There is a quiet but intense search for spirituality today. This search is earnest, and the paths people are taking are certainly diverse. A visit to the bulletin board in your local community center or to the "Self-help—New Age—Spirituality—Occult—Religion" section of your neighborhood bookstore reveals the breadth of search options.

A lot of people are striving to find or understand God—but not the God of their childhood. In fact this very word God is a stumbling block to many people, because it is encrusted with ideas and beliefs they reject or can't understand.

For example, a while back I was speaking with an office manager who was facing a great deal of pressure and conflict in her office. Finally, a friend urged her to pray, as nothing she had done had improved the situation. But she wasn't sure she knew how to pray. She asked me how I would pray. I said that I would begin to affirm as frequently as I could, "God is in this place." I repeated this several times, and I noticed that every time I made this point, my friend shrank back. The idea frightened her. I realized that to her, God was a Judge, often an angry Judge. So this affirmation, that God is present now, gave her no comfort at all.

Clearly, I needed to shift gears. I mentioned to my friend that the Bible speaks of God as divine Love. And when I declared that divine Love was present in her workplace, that divine Love governed and animated everyone there, she showed no more fear. This was a concept of God that she could accept. The idea that divine Love is ever present, a positive force in our lives, and that prayer can waken us to feel and see more of this power, interested her a great deal.

She asked, "How can I learn more about this?" I said I had been studying Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, a book written by Mary Baker Eddy, and that I didn't know of any other book, except the Bible, that explored more deeply and helpfully the true nature of God.

The book opens with a wonderful message of hope: when we are conscious of the presence and power of God, we can actually experience more good in our lives. This new-old discovery that God, divine Love, is good, that God causes good and good alone, has brought healing into the lives of many people.

Science and Health challenges the notion that God is angry, a stern, unforgiving Father—or that God is responsible for the ills and disasters that afflict people today. It opposes the notion that God is antagonistic toward creation, or that we are alienated from God. In fact, Science and Health, taking Jesus' life and works as its basis, shows that God never causes evil—sin or sickness—never cooperates with evil, never legitimizes it. Mrs. Eddy writes: "Sickness, sin, and death, being inharmonious, do not originate in God nor belong to His government. His law, rightly understood, destroys them" (p. 472).

God's love destroys evil. What a thought! God's goodness cannot coexist with evil. When we think deeply about this, and realize that God is always with us, then evil, in whatever form, disappears. Witnessing this, we begin to feel the deepness of divine Love.

Although we may have grown up being told "God is angry," the Bible says, "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). It is this love, this healing and life-giving power of divine good, that Science and Health explores.

Often, we suffer because we don't know about this healing and saving love of God. I was out walking our dog late one evening, and a neighbor stopped me. He said, "I understand you are a Christian. You believe in God, right?" I said, "Yes." As he started to talk further, a man whom my neighbor had grown up with approached us. This other man was terribly drunk. As he left, my neighbor said, "He's not a Christian, so he's under the curse."

I was startled and said, "Oh, no, he's actually the blessed child of God." My neighbor was offended and replied, "You can't be a Christian if you believe that—you are both under the curse." Then he went back into his house. My heart ached for both men.

It is impossible to measure the pain and anguish that are caused by the long-held belief that we all suffer from the curse that was placed on Adam. In Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy makes the point that "One infinite God, good ... annuls the curse on man" (see p. 340) and that Jesus presented "the remedy for Adam" (see p. 534). How many hearts would be relieved of great distress if they only knew that a right understanding of God—as taught by Jesus and presented in Science and Health—delivers them from this so-called curse.

A great deal of the insecurity, self-doubt, and self-destructiveness we see and feel today grows out of the latent belief that we are unworthy of good. That we are innately sinful. Science and Health asks and answers questions like: How can God, who is perfect and totally good, create something flawed and evil? How can man, the work of God, be so unlike God? Doesn't like produce like?

Science and Health makes clear that the sun doesn't send out rays of darkness. Nor does God, good, create evil—or men and women capable of evil. Some might say that it is God's will that we suffer, and that our suffering is of God. But did Jesus ever meet someone ill and in despair and say this trouble was God's will? No, that never happened. Jesus and his followers freed people from sickness and disease, from sin and pain. When they prayed, "Thy will be done," there was healing.

Noting this, Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health, "The Christlike understanding of scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea,—perfect God and perfect man,—as the basis of thought and demonstration" (p. 259). (In this sentence, the word man is generic and means man and woman.)

Would your view of life change if you began thinking that a perfect God, infinite good, creates perfect sons and daughters who are entirely good, and that this perfection constitutes our true identity? You might reply, "Nice theory, but. ..." Yet, it is this change of thought regarding God and His children that results in actual, undeniable healing.

