The Touch of Class October 7, 2013 Issue

The Sunday School gift

Bruce Richardson

When I was just about to turn 20, I went home on leave from the military and had my last Christian Science Sunday School class with my favorite teacher. Mr. D. was a businessman and dad—he had a son named Bruce, and we got along great from our first class together when I was in high school. At the end of that last class with Mr. D., he said he “expected great things” from me and challenged me to become a Sunday School teacher and church member. 

Just as I was about to leave, he handed me a slip of paper. He mentioned that I might want to consider taking Christian Science class instruction and wrote down the name of a teacher with whom I could talk about it. I stuffed the piece of paper in my wallet and really didn’t pay much attention to it, except I did read the name he had written down.

A year later, I graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point, became an artillery officer, and completed the Army’s Airborne and Ranger schools. After tours of duty with the 82nd Airborne in North Carolina, the 25th Infantry Division in Vietnam, and the 4th Infantry in Colorado, I left the military to go to graduate school in business. 