Michelle Boccanfuso Nanouche, CSB Christian Science Practitioner & Teacher
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9/18/2014

Christ Jesus' methodology in healing

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Where do we come from? Where are we going? And whose fault is it when we have problems? These questions confront us all at one point or another.

Parents caring for a sick child might ask, "What did I do or not do to cause this?"  A child struggling with performing a simple task that his friends might easily do could be asking, "Will I ever be like the other kids?"

Tough questions like these naturally pull on the heartstrings.  But finding answers may involve more than focusing on the problems in front of us. 

Jesus disciples once asked him about a case of physical disability  - whose fault was it? Did the man do something wrong? Did his parents, that he was “born this way? Their prayers hadn’t been able to heal the man. We don’t know but maybe frustration and fear for the man’s future had set in.

Jesus replied that neither were at fault. He turned them away from even considering fault and cause for the disability – away from the disability itself. He declared that the works of God, that is of divine Good, was all that was manifest in him.

He shifted the focus from material disability to God’s divine ability to bring out perfection and goodness alone.

Now the difference between the disciples approach and Jesus’ was as different as night and day. But Jesus’ viewpoint led to healing, while the disciples approach would have left the man mired in the problem.

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The Christ perspective – the divine message of man’s spiritual origin and native goodness – heals. It doesn't teach to cope with or explain away problems. It completely heals them.

I think that is what set Christ Jesus apart from the doctors and helpers of the sick before him. Through his method of turning to God, identifying God’s law of Good in each case, and overruling whatever the current material belief about disease was claiming, he never doubted his cases would be healed. He appealed to God’s law the way a mathematician appeals to math facts. He worked with solutions, not on problems.

If you would like to learn more about Christ Jesus' methodology, check out these links:
  • What we can learn from that crazy pig story
  • Bow down to disease or bow down to good
  • A lesson of focus from Christ Jesus... Oh, and my cat
  • The simple theology that heals
  • One spit prayer. Really!
  • "What's your name?" Wake up from disease



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7/7/2014

Nothing can deter you from healing

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It is natural to want to help others through your prayers. Practicing prayer for others needn’t and shouldn’t be scary. Healing prayer is very fulfilling. It is motivated by love for God and man. While not every practitioner decides to advertise as a healer, taking out a listing in The Christian Science Journal can be a next step as the commitment to practice Christian Science healing matures into full-time availability to help others. But whether one is Journal-listed or not, the conditions and standards of practice are the same. Each one needs to do what is necessary to give effective help.

To an early practitioner, Christian Science discoverer Mary Baker Eddy wrote, “Every day treat yourself that no evil suggestion nor argument can swerve you or frighten you--or deter you from healing and doing just what is needed here . . . Three times each day treat yourself for this temptation then watch that your house be not broken open.” [MBE to Alfred E. Baker, 2/2/1899, F00147]

I remember a time when I felt totally blocked as a healer. Really stuck. I couldn’t see any progress in my cases and felt afraid. Maybe I shouldn’t be practicing, I thought. Then I confronted head-on that aggressive and false suggestion that I couldn’t heal. Three times a day I treated myself, my practice and my community to understand that God through Christ was the healer, and that as God’s reflection, I express His eternal, healing Christ.

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Mrs. Eddy defined Christ as “the divine manifestation of God, which comes to the flesh to destroy incarnate error.” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, 583) She also spoke of this Christ as “voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness.” (ibid 332) She explained that this Christ is “the divine image and likeness, dispelling the illusions of the senses; the Way, the Truth, and the Life, healing the sick and casting out evils, destroying sin, disease, and death.” (ibid 332)

I affirmed regularly that this very Christ is always a present and effective healer; that where I am, the healing Christ is manifest. As I did, I began to feel the authority that Christ gives each one to heal through prayer. I began to think of myself less as a personal healer and more as a perpetual witness to and expression of this healing Christ through every treatment I gave. I stopped being afraid that I couldn't heal. And then things started moving, really moving fast.

Sometimes healing came so quickly that I asked myself if I had had the time to give the case a full Christian Science treatment. But my three-times-a-day prayer always showed me that its not a personal me doing something extraordinary in prayer. My role is to witness the Christ expressed in me and in the patient - to witness to the Christ-message of God’s perpetual care for His creation - the divine message of unending good that restores harmony where discord seems to be.

I am trying to keep up a regular practice of treating myself three times a day “that no evil suggestion nor argument can swerve [me] or frighten [me]--or deter [me] from healing and doing just what is needed here.”  It isn't always easy and sometimes I have to set an alarm to remember to do it. But I am striving to be regular about it, because, bottom line: Good healers are needed. And those of us whose love for God and man move us to want to lift up our brothers and sisters in healing prayer, have every right to be effective in our holy work.

Let us lift up our hearts and our hands to God in heaven, and say...
"You came near when I called you, and you said, 'Do not fear.' You, Lord, took up my case..."
LAMENTATIONS 3:41,57,58 NIV



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9/23/2013

Bow down to disease or bow before good?

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If you have ever found yourself caught in a battle against illness and have struggled to find peace and healing without making much headway, this audio blog post is for you.

Christ Jesus was a master at turning water to wine. The wine they drank was not like the intoxicating drink of today. It was mixed with water, to make bitter, undrinkable water sweet and pure. This redirection from bitter to sweet, unhealthy to healthy, was a theme in all of Jesus works.

Here you will find a 4-minute audio clip that discusses the healing of a woman whom Luke described as "bowed for 18 years."  Listen to insights into how Christ - the spirit of Truth that Jesus expressed - transforms  minds and bodies from a bitter battle with disease to the sweet worship and praise of the infinite and ever-present Good that heals.

