Dissolving ‘unnatural reluctance’
I’ve often thought about Mary Baker Eddy’s admonition to Christian Scientists: “If students do not readily heal themselves, they should early call an experienced Christian Scientist to aid them. If they are unwilling to do this for themselves, they need only to know that error cannot produce this unnatural reluctance” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 420 ).
“Unnatural reluctance” sometimes takes different identities besides the reluctance to call for help. It can be reluctance to pray daily for ourselves, reluctance to give thorough Christian Science treatment to situations or conditions, reluctance to study deeply, or reluctance to stop and think quietly and clearly. And isn’t it interesting that Mrs. Eddy paired the word reluctance with the word unnatural? Reluctance is not a looming impediment to our spiritual growth—it is unnatural.
Several years ago, I read a clinical definition of old age that included words to this effect: The cumulative effects on the mind and body of untreated maladies. Although I’d begun to be aware over the years that a number of conditions had attached themselves to me, including a growth on the side of my body, I’d been putting off expecting to be healed of them. Now, I realized, God was telling me to be more earnest in praying for myself and to call a Christian Science practitioner.
Reluctance is not a looming impediment to our spiritual growth—it is unnatural.
During the time we worked together, the practitioner frequently gave me requested Christian Science treatment. He also proposed that we read through Science and Health together and share insights on what we were reading. I agreed, although my enthusiasm for the project came out of the practitioner’s gentleness, not out of my own eagerness. My protests went like this: “I’ve read Science and Health through, cover to cover, at least two or three times in my life. I study it daily. I’ve begun this project a dozen times before, and because of the demands on my time, it always petered out.” The practitioner did not admonish me about these excuses. He simply told me that he read Science and Health continually from beginning to end. When he finished, he would begin again. How could I not be awed by his dedication to Mrs. Eddy’s teachings?
Even so, the project took some time for me to complete. As I recall, it was about nine months to a year, but I read a page or more almost every day. It helped to have a friend with whom to share each new idea or insight I’d gotten from that day’s reading. As I progressed, I realized that large parts of it were already strongly in memory. As I read and prayed with the practitioner’s support, I was healed of the growth on my side and, later, another small growth in my armpit. Around that same time, we finished our reading project, and it seemed natural to study on my own.
At one point I read a narrative about a student of Mrs. Eddy, named Emilie B. Hulin, who was ill with a breathing difficulty when she was called to visit her teacher’s home. Mrs. Hulin later wrote, “While there, no manifestation of the trouble appeared, and when taking my leave she [Mrs. Eddy] accompanied me to the door, and putting her hand on my arm she said, ‘That is not in your body, but in consciousness, and you can put it out.’ I returned home, but the healing was not in evidence for a few days, when it suddenly disappeared. When I returned to stay in Mrs. Eddy’s home, she suddenly asked me, ‘How long was it before you were free? I only ask the question because I wanted to see how long mesmerism could seem to hold my work. You were healed when you left here, but you did not know it’ ” (Yvonne Caché von Fettweis and Robert Townsend Warneck, Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer, Amplified Edition, p. 180). I find this statement interesting: It indicates that Christian Science treatment can be effective even if the patient’s thought moves on to other things.
This narrative came back to me in thinking about another healing I had as a result of my reading project and the work of the practitioner, but that I hadn’t noticed. From about age 12, I’d dealt with athlete’s foot. Over the years, I’d controlled it with hygiene and—for one short period—an over-the-counter salve. The condition would lessen or disappear, but would always come back in full force. During the time the practitioner and I prayed together about the age-related issues, I don’t recall ever mentioning athlete’s foot to him. But near the end of our work, the condition went away. I did not, at that time, associate this with the prayerful work we’d done.
As time went on, however, there were no more recurrences, and I have now been completely free of the condition for more than two years. Recently, this fact dawned on me, and I realized I had been failing to acknowledge this as a Christian Science healing—a result of Christian Science treatment during the time the practitioner and I worked together to lift thought above the belief in the accumulation of untreated conditions. I immediately owned up to this reluctance by happily sharing the testimony at a Wednesday evening meeting and by writing an appreciative note to the practitioner. I felt that my true gratitude would not be complete until I’d acknowledged this healing verbally and in writing.
Some of the synonyms of reluctance are “stubbornness,” “resistance,” and “the tendency to procrastinate or put off.” But these attitudes are never truly a part of us—since we are reflections of God, divine Love, they can only be “unnatural.” As one of my Sunday School teachers used to say, now is the time to begin treating whatever challenges present themselves in our lives. I can testify emphatically that Christian Science treatment is an effective way to master these challenges
