Note to my readers

A most interesting thing has occurred.  It has come to my attention that an individual has begun a website in which the first entry is a warning to beware of Sharon Slaton Howell and Christian Science!  This is followed by quite a denunciation of what my religion is.  To say that this was a surprise to me is to understate the case greatly.  Someone must be afraid that I have more influence in cyberspace than certainly I'm aware of.

However, my immediate and continuing reaction is one of compassion for someone who feels they must attack what another believes. But as I've said at the outset of my blogging which began back in 2008 out of love for God, for Christ Jesus, and for the teachings of Christian Science, that every attempt to turn me from my religion and/or to poison my thought toward its Discoverer and Founder, Mary Baker Eddy, has completely failed.  And it shall continue to do so. 

Further, it's not lost on me that the motive to drag down my beliefs may just cause some earnest seeker for Truth, someone who is desperate to experience Christ-healing, to investigate Christian Science.  God often works in ways we cannot see at the time.  He has done so many times in the past where Christian Science is concerned.

In closing, I quote something Mrs. Eddy once wrote:  "I would no more quarrel with a man because of his religion than I would because of his art."  First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany (page 270)

I echo these words, and would ask that Jesus' Golden Rule be put in practice in this situation.

Choosing the "lowest room"*

If the mighty meekness our Master
In his own life exemplified,
Lived in ours, will keep us
Less responsive to the prince of this world
From unavoidable unhappiness free,
Then let our daily asking be,
Give me, O God, more humility --
That true humility Jesus showed.
Didn't he seem at times
To almost be hiding himself,
Never trying to be a "star",
Wanting invariably instead
To see his Father glorified?
So let us choose the "lowest room"*
Be unpretentious in what we do and are.
It is this not seeking things for ourselves,
Living to honour, not us, but Him
That keeps us from the pride
That makes of life,
Not His heaven, but a hell,
That enables us to walk the Christly path,
Touching other lives
More widely than we can tell.


*Luke 14:7-11

"And he put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them,
When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him;
And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room.
But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher:  then shall thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee.
For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."

                                                         JESUS

When reality dawns

How often this occurs
when one is practicing
Christian Science
and he or she can say:
"Why, there was never
anything there to be healed
divine Mind, God just revealed!
What Jesus meant when he said:
"Ye shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free."
I see now, clearly see.
There never was a material condition
that needing changing,
only my thinking rearranging,
from false material belief
to spiritual understanding
of what is really real."

In Christ-healing,
one doesn't have to remove
some fearsome thing.
Nor it is matter of time,
but of enlightened thought,
seeing creation as Jesus taught.

What God made is perfect now,
and it remains that way.
His work is done,
states the Bible, Genesis 1,
each daughter and each son
intact in their changeless perfection.
This truth divine Science teaches,
and when it reaches
one's consciousness,
lighting it up,
one rejoices to see
that nothing real has been
changed or healed.
The light of divine reality
has simply replaced the
darkness of mortal belief.
And oh the relief
when this happens,
and one is finally free!


("There was never a moment in which evil was real." 
Mary Baker Eddy, writing in her pamphlet No and Yes)

A Way Out of Prescription Drug Addiction

One of the saddest things to see on the evening news these days is someone who has become an addict through reliance on prescription drugs.  One's heart goes out to a man or woman in this condition who feels trapped and hopeless.

But there is a way to combat this and gain freedom from dependence on these drugs.  That way is the healing power of Christianity that Christ Jesus practiced.  His words, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" point to the naturalness of healing from a purely metaphysical standpoint as he did.  They point to unchanging divine law, which any person can turn to with certainty.

Through the study of Christian Science, one is helped to see what that healing truth is, the truth found in the Bible's pages.  There we learn that God is omnipotent and entirely good and that man is the image of God.  As the likeness of his creator, man forever expresses the divine nature.  And because God is Spirit, man is spiritual.  To be sure, we appear to be merely flesh and bones and subject to suffering.  But physicality isn't the actual or ultimate substance of our being.  Life in the flesh is a misconception of man, whose real identity as the image of God is incorporeal, untouched by enslaving and debilitating physical conditions.

