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Chrystal’s Story: New Beliefs

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This is part of an on-going series, for all posts in this series see the tag Chrystal’s Story.

New Beliefs

I have decided to completely start from scratch with my own spiritual belief system. It’s kind of fun, to see what I believe in. It reminds me of the end of the book series, “The Hunger Games.” The final book, “Mockingjay,” has Peeta asking “real or not real?” and his friends reply and tell him what is real or not real. He starts to realize the memories that are not real have a “sparkly quality to them.” I am asking myself lately: “real or not real?” And I know I love The Sky, and I love Nature. So at the moment, my beliefs are simply, “Mother Earth, Father Sky.” I am enjoying understanding the winter and summer solstices. My kids and I agreed we don’t need to celebrate Christmas anymore, and we will celebrate Yule instead. Look it up. It’s a beautiful holiday with rich and meaningful traditions.

My kids took some time to get out of the Christian Science mindset. My older son still struggled with it for a year after I left. Early in 2016, he told me something to which I replied, “that’s a Christian Science thought,” and he was pretty upset with me that I would dare try to change his thinking. I had to remember to quietly be Quaker, and not try to guide him, but let him come to his own conclusions, and support him in Clearness as he ponders and finds his own sense of truth. He has changed his thinking on that issue, and has found a more reasonable sense of things. In the summer of 2016, he went to Quaker camp for the first time and loved it so much! He now considers himself to be an Ex Christian Scientist and also a Quaker. I am glad he had the space, mentally, to sort through everything and make his own choices about what to believe.

When I wrote this blog, my younger son still believed in God. It brought him a sense of comfort, and I am fine with that. He also wrote a little prayer type song that includes the words: “flying spaghetti monster” and also “god.” We sing it at bedtime. As I edit this blog and get it ready for publishing, I don’t know what his belief is about whether a god exists or not, and I am okay with that. It’s up to him and what brings him comfort. 

I love being a mom to these two boys. If they get sick, I don’t yell at them or tell them “it’s your fault that you’re sick!” and I don’t force them to sit in their room with books and make them read and find their own healing. Sometimes we use a children’s over the counter medicine (or even cough drops, imagine that). I have also found that humidifiers solve a lot of problems in the winter months, and my sons and I go to doctors regularly now.

All three of us are now immunized too. That was a whole other thing I had to navigate to decide if it was dangerous or practical or what. I learned about “herd mentality,” and realized we had always been safe from diseases because the majority of the time, we were surrounded by immunized folks. Real science. Christian Science didn’t protect us. Medical science is real science, using the real scientific method.

By the way, I was caught in not one, but 2 measles outbreaks at Christian Science facilities growing up. This sort of thing wouldn’t happen if everyone was immunized. See Penn and Teller’s YouTube video (warning: salty language) on the topic of why people should immunize their kids. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfdZTZQvuCo 

My son broke his arm

One day at school, my younger son tripped on a tree root and broke his arm. I was now a Quaker, and I had recently changed the “in case of emergency care card” for him, and removed all the Christian Scientists, and put on some of my Quaker Friends, and of course my husband. My son went to the hospital in an ambulance, and my husband met them there. (I was at work, and my husband took care of all of it.) I remember crying and crying, because I didn’t want my son to have a broken arm, but then I was so relieved that he had been taken directly to a hospital and was being given excellent care for his broken bones, and hadn’t been picked up by a Christian Scientist who would be “quietly praying with him” until I went to pick him up. My son received excellent care the whole time, and eventually had to have surgery on one of the bones that wasn’t healing at all.

I am so grateful to be out of Christian Science. I have finally found happiness and goodness and peace in my heart. I love my neighbors, and have found true friendships – not only with Quaker women, but with other women too, neighbors and moms at my sons’ schools. It’s wonderful what happens when a person removes judgement from their heart and stops thinking they are better than everyone else!

