Meeting our different needs

from Joyce Voysey

June is here bringing with it a new book to read/study: Healing Spiritually.

As I read the first testimonies I thought, how can I comment on this book?  Everyone is reading the same stories; surely they will have the same responses.  Then I came to this on page 41: The education I had received in secondary school taught me to believe that a parasite is responsible for the (malarial) fever, and that if the disease is not arrested through the use of drugs, death may result.  But through the understanding I gained from my study (of Christian Science), I realised that such knowledge is the ‘forbidden fruit’ spoken of in Genesis, which God warns man neither to eat nor touch, lest he die (3:3).  It is a knowledge that leads to bondage and destruction.  It brought a complete turnaround of my thought.  That could perhaps be interpreted differently by everyone, but to me it was a warning red light which said, “Beware of material hypotheses.”

I was reminded of Mrs. Eddy’s instruction for reading Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “The general rule is to commence with the first chapter, read slowly and pause as you read to apply certain portions which meet your present need - to thought that will carry them out in action” (We Knew Mary Baker Eddy Second Series page 27).

We all come to our reading with different needs.  Every time we re-read S&H we come to it from a different perspective – we have grown spiritually in the interim, therefore we can expect to get different inspirations.

Just so, when we read our current book we all have different needs which the book can possibly meet.  Perhaps our need is to specifically look for something in each testimony which we can apply to some aspect of our lives, or the lives we see around us – in our homes, our churches, our community, our country, our world.

It is interesting that I find I cannot read the book club assigned books just anywhere – before going off to sleep in bed, for example.  No.  I need to be right here with the computer and other tools to hand.  I wonder if you find that interesting?

I am going back to the beginning of the book….