Mrs. Eddy explains, "It is our ignorance of God, the divine Principle, which produces apparent discord, and the right understanding of Him restores harmony" (p. 390). Science and Health removes the mask of imperfection from each of us and reveals that we are, in fact, the perfect work of God.

Jesus proved this countless times. Jesus restored health to men and women. He healed severe mental disorders. He helped many regain their moral and ethical compass, freeing them from immorality, dishonesty, corruption. Anger, vengeance, grief, and hopelessness were dissolved. His understanding of God, which he taught and shared with others, lifted the curse of physical and moral imperfection off people's backs. As one reads Science and Health, this understanding of God that Christ Jesus taught is presented in words that convey healing truth to today's world, and reveal its practical relevance to our lives.

The theological belief that we are born in sin, are flawed and unworthy of God's love, is no different from the belief that we are genetically flawed or that we have a prenatal disposition toward addiction or antisocial behavior. Or the belief that race or gender or nationality or economic condition causes lifelong problems. Science and Health effectively challenges these "scientific" beliefs as fully as it challenges the theological belief.

The question we have to face at some point is this: are we material or spiritual? In the last analysis, which has the final say over life—matter or Spirit, laws of biology or the law of God? Many people never dream of asking such questions; the education we receive is often so overwhelmingly on the side of biology. But when people are told that they are disabled by a genetic disorder, or that a disease is incurable, or that some behavioral problem can be dealt with only through lifelong reliance on medication, many search for another answer.

If you stop in a bookstore or surf the Web, you'll quickly discover how intense this search is. You'll see the enormous number of options that people are exploring to find health. Through this quest, a greater recognition of the mental nature of experience and of health itself is emerging. The idea of treating the body medically without dealing with the thinking of the patient is becoming less acceptable.

In most cases, people haven't gone further than to note how the human mind can affect health. Meditation and visualization have a calming effect and give hope. They empower people to take charge of their healthcare. For many, these steps are progressive and fruitful. But often they don't go far enough.

The great breakthrough one finds in Science and Health is that it deals with health and life from a totally spiritual basis. It presents health as God-given and God-governed rather than body-governed or mind-controlled. It drops the exercise of human will. Instead, it helps the reader bring his or her thoughts into consonance with God, Spirit. Then one gets one's information about health from God, rather than from the five physical senses. For many, this idea is so revolutionary that it requires a thorough study of Science and Health to understand it, though they may experience healing as they start studying the book.

A friend discovered the healing power of divine Love when she looked into this new way of dealing with health. Over the years she had had two operations on her back. Then the old symptoms returned and reached the point where another operation seemed inevitable. But she didn't want to go through that again. She had been reading books that explored different forms of healing. And she had been studying a book that explored the psychology of pain. It attributed her symptoms to anger and rage. But she found this analysis frustrating, because she didn't feel anger or rage.

During a weekend of incapacitating pain, she read more, she tried to pray, she begged God to help her, but there was no relief. the next day during a business meeting, a friend told her that she felt impelled to share a book with her. It was Science and Health. She hadn't known about her friend's suffering, but she felt it was important to offer her a copy of the book.

My friend started browsing through it that night, just reading different sections that caught her eye. She read a number of letters in the chapter called "Fruitage," which tells of healings people experienced through their study of the book. This encouraged her to think more about what she had been reading.

In the morning, as she got up, she realized that there wasn't any pain. She thought, Well when I really wake up, it will be there. But after she showered and dressed and got ready for work, she still felt totally free. She was amazed. She was practically incredulous, but the pain, the restriction of movement, and all the other symptoms were gone, and she remained free.

Mary Baker Eddy would have understood my friend's experience, and the hunger for greater spiritual understanding that has followed. One hundred twenty-five years ago, Mrs. Eddy felt impelled to share her spiritual discovery with the world through the publication of Science and Health.

People of all religious persuasions have found their faith strengthened by this book. Their understanding of God has been challenged and deepened. Their experience of spiritual healing has confirmed its truth. Its teaching and discipline are far more challenging than most books available today; but then, it goes deeper into the Science of being than other books. It also explains why a daily life that is more moral, ethical, and spiritually based is needed in order to realize continued progress and healing.

For most of us, these kinds of ideas involve wrestling with long-established habits of thought and behavior. Rooting out old beliefs can be difficult. But Science and Health is compassionate, not dogmatic. Mrs. Eddy speaks of it as a book for thinkers.

There is a great difference between blind faith and understanding. The author sought with all her heart to understand God and the healing power of divine Love. The rich results of that search can be found in her book. As she writes toward the end of Science and Health, "Paganism and agnosticism may define Deity as 'the great unknowable;' but Christian Science brings God much nearer to man, and makes Him better known as the All-in-all, forever near" (p. 596).