Discipline and healing

Article VIII in the Church Manual is titled Discipline. One might agree that every successful endeavour – in business, the arts, sport, relationships – has required some portion of discipline to reach its goal. It often requires self-sacrifice. Gosh!

According to the Oxford dictionary, discipline denotes self-control, self-government, orderliness, obedience, method, regulated activity, routine, regimen, training by exercise, instruction. It is closely related to the word disciple - student, follower, adherent, pupil. Jesus is recorded as saying "It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord" (Matthew 10: 25).

The Readers Digest Word Finder explains that both disciple and discipline go back to the Latin discipulus, learner, from discere, to learn.

Thirty-one sections comprise Article VIII, which is sub-titled GUIDANCE FOR MEMBERS. The section titles are:

1.               A Rule for Motives and Acts
2.               To be Read in Church
3.               Christ Jesus the Ensample
4.               Daily Prayer
5.               Prayer in Church
6.               Alertness to Duty
7.               One Christ
8.               No Malpractice
9.               Formulas Forbidden
10.               No Adulterating Christian Science
11.               No Incorrect Literature
12.               Obnoxious Books
13.               Per Capita Tax
14.               Church Periodicals
15.               Church Organizations Ample
16.               Joining Another Society
17.               Forbidden Membership
18.               Officious Members
19.               Legal Titles
20.               Illegal Adoption
21.               Use of Initials “C.S.”
22.               Practitioners and Patients
23.               Duty to Patients
24.               Testimonials
25.               Charity to All
26.               Uncharitable Publications
27.               The Golden Rule
28.               Numbering the People
29.               Our Church Edifices
30.               No Monopoly
31.               Christian Science Nurse

It’s so interesting to see the by-law about the Christian Science Nurse in this Article. In the June 28, 1958 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel, Myrtis Holmes Selover’s article “The Nurse’s Important Work” is helpful. She writes

The nurse has the duty of lovingly caring for the patient, feeding and looking after the body, keeping it clean and comfortable. But she has also the more important duty of watching over human consciousness, feeding it with the Christ, Truth.

Ms. Selover offers the biblical story of Naaman and the prophet Elisha as an example.  See II Kings chapter 5. In this case, Naaman’s servants took on the role of the Christian Science nurse in encouraging him to yield to Elisha’s gentle request to wash in the river Jordan.

Further on, Myrtis writes:

Often one acts as his own nurse as well as his own practitioner. The qualities described by Mrs. Eddy as necessary in a nurse, particularly that of receptivity, expressed by the one seeking healing, help to bring it about… One must watch that ill-temper, deceitfulness, and a complaining attitude … find no place in one’s thinking. Human consciousness should be watched over, tended, and constantly nourished by the Christ, Truth, that the errors detected there may be cast out and destroyed.

Now I see why this section was included in the article on Discipline! Christian Science nursing is about the discipline of watching consciousness. This work is for every student of Christian Science to take up with joy and vigour. I’m resolving to start right now.

Julie Swannell