When I was in college I began to drift away from regular...

Paul Scott Laningham

When I was in college I began to drift away from regular church attendance, after having had Christian Science in my home while growing up. I wasn't consciously rejecting that which I knew to be powerfully true; one might say I was simply being lulled to sleep by the distractions of materiality. I just couldn't or wouldn't find the time for church. There was always an excuse—I'd been up too late Saturday night, there was a band I wanted to hear, I had to cram for a test, etc.

Then one afternoon I began to feel ill during a class and, because my condition seemed to be deteriorating rapidly, I took a bus back to my apartment. I was suffering from what later was determined to be a poisonous insect bite, probably that of a scorpion, and it was very difficult to pray. But I knew Christian Science could help me, and I called a practitioner for help. That seemed to be enough effort on my part, I thought, and with that I went to sleep on the couch when I should have been praying myself.

When I woke a few hours later, the physical condition was frightening; I was having great difficulty breathing and was so stiff I could barely move. Then and there I realized the need to be awake—awake to the truth of my real, spiritual sonship with God. On page 249 of Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy writes, "Sleep and apathy are phases of the dream that life, substance, and intelligence are material." It would seem to follow that death, as a facet of material existence, is inevitable if one does not make vigorous efforts to shake off the mental laziness and apathy that blind the human consciousness to the real, spiritual nature of creation. The Bible equates sleep and death in many ways. Before raising Lazarus from the dead, Christ Jesus is quoted in the book of John as saying: "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth" (11:11). In Luke, Jesus said of a young woman who had died, "She is not dead, but sleepeth" and then, speaking to her consciousness, he healed her, declaring with successful results, "Maid, arise" (8:54).

After three years of hardly cracking the book, I felt a wonderful freeing thought come to me from the pages of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "Become conscious for a single moment that Life and intelligence are purely spiritual,—neither in nor of matter,—and the body will then utter no complaints" (p. 14). The fear that seemed to be strangling me was wiped away; I was calm and at peace.

The next day most of the physical symptoms already were gone, and I dug out my books (my Bible and Science and Health) and began anew with my study of Christian Science. I had glimpsed the dark void that existed without it, and was indescribably grateful for the lesson learned, and for my full healing.

Paul Scott Laningham
Boston, Massachusetts

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