Article October 22, 2012 Issue

My 'cover to cover' project

Alan Pate

About two years ago, while studying the Christian Science Bible Lesson one morning, I came across this frequently read citation from the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy: “Take divine Science. Read this book from beginning to end. Study it, ponder it” (p. 559). Suddenly, it occurred to me that although I was raised in Christian Science, had been a practicing student for nearly all my life, and had been through Primary class instruction in Christian Science, I had never read Science and Health straight through and treated it like what it really is: a textbook.

So I found an old leather copy, small and comfortable in my hand. And with a yellow highlighting pen at the ready, I began to read. Thus began what I call my “cover to cover” project. And it was a revelation! So many quotes that I was familiar with from the Bible Lesson took on a new and richer meaning when read in order and in context of the chapter in which they were found. I used my highlighter liberally, marking passages, placing sidebars and exclamation marks in many places just like I did with my school textbooks.

When finished with Science and Health, I moved right into the compilation of Mary Baker Eddy’s other writings called Prose Works, feeling the same sense of wonderful discovery. As I read, I came across this powerful statement that would soon provide me with great nourishment in a time of difficulty: “Christian Science erases from the minds of invalids their mistaken belief that they live in or because of matter, or that a so-called material organism controls the health or existence of mankind, and induces rest in God, divine Love, as caring for all the conditions requisite for the well-being of man” (Rudimental Divine Science, p. 12). As the title Rudimental Divine Science suggests, these were basic, bedrock ideas. And as I read further, I found myself flipping back to this page and this citation over and over again during the following weeks.