Leaving Christian Science has been a huge step towards getting rid of my depression and anxiety. Real therapy has helped me so much too! (Even therapy is verboten in Christian Science, the way I was taught. Talking about our problems just makes them more real, right?) I know now that it was Christian Science that brought on my deep depression and high anxiety. I am finally recovering my creative self and I am finally healing, thanks to real science and a good trauma therapist, and with the loving, patient and kind support of my Quaker Friends. I am also completely grateful to have found amazing, kind, compassionate, empathetic people on our Ex Christian Science Facebook group. We all shared so many of the the same experiences growing up, and validate each other, so we can heal – for real – from the problems inflicted on all of us (in varying degrees), by the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy, and the way generations have started arbitrarily interpreted those teachings to inflict real harm and calling it “love.”

Nowadays, I go to doctors a lot, to get issues fixed that had no care for the 40+ years of my life. I am getting physical therapy on my shoulder, and the doctor told me recently, “most people don’t heal as quickly as you are, you’re doing exceptionally well!” I was very recently put on an anti depression / anti anxiety medicine and I hear myself laughing easily. I feel like myself again! It’s been a long time since I felt happy. (A friend of mine posted his version of a part of my story here – about my depression. https://emergegently.wordpress.com/2016/09/21/orange-juice-makes-me-happy/ )

I need to get it on my calendar to get my second mammogram soon, as I had my first one only last year after leaving my Mother Church membership. Also, I need to get to a neurologist and get checked for the concussions I had over the years that I never got checked out for, and I’m working through memory issues so many times per day. Untreated concussions have left what may probably be lasting damage on me. I talk with so many other Ex Christian Science folks, and I got off easy with the challenges I struggled with and still struggle with. I am so glad I got out before my kids grew up all the way, too, so they can be saved from so much of the junk I had to go through.

So many people have asked me to share my story. It’s not a quick story, and I am glad to have had this blog series as a platform. It has been incredibly cathartic to write about this experience and share with others so they can know what a dangerous belief system Christian Science is. My journey isn’t over. I expect I will mentally grow more, and post more things in the future.

I am so grateful to have left Christian Science.

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Chrystal’s Story: The Year I Left Christian Science

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This is part of an on-going series, for all posts in this series see the tag Chrystal’s Story.

A Wedding at Principia During my Reunion Weekend

A few years ago, I went to my brother’s wedding weekend at Principia College’s Chapel (it’s a beautiful campus, with buildings designed by nationally renowned architect, Bernard Maybeck. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICioQ12vTo0 ). We were there for several days. It happened to also be my class reunion that weekend. The way Principia does their reunions, they do two classes at the same time, and then every 5 years above that, two more classes go for their reunion too, all the way to the 1920s or so. Potentially, it could be 100s and 100s of people showing up, of all ages. (Like: 2000, 2001, 1995, 1996, 1985, 1986, 1975, 1976…) I showed up for my reunion, and it was also for the students who were a class ahead of me. I would not have attended the reunion, except that it was my brother’s wedding that weekend too, so I figured, “why not, I’ll go 1 day early and catch some of my reunion.” No one, and I mean that literally, no one else from my class or the class ahead of me showed up for our reunion. Zero. I was the only one. And even I wouldn’t have been there (despite it being my 20th reunion), if my brother hadn’t been getting married in the Chapel that weekend, and I really love my brother. (Can you imagine it’s your 20th college reunion and NO ONE shows up except you?  #Awkward )

On Sunday morning, after the wedding, we all agreed we would attend the Chapel service. It was super hard to sit through. I remember the days when I was a Practitioner and I would love to hear “The inspired word of The Bible” and “correlative passages from Science and Health,” but this day at the Principia Chapel just felt tedious (no matter how much I love that Chapel as a building  and I love looking at the architecture). The organ felt too loud and blasty, the Readings were tremendously long, the solos always grate at my ears. I realized I no longer fit in this sort of church experience at all. I was so glad it was only an hour and I was so glad when it was over!

I have now been in the Quaker Meeting as a member for almost 2 years, and my beliefs continue to mold and change, and I love that I have complete freedom and support from my Quaker Friends to be Me. They love me for who I am, and they support me 100% as my beliefs change. I feel completely accepted and loved and cherished. I finally have friends, and I don’t feel like “I am better than anyone.” I feel at peace and equal with everyone. I have a Friend who was incarcerated for a minor offense. And it is good for me to learn his challenges, so I can be educated.

