As you walk down a hallway past numerous practice rooms in a university music school, the music coming from those rooms could sound chaotic. With pianists practicing scales, trumpeters blaring, singers vocalizing, and engineers synthesizing, it would be difficult to discern a Beethoven sonata even if someone were playing one. However, go inside any of those rooms and what would resonate is each student’s devotion of thought to fine-tuning the skills needed to master the music and their instrument.

The value of practicing conscientiously in this way is captured in a statement in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, the Christian Science textbook: “The devotion of thought to an honest achievement makes the achievement possible” (Mary Baker Eddy, p. 199). 

During my musical studies, I was already a student of Christian Science, so I was devoting my thought not just to mastering songs and perfecting my technical skills but to yielding to God and letting a performance come forth from the divine Mind. At the same time, I yearned to more effectively and consistently practice Christian Science. More than anything, I wanted to engage in convincing healing work—with the scientific and compassionate activity of helping people in Christian Science. 

The beauty of this Science is that when you first open your thought to it—whether because you have a burning desire to grow in its understanding or because you’re in deep despair over a personal problem—you can immediately begin practicing it. You can apply its spiritual truths to your life with practical results. 

That’s what happened in the early days of the Christian Science movement to a young bank cashier in Kansas named James Neal. Shortly after hearing about a remarkable healing, he spoke with the Christian Science practitioner who had prayed for the patient, wanting to learn how the cure had happened. Following their conversation, the practitioner handed him a copy of The Christian Science Journal, with articles and testimonies written by those who had been healed in Christian Science.

That evening, Mr. Neal studied the magazine from cover to cover, and the next morning he ordered 12 copies of Science and Health to share with his friends and family. Even before the books arrived, he healed his first case—his boss’s brother, who had been suffering and in great distress.

With his heart on fire, Mr. Neal studied with one of Mrs. Eddy’s students, and in less than two years left his banking job to devote himself to this spiritual healing ministry. He said he “just couldn’t keep out of it” (The Onward and Upward Chain, Longyear Museum). His healing works included documented cures of cancer, insanity, blindness, deafness, tuberculosis, a broken skull, and lameness.

We may need to expand our own understanding of Christian Science to gain such devotion and its fruits. Yet, we can gain them by a wholehearted study of the Bible and Science and Health, which guide our spiritual exploration. 

Scientific Christianity, which acknowledges the omnipresence of divine Mind, God, is founded on the teachings of Christ Jesus. As we humbly pray—listen for inspiration from Mind—we might ask ourselves, “What is keeping me from practicing Christian Science?” 

Sometimes practicing may seem like overwhelming work with few initial results. Other times we may feel that it requires so much discipline that it’s beyond our abilities. Yet, when we put aside such doubts and delve into the needed prayer, we discover we can rely on God whenever and wherever there is a need, with consistent healing results. Then we’re drawn to the work and desire more of it.

I came to see that there was something much more vital than the number of hours I put into practicing.

Another aspect of practicing Christian Science is simply nourishing our desire to love. We don’t have to reach up to divine Love as if we’re apart from it. We come from Love, God. It’s our very nature to reflect Love. Since this Love is All, it’s One—all good, with nothing bad mixed in. There is no fear, hatred, anger, lust, injustice, or divisiveness in Love for us to reflect. Instead, the selfless attributes of grace, kindness, humility, forgiveness, and unity abound in God and His creation, and expressing these qualities embraces the Love that heals.

Mrs. Eddy realized that her work was the result of this Love revealing itself. She said, “All I have ever accomplished has been done by getting Mary out of the way and letting God be reflected” (Yvonne Caché von Fettweis and Robert Townsend Warneck, Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer, Amplified Edition, pp. 24–25).

Many years ago I was able to get myself “out of the way” and let Love be reflected in a vocal performance. I was to sing a medley of songs that I had chosen because they spoke to me of divine Love. I wanted to sing to the Love that is God as well as for and from that Love. Fifteen minutes before I was to perform, though, when I would typically have been warming up vocally, there was some commotion backstage. A performer was crying because the stagehand who had arranged the stage for her presentation had been drinking, and the stage was in disarray. Others were upset, as well, and the audience sensed it. 

In a small practice room, I quietly listened for ideas from God and was assured of His presence. Because of Mind’s power and wisdom, I knew that goodness and joy were being communicated to the performers and crew members in ways each could understand. Each individual owned their God-given peace. 

When it was time for me to sing, I looked out into the bright lights above the audience, totally conscious of the spiritual fact that there was a higher power at work. I had no thought of myself as I sang. Divine Mind powered the performance, and the result was a complete change of ambiance in the theater. By the time I finished, anxiety had turned into applause, and joy shone from the uplifted faces of the audience, crew, and performers—especially the one who had been crying. It was obvious to me that God had been “on the field.” Even the stagehand who had been drinking seemed uplifted. When he attended the reception that followed, he was clearly sober. 

As we continue treasuring the truth of God and man—our true, spiritual identity in God’s image—we’ll awaken more and more to our original, untainted, and undiminished wholeness. We’ll be practicing Christian Science from the standpoint of the perfection of Mind and its creation. We’ll feel the divine harmony of Truth in consciousness, able to destroy any disturbances. And we’ll see results in healings—each one a beautiful “performance” of divine Mind.

If healing doesn’t come quickly, we may wonder, How much practicing does it take? I used to think all of my singing practice was very important, but I came to see that there was something much more vital than the number of hours I put into it. What was and is needed most is love, all the love we can give our practice, along with the understanding that “he performeth the thing that is appointed for me” (Job 23:14)—that God is the healer. With that, our quiet listening in prayer will result in healings for us and for others—and even, over time, in “the healing of the nations” (Revelation 22:2).