Practical Christian Science

I read the Introduction to Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer (MBE:CH)  by Yvonne Caché von Fettweis and Robert Townsend Warneck (Amplified Edition) a few days ago. This morning, in Prelude, I am delighted to have presented to me a definition of a Puritan (maybe especially, one living in the USA).

But first of all, the writers point out how Puritanism influenced Mary Baker Eddy’s religious experience – “how she thought and lived, how she sought, drew near to, and understood God. This Puritan approach to God was a motivating force behind both her private and public life” (page 15).

Then the writers point out that we must discard our vision of the stereotypical Puritan of rigid extremism.

We read that “‘practicality’ gives a clearer, more precise picture of the Puritan, for whom fulfilling one’s duty to God was the whole purpose of existence. Nothing was more important. Every detail of one’s life could be dealt with correctly only through discernment of the divine will, and this discernment was not to be determined intellectually, but received directly from God Himself through spiritual communion” (ibid pages 15-16).

This reminded me of book I have just finished reading, The Hour of Sunlight, by Sami Al Jundi and Jen Marlowe. Sami is a Palestinian living in the Old City of Jerusalem. I found similarities with the Puritan way of living and the way Sami’s family lived their lives. Incidentally, both of Sami’s parents were blind: he and his siblings were their “eyes” when they went out of the house. Now this is interesting. I cannot find any passages which I can quote to illustrate that impression. I guess one really has to read the book.

Then, back to MBE:CH, on that same page 16, there is a paragraph which talks about religion being both an Art and a Trade.

About trade: “a Trade is not learned by words, but by experience: and a man hath learned a Trade, not when he can talk of it, but when he can work according to his Trade” (Englishman Richard Sibbes, a seventeenth century Puritan preacher). The writers of our book comment that “it would be hard to find a better description than this of Mary Baker Eddy’s expectation for Christian Science and its adherents.”

I move to the present to tell of a man who has just recently been the recipient of an AOM for service to the aeronautical engineering industry.

It started when he built a small light plane while attending university to learn civil engineering. The plane flew and served him for many years. Meantime, he extended his university tenure to aeronautical engineering. That done, he started to build a business. This grew to employ around 40 engineers. They mostly came directly from universities and received outstanding instruction and guidance. Now well established, he saw a need for a certain type of plane especially designed for Australian conditions. He designed it (no doubt giving his employees great experience). And he built it himself! This is no small light plane but a 10-seater.

I hope the reader can see my point about this man’s Trade. Practicality indeed!

All that and I am only on the second page of Prelude!

Joyce Voysey

Ed. I note that the word "practical" appears 74 times in the writings of Mary Baker Eddy. Some of these references come from readers who attest to the practicality of Christian Science in their lives.