Article February 4, 2013 Issue

'Under the shadow of the Almighty'

Maggie Thomas

I think the reason my sons rolled over in their cribs was to gauge the distance between the crib and the door and estimate how long it would take to get out! The answer is about 18 years, but a lot happens on the way. For me, that was where Christian Science came in and the 91st Psalm became my friend. If a psalm could wear out, this one would be threadbare; I’ve spent so much time with it. 

But it’s durable. Its theme is wonderfully large: God’s protection of us, and His promise always to be there, whether we think we are in trouble, or getting sick, or facing any kind of foe.

Asked by a newspaper reporter, “On what is Christian Science based?” its discoverer, Mary Baker Eddy, replied, “I can tell you on what I based my conception of religion and on which, so far as in me rests, I have laid its foundation in Christian Science: The Ten Commandments, The Ninety-First Psalm, The Sermon on the Mount, The Revelation of St. John the Divine” (Yvonne Caché von Fettweis and Robert Townsend Warneck, Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer, Amplified Editon, pp. 203–204).