Quaker Women

I have many Friends who are women, and we go out to lunch. We laugh, we cry, we share everything. I can share absolutely anything, and they empathize with me. They support me. They bring me food if I need help, and I take them food when they need help. We mail each other cards that say, “I love you and I am thinking of you.”

I got a card from one of my new good Friends, a year after my dad died. I opened it, read the compassionate note, and just cried and cried. It was so loving of her to remember my dad’s death and send me a compassionate card a full year after his death. I never received cards from Christian Scientists upon my dad’s death, but the Quaker Friends sent me multiple cards. I had barely walked in the door at the Quaker Meeting, and a few short months later, my dad got really sick and died. The doctor had given him a clean bill of health (other than the Parkinson’s) just a month before. 

 

He had predicted my dad could easily live another 10 years. Then, he was gone within a month. My new Quaker Friends mailed me cards and attended our Memorial service in my dad’s Christian Science church (the one I mentioned that never used to allow memorial services or weddings). That church has had a couple of memorial services now, which I think is wonderful and appropriate. Both members died way too young. (What kind of church doesn’t love its members enough to honor important moments in their members’ lives?)

At my dad’s memorial service, the church was so filled – there were so many people standing at the back, and the foyer doors were opened, and the whole entry way area was completely filled, and people even had to stand on the stairs going down down to the Sunday School. That’s the last time I set foot in a Christian Science church. I don’t know if it will be my last, but it was amusing (or sad?) to see it filled to the absolute brim. I think there was only a handful of Christian Science church members there at that service. All the rest of the people attending were friends, family, neighbors, and my Quaker Friends who had never even met my dad.

Feeling Real Grief

After my dad died, I was grief-stricken. He was the only parent I had who had been with me and cared for me my whole life. Everyone else in my life had come and gone, or come in later. My dad meant the world to me. Christian Science teaches us we can’t grieve, because death isn’t real. 

My emotions were so squashed for so many years, though, that I couldn’t help but grieve. Two friends who had left Christian Science suggested that I go to therapy for grief. This was a radical concept to me. I was afraid, and it is against Christian Science. I can’t explain what I was afraid of, but it was definitely not an idea that I was comfortable with.  

I knew that in Christian Science, I had always been taught that to counteract grief and depression, it’s necessary to sit down and write “gratefuls.” I challenged myself to write 100 things I was grateful for, and I figured it would heal my grief over my dad. I sat down and without stopping for any breaks, I easily wrote 112 things I was grateful for. I decided that was enough things, and I put my pen down. My mood hadn’t changed. I was still as depressed and grief-stricken as ever. I decided it was time to get real counseling. I didn’t want to futz around, so I did a search for a high rated female counselor, covered by my insurance. I went in, told her I was grieving over my dad, and we began weekly counseling sessions. She was a phenomenal person. She sat by me and helped me figure out my next path. It turned out that she helped me realize Christian Science was no longer a path that worked for me. She helped me gain courage to tell my family, to tell The Mother Church, and to leave my Christian Science Teacher.

Becoming an Ex Christian Scientist

Meanwhile, the two friends who had suggested that I go to counseling and I were talking more and more about our experiences growing up in Christian Science. We had many parallels, and it was incredibly validating to realize we had so many of the same traumas and experiences. It was almost eery. One of my friends did a search for “Ex Christian Science” and came across this blog and the Facebook group. We all joined very quickly, and found a whole new set of friends. This set of friends have been the most validating group of people I have ever known.

I have learned wonderful words – a whole vocabulary that was denied me in my Christian Science upbringing. I had learned big words like “equipoise,” “extemporaneous,” “perspicacity,” “necromancy,” “self-immolation,” but didn’t know practical words like “boundary,” and “narcissist,” “anxiety,” “immunizations.”  