The growing understanding of man's spiritual nature has a purifying effect on the body.  It awakens us to the everpresence of Christ, Truth -- of the divine healing influence -- and the body responds to this uplifting influence.  Health is restored.

Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered and founded this religion I practice, writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:  "To ignore God as of little use in sickness is a mistake.  Instead of thrusting Him aside in times of bodily trouble, and waiting for the hour of strength in which to acknowledge Him, we should learn that He can do all things for us in sickness as in  health."
page 166)

As many have found, spiritual healing in Christian Science is more than a recovery of health; it includes moral strengthening.  Turning to God in prayer and relying on Him for healing constitute the genuine Christian way of salvation.  This holy activity regenerates and purifies one's thought and life.

We have a God-given right not only to enjoy sound health but to recover it through spiritual means when it is threatened.  Jesus has furnished us with a precedent, indicating that as we follow his example and make every effort to follow in his steps, we can learn what God is and how to avail ourselves of His power.

The Bible is full of assurances of God's healing help.  These are not empty promises.  They come to life for us in clear-cut healing when we're equipped with practical knowledge of God's eternal law of  harmony and of our relationship to Him.  Empowered with the Christly understanding that a study of Christian Science brings, we can turn to God for every aspect of our well-being.  And this includes freedom from addiction to prescription drugs.  As the Bible records God as promising:  "I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy sounds, saith the Lord."  (Jeremiah 30:17)

What Would Jesus Think?

                                          By:  John Wellsman

Many people today ponder what Jesus would do in a particular situation and often the conclusion is that he would turn the other cheek or practice some other inoffensively passive behavior in the face of aggression. Yet Jesus’ three-year ministry was a healing ministry. He didn’t just avoid confrontations, he healed. He healed disease as well as many other situations and conditions. Thus his ministry went far beyond the “Golden Rule.”

A far more important question to ask is: What would Jesus think? What would he think when confronted with some dreaded disease or discordant situation? What did he know that enabled him to heal and perform the so-called “miracles?”

Scholastic theology generally overlooks the fact that not only did Jesus heal cases himself but he taught others to heal as well. Most notably the disciples. In fact Jesus once sent forth a group of seventy students at one time who returned to report, “Even the devils are subject to us through thy name!” (Luke 10:17) These individuals obviously healed situations and people as well through what they learned from Jesus.

Few people in the history of Christianity have apparently pondered how Jesus was able to heal and teach others to heal. Most prefer the traditionally accepted position that Jesus had a personal and unique dispensation to perform “miracles.” Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of the Christian Science religion was one who refused to accept this limited view of Jesus’ mission. When she was healed through her own prayers of the effects of an apparently life-threatening accident in 1866, she realized that many had been healed over the centuries through deeply Christian prayer. However she alone became determined to know exactly how Jesus had healed. In her words, “I knew…cures were produced in primitive Christian healing by holy, uplifting faith; but I must know the Science of this healing,” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures 109:16). She was perhaps the first and only person up to that time who realized Jesus’ method of healing was purely mental.

Thus it is not surprising that Mrs. Eddy included as one of the fundamental tenets of Christian Science that adherents of the religion should, “…solemnly promise to watch, and pray for that Mind to be in us which was also in Christ Jesus;” (Science & Health p. 497:24)

Neither is it surprising that she applied the term “Science” to Christianity. Indeed Webster defines Science in part as:  “Accumulated and established knowledge, which has been systematized and formulated with reference to the discovery of general truths or the operation of general laws; knowledge classified and made available in work, life, or the search for truth; comprehensive, profound, or philosophical knowledge.” That’s quite different from today’s generally accepted view of “science.”

From these two facts, we can determine that Mary Baker Eddy actually sought to gather the “general truths or…general laws…comprehensive, profound or philosophical knowledge” regarding Jesus’ healing ministry so that it could be taught or transferred to individuals today in order that those individuals could demonstrate in their own lives the healing “miracles” practiced by Jesus and his disciples.

