message.

I hear of healings such as these:

• A man's water buffalo, so important to his livelihood, hasn't eaten for five days. The man lets his gratitude to God for having the animal inspire his prayer. It is soon well and able to work the rice field.

• A woman is healed of high blood pressure, after praying with a statement from Science and Health.

• A man tells how he was severely injured while harvesting coffee and was taken to a hospital. His aunt invites him to church. After reading Science and Health, he is completely healed. Now, he is the First Reader of that church. Before this, he'd been out of work, with a lot of vices like drinking and patronizing cock fights.

Then a woman comes up to me, saying: "My name is Eddy. Do you know why? My mother did not have a child. My parents prayed to God, as they learned to do from Science and Health, and after 14 years, I was born. And then there were five more children." Her mother comes forward and tells me, "Yes, we are so grateful to Christian Science and to Mary Baker Eddy."

As I get up after the last service I attend, I feel a tap on my shoulder. A smiling face says: "I'm so sorry I couldn't attend the service, but I came to say thank you to you for bringing to us the love of our Mother Church. We are so blessed with Mary Baker Eddy's Christian Science discovery." I get a bear hug. Then I ask where she lives, thinking it's around the corner. When I hear of the name of her province, I'm surprised, and ask if it's very far to travel. She smiles and says, "No, no, it only takes two hours to come and two hours to go—I can do that, you know, for 'Love is reflected in love.' "

I'm not the same person I was before my visits. I've been humbled to witness the effect of unconditional love for the Christ healing on those who live it. And yet, doesn't an inspiring and uplifting journey await us all, as we "climb, with joy, the heights of Mind" and reject false tradition that would blur our view of the simplicity of Christian healing—healing that is the essence of the Church of Christ, Scientist—whether under tin roofs, in cathedral structures, or on a well-worn mountaintop?

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