I have healed and changed so much in the last two years since my dad died. It’s quite remarkable. I am finally finding happiness for real, and I’m able to express an appropriate amount of anger or sadness instead of constantly being on the verge of stifled tears that won’t stay stifled any more. I am a much more emotionally balanced and healthy human being. I no longer struggle thinking “that’s not a part of me, I better heal it, or someone will judge me, and I will be yelled at.” I feel centered and calm. I am a much better mom, spouse, friend, co-worker. My life is so much better than it was when I was a Journal-listed Practitioner – the goal I had wanted to have my whole life.

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Chrystal’s Story: Finding My Way to the Quaker Path (Part 2)

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This is part of an on-going series, for all posts in this series see the tag Chrystal’s Story.

A note from Chrystal: I was born a fourth-generation Christian Scientist, and finally left the religion when I was in my 40s. In this blog series, I will do my best to share with you my 40+ year journey. I have done my best to make the journey sequential, but it’s also themed to a large extent, and sometimes it has been necessary to take things out of sequence to share a theme. 

Finding My Way to the Quaker Path (Part 2)

At my particular Quaker Meeting, there are two of us who were raised in Christian Science. (The other one is the dad of that boy, J.V., from my 8th grade private school class!) Several people are medical doctors, and a few are atheist or something like it, though they don’t use that word. There are many of us who aren’t sure how to put our beliefs about a god-type-entity into words. I do know I no longer believe in the God that Christian Science taught me about – the one who inflicts pain and suffering when you are “far away from Him/Her,” and won’t heal you until “you change your thought.” I watched this version of God inflict 25 or so years of Parkinson’s on my amazing, kind, smart, creative, funny dad, and I watched my step-mom victim blame him. “If you only prayed more, if you only read Christian Science literature, you would be healed.” (In the end, my dad died a sudden death-by-starvation, due to not wanting a feeding tube. At that point, though, all he could do was curl up in a fetal position on the bed, and I know he wouldn’t have wanted to live longer with a feeding tube too. It breaks my heart that my amazing dad had to die that way. My dad fully expected to be healed, even as he started to enter the coma he never woke up from.)

My dad dying, as far as I can figure, was my final straw towards leaving my Mother Church membership. I had joined The Mother Church in Boston – “The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts” when I turned 12. About 2 months after my dad died, I withdrew my membership. As I type this, I realize this was me rejecting Mary Baker Eddy as “my leader.”

Alertness to Duty: “It shall be the duty of every member of this Church to defend himself daily against aggressive mental suggestion, and not be made to forget nor to neglect his duty to God, to his Leader, and to mankind.” – “The Manual of The Mother Church,” by Mary Baker Eddy, Article VIII, Section 6.

In 2015, I wrote to The Mother Church through their website and never got a confirmation that I am no longer a member. I don’t get mail from them any more at least, including no more requests for the annual money from members. So that’s good! The Quaker Faith was fine with me being a member of the Christian Science Church and still attending the Quaker Meeting. I have learned that probably most Christian churches are fine if you are members at two or more, or are a member at one and attend another. The Christian Science church makes you choose only their version of “church.”

Christian Science, as far as I have witnessed it, teaches people to victim blame and chastise and judge each other. Any time someone wants to go to a doctor, they have to lie about it – lying by omission. They don’t tell their church family, they are so scared of going to a doctor, and they go because they need care, and don’t have anyone to support them. If they come home and need meals or care at all, they have nowhere to turn. If they admitted, “I went to a doctor,” they might likely be kicked out of the church, or at least ostracized. “If you only prayed more, you would have your healing,” they are told over and over again by people who truly think they are being loving when they are really judging and victim-blaming.

I no longer believe in a merciless god like that. I don’t know if I believe in a god or not. I have stripped myself to my core, and have laid everything I have in front of myself, and am examining my inner most beliefs to determine what I believe. At this point, I know I believe in Mother Earth and Father Sky. I see so much beauty in Nature, and so much beauty in the Sky. I love that my Quaker brothers and sisters recycle and compost their food, they push each other to be more kind, to be kind to the earth, to be kind to animals. I love the peaceful protests. I have heard a woman give talks about all the times she was arrested as a peaceful protester – she loved being arrested with her dad growing up. It was something they did. They would peacefully protest war or whatever was wrong, and get arrested and thrown in jail for it. Now she loves protesting with her daughter.