In short, she was determined to know what Jesus knew or how he thought in order to heal. She wanted to know what Jesus was he conscious of in order to perform these “miracles?”

Over a period of three years of deeply profound Scriptural study, Mary Baker Eddy learned both what and how Jesus thought or knew in order to perform his healing “miracles.” She explains it thus in Science and Health, the textbook which she wrote describing the results of her study: “Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Savior saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick.” (p. 476:32)

Two things should be pointed out here. First Mrs. Eddy had a far different view or definition of “sin” than the currently accepted view that sin is essentially sexual misconduct—physical or mental. She defines it thus: “Sin was, and is, the lying supposition that life, substance, and intelligence are both material and spiritual” in her book “Retrospection and Introspection” (p. 67:6).

Second, the Bible describes man’s origin thus: “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him;” (Gen 1:27) Considering the previously referred to quotation in which she describes how Jesus healed, Mrs. Eddy obviously realized that what Jesus knew or “beheld” was man in God’s own image—the perfect man, spiritual, not material—instead of a man who considered himself/herself as both material and spiritual. And this realization of man made in God’s image enabled Jesus to heal the sick and perform other “miracles” which defied a purely material view of creation. Not only by Jesus himself but by anyone who could achieve this knowledge of the “perfect man.” The Bible records Jesus as saying, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.” John 14:12.

Elsewhere, Mrs. Eddy says, “Holding the right idea of man in my mind, I can improve my own, and other people's individuality, health, and morals;” Miscellaneous Writings p. 62:1. Through her own prayers and those of her students over many years, she proved conclusively that by thinking or knowing the facts of being as Jesus knew them anyone could perform the types of “miracles” which Jesus performed. And this thinking or understanding is just as powerful and available today as it was in Jesus’ time or Mrs. Eddy’s day. Which leads to this conclusion: It can be learned and practiced by anyone sincerely desiring to know what Jesus knew.

Light So Lovely

Light is seen in so many delightsome ways:

                           -- In ducks gliding across a pond,
                               Leaving long streaks of
                               Shining in their wake

                          --   In the setting sun playing
                               On trunks of trees

                          --  In a little child's happy eyes

                          --  In a face glowing with love


                          But exceeding all that God's
                                    Wondrous creation can show
                                               Is that light Jesus promises --

                          "He that followeth me
                           Shall not walk in darkness,
                           But shall have the light of life."

                                     (John 8:12)

Sticking to Our Guns

                                              (By John Robert Howell)


There is something appealing to a certain turn of mind at any rate, about the Stetsoned, two six-shootered gunslinger, squinting gimlet-eyed before him, face bronzed by years of scorching desert suns and chiseled by searing heat and wind-driven sand.  Maybe the stump of an old cheroot clinced defiantly in  his teeth, ever alert and ready to take on any foe or confront any danger.

All Scientists would do well to pack the two six-shooters of the Truth:  the Bible and Science and Health.  It is essential that Christian Scientists be ever alert to error and quick on the draw with these two powerful sources of inspiration and spiritual strength.  The distaff reader may not find the initial picture appealing, with or without the cheroot, and this fanciful image is not meant to suggest that the gentler sex should become metaphysical Ma Barkers.  Maybe Annie Oakleys.  But we all need those two powerful sources of Truth, Life, and Love and must know how to use them instantly through familiarity gained only by constant, daily "practice" therewith and humble, contrite prayer for increased understanding of God and His creation.  It is the only way out of mortal mind and on and up to greater conscious unity with God.

Greenborn bravado and temerity will not long suffice for him (or her) armed only with the single six-shooter of daily excerpts from our textbooks.  Such as they will ultimately discover that they just do not have enough fire power to do the job.  We are told by Christ Jesus that we must know the Scriptures and by Mary Baker Eddy that we must study and ponder both.  I know of no way to follow these commands without constantly belting them on our hips, so to speak, i.e., keeping them always at our fingertips.  And using them faithfully each day.

So, a spiritually-enriched month of March to my fellow Christian Scientists.