A recent live question-and-answer event on spirituality.com featured MARIAN ENGLISH of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Marian is a teacher and practitioner of Christian Science. In addition to her full-time practice of Christian Science healing, Marian is currently serving a one-year term as President of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston. She has traveled throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe, speaking at healthcare facilities, prisons, detention centers, and homeless shelters.

This excerpt has been edited for publication. To hear the whole chat, go to http://www.spirituality.com/chats/healing. To participate in an upcoming chat, check the "Event Calendar" on the spirituality.com Home Page.

Does Christian Science healing require a great deal of study and devotion?

Yes and no. (How's that for a definite answer!) It does require study to increase our understanding and devotion to these ideas—devotion to God. But I know from experience that healing can come to us without a lot of study. It can come to us in a moment, like a light bulb that goes on in your thought when you read something that really reaches your heart.

When I was first studying Science and Health, I saw the logic of healing from the very first page. It said, "The time for thinkers has come." I thought, "That's right. Jesus said, 'Ye shall know the truth'" (John 8:32). He didn't say, "Ye shall study the truth, or agonize over the truth," but that you'll simply know it. It's that knowing the truth—sometimes we do have to study in order to get to that knowledge of the truth that heals. But it's not the study that does the work; it is knowing it and practicing it. Making it your own.

I've had success with healing myself, but not with healing others. How can I become better at bringing healing to other people?

I think the law itself helps us understand how that can take place. When Jesus was asked, What's the most important law or commandment of all, he said the first one is to "love God with all your heart, and all your soul, and mind." And the second is just as important, to "love your neighbor as yourself" (see Matt. 22:35–40).

I found that as I was reading Science and Health, my healings came along quite effortlessly. The dawning of these ideas was so freeing to me. It was just removing the fears, and the healings took place.

Then when I began a family, I was a little bit frightened at first, because my children were of extreme importance to me. I was determined that they would get the best care available when they needed it.

And it didn't take long for me to put that into practice. When our first little boy was a toddler, he was playing around and dancing in the living room. His dad and I were within an arm's reach of him. But as he twirled around, he got dizzy and fell down. Right underneath the carpet, a metal heat register had become loose, and the corner of it was sticking up where it couldn't be seen. Of all the places in the whole room that little boy could have fallen, it was right on the corner of that heat register. The wound on his forehead began to bleed profusely. I gathered him up and ran to the nearest water, because I wanted to keep his face clean. He was crying in pain.

As I was trying to comfort him and keep his face clear, suddenly everything stopped. The bleeding stopped, and the crying stopped. I looked into his face, and there was his sweet face smiling, which meant there was no more pain. The bleeding had stopped just like you'd turn off a faucet. In the quiet calmness that followed, I heard my husband hang up the telephone in the next room. He had called a Christian Science practitioner [for treatment through prayer], and healing had been that quick.

Please define the difference between "prayer" and "treatment," if there is one—or are they the same?

It depends on who's asking. If the one who's asking for prayer does not distinguish between prayer and Christian Science treatment, they're probably asking for treatment. But there is a difference between prayer and treatment. Treatment is always prayer. Prayer is not always treatment. The Scriptures tell us to "pray without ceasing" (I Thess. 5:17), and we can do that by a mental altitude of Christliness and childlikeness and love for God. But we don't have to treat someone without ceasing.

The difference is this—prayer is simply tuning in to God. Prayer is like the Lord's Prayer that Jesus gave us, which begins with "Our Father." And you notice how much he packed into those first two words. It establishes our relationship with God as children, and He's the Father. It establishes our relationship with each other when it says "Our Father." And then it ends with "forever." In between, that prayer deals with evil and temptation, but it never leaves "Our Father."

Treatment, on the other hand, can be just as simple as that Lord's Prayer; but treatment deals specifically with the patient's thought. You might be your own patient, and dealing with your own thinking. Treatment activates love in our thought, to banish the fear. It opens us up to the intelligence of God, which gives us the true and right ideas.

When someone is asking me for prayer, I instinctively ask myself, "Is he asking me just to pray with him in a spirit of love and fellowship?" And I'm glad to do that. Or is he specifically asking me to heal him? If he's asking me to heal him, then my prayer goes to the treatment that deals with his thought.

Now let me distinguish something here. It's not my human thought manipulating his human thought. It is my Christliness, my childlikeness, my connection with God, that is recognizing in my patient the same childlikeness, the same Christliness. I'm affirming it, and denying anything unlike God in my patient. That's specific treatment that deals with the thought of the individual.

Prayer that is not treatment loves God, affirms God, rejoices in God, is grateful for God. And we can pray with each other all the time. But that's not always treatment.

I have three adult children with developmental delays. I'm committed to praying regularly for them, but there are days when I am so busy, I don't actually give them treatment. How do I know I'm doing enough for them, and how can I get rid of the fear once and for all?

Prayer without ceasing does not mean that we have to sit in a chair and read a book and keep our heads bowed. We're busy. We're doing things. We're required to be active, and to have a balanced life. Even Jesus went out to lunch!

But during the time when we are busy, we're always going to be thinking something. Why not be thinking the truth about those children? Why not be knowing that the only Mind there is for them to have is "the mind of Christ"? The New Testament tells us, "We have the mind of Christ" (I Cor. 2:16). That Mind is not developmentally challenged. That Mind is the intelligence and wisdom of God.

So no matter what you're doing, you are praying, and you're keeping those children uppermost in your thought. And God is the healer. So you can be certain that God sees those children as perfectly well—the perfect expression of His perfect being.

When fear begins to come into thought—how do we handle it? Why, with love. You know, Jesus said, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father" (John 14:12). That is a very active directive to me. When we're dealing with something that tempts us to be afraid or think we can't do it, or maybe will fail, we can remember Jesus said, "I go unto my Father" (John 14:28). I don't go into those areas that cause me to be afraid for the success of healing. I go unto my Father. Can He heal it? Indeed He can! css