I have a new Quaker Friend who is a District Attorney, who works for all the cases of people who are thrown in jail protesting outrageous things. There were riots due to racism in a city not too far from us, and she gathered everything she needed to head into the rioting city, to prepare the legal documents and cases to help get the people inevitably get out of jail the next day. She gathered granola bars, lanterns and batteries (in case of power outage), snacks, her suit for court, paperwork and specific books. I love that the Quakers fight for the freedoms of people. She talked about how it felt, being a white person driving into a city that had protests and police locking down black people. She saw her privilege right then and there – laid before her. She drove easily through police checkpoints in the middle of the riot to reach her District Attorney’s Office so she could stay up all night, preparing to get the protesters out of jail the next day.

I thought “Quakers are peaceful, and they are conscientious objectors,” and that was initially what drew me to the Quaker Faith. But there is so much more to it. The Quaker Testimonies are nothing at all like Christian Science Testimonies. The Quaker Testimonies mean “Quaker Values.” The acronym for the Quaker Testimonies is “SPICES.” It stands for: Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality, and Stewardship. (See: http://www.friendsjournal.org/s-p-i-c-e-s-quaker-testimonies/)

(By the way, The Quakers also have a “Journal.” It’s a monthly publication. The first time my dad’s wife saw my copy of the Quaker Journal sitting on my kitchen counter, she said, “That’s cute.” As in: “oh, they must have copied the Christian Science Journal by doing that.” Ahem. Quakers have been in this country for over 350 years. It predates Christian Science by at least 250 years – IN THIS COUNTRY.)

Quakers were an integral part of the Underground Railroad. We sing black gospel hymns like, “Follow the drinking gourd” in our Meeting. I have found out these hymns have hidden messages meant to help the slaves navigate the Underground Railroad. I feel like I am part of something really big. I am on a committee dedicated to helping work out the horrendous Mass Incarceration problem in our country. A Friend I know is working hard to create transitional housing for people who are being released from jail and don’t have an ID and can’t get a driver’s license or a job. Transitioning from jail to freedom is not easy at all. And there is no ½ way house for most of them. Feel free to look up the Friends Committee on National Legislation. They do very cool things. I am just starting to get active with this organization, and it’s very exciting.

I don’t know that I necessarily think that Quakers are peaceful in the same way of what I thought it meant when I first walked in the door; Now I know they do fight – they absolutely fight – on the side of Justice. They are actively out in the community, fighting for people’s rights and freedoms, and they know that it takes time to change laws, but they work toward it (sometimes for decades, among huge resistance) and they don’t give up. Laws cannot be changed overnight, some can take years or decades, but the Quakers fight diligently and make progress on issues of injustice.

I am finally learning how to be an activist. I am finally learning how to help my community. Quakers have also always accepted folks from the LGBTA+ community. So many kinds of churches turn away LGBTQ+ folks. I know a transgender woman, and she is fully accepted as a woman in the Quaker community – she attends our Annual Quaker Women’s Retreat. It is hard for us to rent a facility that meets our needs and also accepts LGBTQ+ folks. We have gay women who are married to each other who attend our retreat, and they are not welcome everywhere. But we work hard to find facilities that will rent to our retreat so these women will be accepted and able to attend. Friends of mine marched in the 2016 Washington, DC LGBTQ+ parade with banners held high from the different area Quaker Meeting Houses. And they manned a Quaker booth the next day at the LGBTQ+ festival.

During my Christian Science branch church membership, I was always discouraged from going out into the community to find out what the people need and help them as a face of the Christian Science church. We wanted to do our annual lecture, to an audience of mostly other Christian Scientists, and the members felt like, “this is us fulfilling our duty.” They thought I was ridiculous to suggest that we actually DO something for the community. What should we do? I didn’t know. I had no guidance and didn’t know the issues. Everything I suggested was shot down again and again. In the Quaker Meeting, I hear about so many different things they are working on and being activists to help people in need. We even have the kids learning to be activists – they make 240 sandwiches and 120 lunches, once a month for the local homeless shelter. The kids love the activity, and it’s teaching them to do GOOD for the community. I love that all of the kids in the Meeting House are learning to serve the Community. It’s wonderful.

