Article December 14, 2009 Issue

THE SIMPLE SIDE OF SCIENTIFIC HEALING

BY IAN MCLELAND

DURING THE SPRING OF MY junior year at Principia College, in preparation for being a Resident Assistant the following fall, I was asked to read Persistent Pilgrim: The Life of Mary Baker Eddy by Richard Nenneman. I was raised in Christian Science and attended a Christian Science Sunday school growing up, but I'd never read a biography of the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, so I was excited to start the assignment.

As I began reading, I found that learning about the early days of Christian Science brought new inspiration for my own spiritual growth. At one point in his book, Nenneman states that one of the greatest obstacles Mrs. Eddy faced in her early church was people not being able to accept the radical simplicity of Christian Science. In Science and Health, she wrote the following passage, which illustrates how accessible she felt healing through prayer is to those who study the book: "Become conscious for a single moment that Life and intelligence are purely spiritual,—neither in nor of matter,—and the body will then utter no complaints. If suffering from a belief in sickness, you will find yourself suddenly well" (p. 14).

I realized that I hadn't truly accepted this line of reasoning in my own life. At times, instead of accepting health and harmony as my natural state of being, I had harbored the idea that they could be achieved only through dramatic struggle, and that healing could take place only after a long period of intense study and eventual revelation.