Sondra Toner worked as a medical nurse for ten years before going through a transition that led her into Christian Science nursing. In the following interview with the Sentinel, Mrs. Toner talks about some of the issues she's grappled with and insights she's gleaned during her many years of nursing. Mrs. Toner is currently an administrator for Peace Haven in St. Louis, Missouri, a care facility for those relying on Christian Science treatment for healing.

What attracted you to nursing as a career? I think most people who are attracted to nursing are motivated by the same qualities. It's that caring and love for others, that desire to serve. Nursing means nurturing and cherishing and taking care of. It's a ministry. I always felt nursing was not a career but a ministry, and that I was called to it.

At one point, you left the field of nursing altogether.

I was searching for something higher; I always have been. I didn't know then I was looking for Christian Science, but apparently I was. I was drawing away from that nursing concept where it was everything that you did as a nurse—not what you thought, but what you did physically—that was supposed to have an effect on the life or death of the patient. So I did leave the field of nursing and went into day care for about ten years.

It was during that time that I found Christian Science. My husband and I had been searching for a church that taught that man was good and pure, and that wouldn't impose on our two children a sense of condemnation or guilt. We wanted church to be joyful. A relative who had just found Christian Science suggested that we look into Christian Science. So we went to a Wednesday evening testimony service—and we never went anywhere else. I had such peace there. I knew that I was home.

Tell us about your transition into Christian Science nursing.

When I found out there were Christian Science nurses, my first question was, What can they do? I knew I still had that desire to minister to people's needs. But I knew Christian Scientists didn't use medical means, and my sense of nursing was still linked to material treatment. So I visited a Christian Science nursing facility and saw what this nursing was all about. My initial thought was that it was too much to expect of myself. But God had a different plan for me. I was just impelled to become a Christian Science nurse.

When I began serving in this way, I knew I had found the higher sense of nursing that I had been looking for. There was the uplifted thought, the joy of not always looking for what was wrong with someone, but knowing the wholeness that was already true of God's spiritual man, created in His likeness. The sense of ethics, integrity, commitment, and caring I had known in the medical world were still there, but they were broadened and expanded into this higher concept of man.

What is distinct about the Christian Science approach to treating illness?

Both medical treatment and Christian Science treatment are working for the betterment of humanity, I believe. The distinction lies in the difference between trying to make a sick physical body into a well one, and already knowing that man is spiritual and perfect. The distinction is in what one is seeing as the truth of man.

Often as a medical nurse, I was frustrated by the feeling that we were essentially treating symptoms rather than cause. What struck me most when I found Christian Science nursing was that we were supporting the patients in the reformation of their thought. We didn't dwell on symptoms and diagnosis but stood firm on the basis of man's spiritual perfection. The reformation and healing of thought manifests itself in completeness and the healing of the body.

I was so grateful to find a way to minister to people who were trying to meet their needs in this spiritual way rather than trying to change or medicate a bodily condition. There's a statement in Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy that describes how Christian Science treatment works. It says, "The genuine Christian Scientist is adding to his patient's mental and moral power, and is increasing his patient's spirituality while restoring him physically through divine Love" (p. 375).

What is the role of a Christian Science nurse in this reformation of thought that brings healing?

The role of nurses, in the ethics of Christian Science nursing, is to keep their own thought spiritually clear. The Christian Science practitioner on the case is the one who is actually involved with the specific spiritual treatment of the patient. The patient's work with a practitioner is totally between the patient and the practitioner. The nurse's obligation and commitment is to keep his or her own thought of God's man so clear that it supports the patient's thought, thus supporting the work of the practitioner.

Our goal as nurses is to not think of man as merely a mortal body. We do meet the human need—we care for all the basic needs of a patient. Although we don't use medication, or mechanical interventions for life-prolonging, we nurture and nourish the patient, maintain cleanliness, bandage wounds, and prepare food. We help a patient to get in and out of a bed, or chair, if needed, to walk, or to feed himself. We do the things necessary to help maintain normal activity. But while we're doing these activities, we keep our thought very certain of the identity of that person as the perfect child of God. We're providing the atmosphere and the environment for spiritual growth to take place.

The thought that surrounds the patient is important to the healing. Mrs. Eddy emphasizes this in the chapter of her textbook entitled "Christian Science Practice." She writes: "In medical practice objections would be raised if one doctor should administer a drug to counteract the working of a remedy prescribed by another doctor. It is equally important in metaphysical practice that the minds which surround your patient should not act against your influence by continually expressing such opinions as may alarm or discourage,—either by giving antagonistic advice or through unspoken thoughts resting on your patient" (ibid., p. 424).

Can you give an example of what you're thinking while you're physically caring for a patient?

I think a lot about the qualities of God expressed in man and, therefore, qualities that the patient includes. For instance, as I'm making a bed, I think about comfort, order, peace, and harmony. And as I'm helping someone eat or preparing food for him, I think about spiritual nourishment. Truth is what actually nourishes man. So if the person is having a problem retaining food, I often cherish the receptivity of this individual to Truth. And I especially consider the love that's going into our food preparation.

When I'm bandaging wounds, I think of the actual perfection of man. The Christian Science textbook says: "Mortals must look beyond fading, finite forms, if they would gain the true sense of things. Where shall the gaze rest but in the unsearchable realm of Mind?" (ibid., p. 264) So as I bandage, I ask myself, "Where is my gaze resting?"

And hymns are so helpful. I'm often singing or humming them to myself, or singing them to or with the patient: "I love Thy way of freedom, Lord ... " "I look to Thee in every need ..." (Christian Science Hymnal, Nos. 136, 134).

The whole purpose of someone seeking spiritual healing should be to keep his or her thought pure and in line with the Word of God—including the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes and other teachings of Christ Jesus. When people do this—when they keep their thought filled with the truth of God's man—joy, health, dominion, and peace are naturally maintained. Christian Science nursing helps to support this kind of effort by bringing to the sickroom the thought of the purity and wholeness of man.

So you must feel now that you're fulfilling your earliest desires to minister to humanity in the highest sense.

Yes, I've been doing this work now for fifteen years, and I love it more every day. We [Peace Haven and other Christian Science nursing facilities] receive many letters of gratitude and joy, and testimonies of healing.

This work is not without its challenges, though. Christian Science nurses are in the trenches when it comes to steadily supporting spiritual healing. There are many healings in Christian Science, some instantaneous. But whether a healing comes quickly or slowly, as nurses, our challenge is to keep our thought above what would present itself as an error of thought manifesting itself—to understand that a mistaken thought or its supposed effect is not part of man's true identity. What's called a "cause" for discord is error, and it has no real entity. There's only one cause for action—God, infinite good, the only creator. Mrs. Eddy writes: "Maintain the facts of Christian Science,—that Spirit is God, and therefore cannot be sick; that what is termed matter cannot be sick; that all causation is Mind, acting through spiritual law. Then hold your ground with the unshaken understanding of Truth and Love, and you will win" (Science and Health, p. 417).

I always say about Christian Science nursing that it may, at times, be a challenging activity, but it is tremendously rewarding.