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Praying about The Weather & Natural Disasters: An Ex Christian Science Perspective

wildfire in California

 The following are thoughts and notes on the current natural disasters that are hitting the globe, by Chrystal. 

To begin …

Well, first off, I just want to say these are sort of disjointed thoughts I’ve had over the years and I am still formulating my thoughts around these concepts. I guess the “uncovering” of random Christian Science thinking and trying to sort out what I believe and what I don’t believe. So, thank you for your patience when I type something disjointed like this blog post.

I look forward to reading your own thoughts and comments and stories in the comments below.

I started typing this post as our nation is recovering from Hurricane Harvey and we braced ourselves for Hurricane Irma. It always takes me a while to type these, think, edit, think some more, edit some more…. As I edit this paragraph, a 10th earthquake has hit Mexico in 6 days.

Deny strongly enough, then you will prove “it’s not real”

I am surrounded by climate change deniers. We have had so many weather disasters. So many. The turmoil on the continent where I live due to National Disasters …. is – for me – nearly unspeakable. All those people, and animals, and buildings and trees – destroyed. Turned to rubble.

I lived at Principia College when a major flood came through and destroyed the whole area. The flood lines are painted on that flour mill in Alton, Illinois.

All of this is heart-breaking to me. I grew up in a thought system that taught me to DENY EVERYTHING I can sense with my 5 senses. 

If you can see, hear, taste, touch, smell it – then IT’S NOT REAL. Only the things you CAN’T see, hear, taste, touch smell – only THOSE are real!

Christian Science teaches:”Be happy – constantly! No matter what you see, because the bad stuff isn’t real at all! Be happy it’s not real! Rejoice! Be glad!”  

Climate deniers:

I am done denying what’s RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. Been there, done that. Let’s get to work, people. Stop the blame and finger pointing. Be open to tough choices and difficult conclusions and difficult decisions.

Christian Scientists are taught that they can control the weather

I was long taught that we could “still the storm,” as Jesus supposedly did on that boat.

Jesus Calms the Storm

35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.”
36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him.
37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped.
38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
– Mark 4: 35-41

And, to accompany the Jesus story, we have, of course, Mary Baker Eddy’s “demonstration” of it. Christian Science teaches children that Mary Baker Eddy once stilled a tornado:

Mrs. Eddy’s maid was working in the room where Mrs. Eddy was and all of a sudden it got very dark and it surprised her so much that she looked out of the window back of Mrs. Eddy and saw a most terrible storm. There were black clouds shaped like funnels rolling around and coming straight towards Mrs. Eddy’s home. She had never seen anything like it. Then she went out of the room about her work and when she came back in a short time afterwards, Mrs. Eddy said to her: “Have you looked out of the window?” No, she had not; but she did and there was all sunshine and clear sky. The storm had disappeared.

– A report of Mrs. Eddy’s healing work compiled by Arthur F. Fosbery, an early Christian Scientist.

My memory of being told another story is that Mary Baker Eddy had her household staff stand on her balcony and face a tornado without fear, and that it went back up in to the sky. It’s probably in one of those biographical books: “We Knew Mary Baker Eddy.”

Pray about the weather

I cannot possibly count how many times I’ve been told to pray about the weather because “someone is getting married that day!” Or that “it’s raining because it’s someone’s funeral and everyone is sad.” Or that “that’s the day of our Christian Science Lecture, pray for nice weather!” If the weather is something we can see and feel, why do we pray about it? It’s not real, you opposite loving people that deny everything logical and say that YOU’RE being the logical ones!

What about prayer?

Every time I turn around, I see more people sending prayers and good thoughts to people that are stuck in areas where a natural disaster is imminent, and for whatever reason, they are unable to evacuate. If you have read very much on this site, you will see that many of us have found that prayer does absolutely NOTHING practical, and many of our family members and friends have died thanks to having only prayer done for them, and nothing practical. This breaks our hearts! I think many of us are fine with the concept of prayer, frankly, but the use of prayer to the exclusion of all else – is dangerous!

The use of prayer to the exclusion of all else is dangerous!

That joke we have all heard

There is a story of a man on a roof and the flood waters are rising. Several attempts are made to save this man and get him to safety. The man ignores all the attempts and thinks a miracle will fall down from heaven and save him. The man eventually dies.

I feel like this describes Christian Scientists that refuse to evacuate when told to evacuate. “God will save me,” they say.

“Real” Legends:

House fire – everything burns except S&H and The Bible

I kid you not that I grew up being told a story of the time a fire struck a house of Christian Scientists. I was told “they were protected and weren’t home at the time.” When these people went back through the wreckage, “everything was destroyed.”

The only things that survived from the fire, unscathed, were their copies of The Holy Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, which had “fallen from the burned coffee table, to the floor of the house, and they weren’t even singed.” “Everything else was burned.”

I kid you not, this story was drilled in to me as a kid.

Dying in wildfires

I learned another story recently, many current day Christian Science folks corroborated it, too, some of whom knew the couple and heard they had died, but hadn’t been told how:

An older Christian Science couple refused to evacuate their house in California during wild fires. They were killed in the fire. These people were named, and the story was verified by people that knew the people, and knew the story.

Christian Science Camp

I heard a story about something that happened at a Christian Science camp from someone who was there at the time. The girls were on a camping trip, away from their cabins. They were sleeping on a hill above a river. I have personally observed the director of that camp praying extensively about the weather. He keeps a close watch on the weather with a radar.

I am certain the counselors and this director were praying about the weather, to know that it couldn’t possibly harm the girls, and that they could turn the storm.

Well, in the middle of the night (I want to say 3am), the director of the camp arrived in a camp vehicle, where the girls were sleeping. He told all of them to get up, bring their things, and get in the vehicle. As the last girl got in the vehicle, and closed the door, torrents of rain poured down all around them. The next morning, the area where the girls had been asleep was completely flooded.

These are stories Christian Scientists share with each other constantly, to talk about how they were “protected from the weather.” This is one way they share the concept that “Christian Science works.” If it works, why couldn’t he redirect the storm instead of watching on the storm radar, then rescuing them at the last minute? Why not trust the forecast a bit more and just reschedule the trip? Save everyone the bother of probably having wet sleeping bags when they got back to camp, and an interrupted night’s sleep?

That time I prayed about the weather

More than a decade ago, I was at an art festival in a major metropolitan city. At the time, I was on the path towards becoming a Journal-listed Christian Science Practitioner. Suddenly, out of no where, a torrential rain hit the festival. There were tents at the food court area, and everyone who could, crammed in under the tents. I remember being on the edge of the tent – it was shoulder-to-shoulder people.

I stood there, under the tent, water nearly pouring down my back. I was barely inside it, standing with my husband. I thought, “I can pray about this and end the storm.” (Seriously; I believed that.) But then I thought about all the plants and trees and things that desperately needed water. So, I decided to look at it from a different perspective. Immediately, I thought, “Who am I to try to end a storm?”

I had prayed in years past to understand “The Kingdom of Heaven” as being here, right now, all the time. So I decided to just see “The Kingdom of Heaven” right then, right there. I looked around and observed that whereas 15 minutes before, people had been at the food court, standing in line, ignoring each other, now they were all standing shoulder-to-shoulder, and a camaraderie from a shared experience started to form. People were laughing, joking, scooting over to let each other in. A game of frisbee even started up inside that tent.

I felt like I had witnessed a change in the weather – but in a new way! This was one of those “healings” that stuck with me for a long time and proved that “Christian Science works.”

In all honesty, I am not entirely sure what I think of this now, but it is something I have thought about a lot, over the years.

[Ok, as I continue editing this, I see how funny that is. I didn’t do anything at all, just standing there, watching people come together in a disaster or perceived disaster. Go, me! (Hopefully you’re laughing along with me now.)]

Some people, these days, might consider my experience “positive thinking.” Perhaps it is. It’s looking at what could be a miserable experience (wanting to see the art festival, and suddenly finding yourself stuck inside a tent with “a million” people in torrential rain), and seeing it in a new way – seeing it in a positive light.

Is this a form of prayer? I don’t know. Is it positive thinking? Yes. Is it a healing? I don’t know. It’s definitely a change in thought. I welcome your thoughts on this experience! Because I still don’t quite know what to make of this experience.

Peace, Be Still

I went to a Unity Church one time when I was still a Christian Scientist, working towards becoming Journal-listed. I was there for a Christian Science Monitor event. It was interesting to set foot in a Unity Church. I had never been to one before. One of the walls had the quote, “Peace, Be Still,” painted on it, in large dark blue letters. I sat there, reading those words, as I listened to this Christian Science Monitor presentation.

After the presentation was over, I went to the Unity Minister (a woman) and told her my experience in the torrential storm, and my own change of thought. She loved the story. I wonder if she is sharing that, right now, in her sermons when she talks about Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Jose … and what about the 6 days of Earthquakes that have been going on in Mexico? 6 days of Earthquakes in Mexico so far. Roll that around in your brain for just a moment. (I know by saying “brain,” every Christian Scientist reader just reminded themselves that “man is not made up of brain…” Hahaha! That’s my humor coming out.)

“Question. — What is man?
Answer. — Man is not matter; he is not made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material elements.”

– Science and Health, p. 475: 5

I Believe the Earth is Trying to Heal Herself

My current belief system says that Mother Earth is trying to heal herself. She is literally flooding trying to cool herself off. The icebergs and glaciers are melting. Torrents of rain hit some places, severe drought hits other places. The planet is trying to balance itself out. This equates 100% to me to Stewardship, recycling, CO2 issues, methane gas from animal agriculture…

Thoughts on Recycling

You may or may not remember when I wrote about running a Vacation Bible School for Christian Science children with a friend. One time, when I was at her house, I noticed that she threw all of her recycling in to the trash can. I felt like this was such a contradiction to who she is as a person. I asked her as nicely as I could about it. She told me that sometimes she sneaks out recycling, but it really bothers her husband, so most of the time she can’t do it. Her husband believes that global warming is a hoax and so is recycling. He says if it wasn’t a hoax, then people would actually PAY for it, instead of having it be funded even partially by the government. Therefore, it’s a governmental hoax.

She also said, “besides, matter isn’t real.” Oh, right. I guess since I can see it and feel it, it’s not real. I simply cannot wrap my head around the Christian Science attitude that is so anti-recycling. They all have different reasons for it. But they all think it’s just not necessary. Genesis 1 in The Bible says God told us to take care of this planet. My dad constantly told me, “the first four words of the Bible are: ‘in the beginning God‘.” So I feel like this first chapter of Genesis is an important story, above all other stories, to Christian Scientists. And yet, they don’t honor the basic tenant that God told mankind to take care of the planet.

Where do we go from here?

I guess from my Ex Christian Science perspective, I feel that prayer alone is useless against the weather. Seriously. Get out of your closet. Unfold your hands. And go DO something. You think that riding your bike will help with global warming? It’s a drop in the bucket of what needs to be changed. Do some research on animal agriculture. Plant a vegetable garden. Try to eat local foods whenever possible. Think about how you might be able to reduce your trash (there is no “away” when you throw something away. It goes somewhere… it’s just no longer in your home). You can recycle a whole lot more than you think you can!

I guess I am thinking, as I type this and ponder the topic, that prayer alone about the weather doesn’t actually affect it. The Quaker in me says, “We need to talk about Stewardship. Let’s leave this world BETTER than we found it – not worse.”

And God saw the earth that he had made and said, “behold, it is very good.” Then man came along, and screwed it all the hell up. Can we affect the weather? Yes. Absolutely. Choices that we make every day affect the planet. Like the “butterfly affect.”

Let’s NOT “go in to our closet, shut the door and pray without ceasing.” Cease your prayers and do some serious thinking about how you can be a positive change for the world! If we all work together, we can accomplish something good! THAT’s how we change the weather for the better.

image via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_disaster#/media/File:Wildfire_in_California.jpg