Now He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 
And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years,
and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up.
But when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him and said to her,
“Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.” 
And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God. (Luke 13:10-13)

"We bow down to matter, and entertain finite thoughts of God like the pagan idolater.
Mortals are inclined to fear and to obey what they consider a material body
more than they do a spiritual God." 
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, 214)

Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power.
Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness.
Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp.
Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs.
Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.
Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord.   (Psalm 150)


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5/26/2013

Who is Mary Baker Eddy?

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I am a Christian Scientist and healing prayer is my area of practice. Christian Science is the explanation of the healing work of Bible prophets, apostles, and of Christ Jesus himself. To trace its modern day roots, we can look to the one who discovered the Science of Christ healing in 1866 – American religious reformer, Mary Baker Eddy.

Born in 1821, Mary Baker grew up during the time when religious, moral and scientific circles were wrestling with questions about life before birth, the human experience and the afterlife. Her father, a staunch Calvinist, believed that all mankind was predestined before birth to experience one of two possible life tracks - to live eternally in heaven or to forever burn in hell.

This all or nothing life and death belief met with resistance in the young Mary, who from an early age rejected some of her father’s strong religious views. She couldn’t reconcile a capricious human life with the God of Love that her own study of Scripture brought out. An independent thinker, a questioner of truth, Mary grew into a courageous and serious young woman. She dared to challenge the many theories and beliefs of human life and God that cropped up around her.

"At the age of twelve I was admitted to the Congregational (Trinitarian) Church, my parents having been members of that body for a half-century...Before this step was taken, the doctrine of unconditional election, or predestination, greatly troubled me...So perturbed was I by the thoughts aroused by this erroneous doctrine, that the family doctor was summoned, and pronounced me stricken with fever.

"My father's relentless theology emphasized belief in a final judgment-day, in the danger of endless punishment, and in a Jehovah merciless towards unbelievers; and of  these things he now spoke, hoping to win me from dreaded heresy.

"My mother, as she bathed my burning temples, bade me lean on God's love, which would give me rest, if I went to Him in prayer, as I was wont to do, seeking His guidance. I prayed; and a soft glow of ineffable joy came over me. The fever was gone, and I rose and dressed myself, in a normal condition of health. Mother saw this, and was glad. The physician marvelled; and the "horrible decree" of predestination — as John Calvin rightly called his own tenet — forever lost its power over me."   (Retrospection and Introspection, Mary Baker Eddy, p.13)
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Despite the agitation that her father's theological opinions stirred, Mary's orthodox Christian parents gave her a strong foundation in Bible study and taught her to pray. Healing prayer was quietly encouraged by her mother, who had gentler views of God. Mary came to expect that her prayers should be able to help and heal. In fact, archival evidence points to remarkable healings produced even by her childhood prayers - healings of sick animals and injuries of the other children on the farm.

Mary’s spiritual journey continued into adulthood. Despite an extraordinary amount of personal loss, stress, and insecurity in young adulthood, she leaned on God continually and stayed close to her Bible. And occasionally people were healed by her prayers. There are reports of blindness and other illnesses cured through her prayers a full decade before she discovered the divine Principle of healing in Christian Science.

The desire for more consistent health for herself and others led Mary to explore allopathic medicine, hydropathy, homeopathy and a variety of popular mind cures – and when I say explore, I mean she took up serious study, often becoming a practitioner of some of these methods for a time. But one by one, disappointed in their results, she abandoned each system, trusting her Bible to continue to guide her to answers to her questions about life and health and healing.

Then came a pivotal experience following a bad fall. Unable to walk and in debilitating pain, she was cured through her own prayers of what her doctor later indicated was a possible spinal dislocation and concussion. She discovered that not only is God an aid to healing, but that God, who she understood to be the divine Mind or intelligence of all, is the only true healer on any case - that God is all and that matter has nothing to do with life, health or healing. A radical new premise, yes.  But, having been healed by its revelation, she couldn’t argue with the results of her discovery.

Mary Baker Eddy, Mrs. Eddy as she would soon be known, described this great discovery in her autobiography, Retrospection and Introspection:

“The divine hand led me into a new world of light and Life, a fresh universe — old to God, but new to His "little one." It became evident that the divine Mind alone must answer, and be found as the Life, or Principle, of all being and that one must acquaint himself with God, if he would be at peace…

 “I had learned that thought must be spiritualized, in order to apprehend Spirit. It must become honest, unselfish, and pure, in order to have the least understanding of God in divine Science… For Spirit to be supreme in demonstration, it must be supreme in our affections, and we must be clad with divine power...” (27)
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Of her quick physical healing, she explained, “I had learned that Mind reconstructed the body, and that nothing else could. How it was done, the spiritual Science of Mind must reveal. It was a mystery to me then, but I have since understood it.” (ibid. 28)

As a child Mary Baker was a healer even before she could explain how to heal. As an adult, she was healed of the effects of the accident before she completely understood how such healing was done. But the divine Spirit that is God was always supreme in her affections. Honesty, unselfishness and purity were a natural part of her character. These elements that render one susceptible to divine healing were always hers, so healings naturally occurred even before the full explanation of how to do it was discovered. Consistency in good results, however, required an understanding of the Science of divine healing. And when that understanding developed following her discovery, Mary Baker Eddy became world renowned as a remarkable Christian healer, teacher and founder of a new religious movement, Christian Science.

Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures is the exposition – the full explanation of Christian Science. It is the seminal textbook of Christian healing, rooted in Scripture and developed over 44 years of Mrs. Eddy’s personal research and practice.  Science and Health explains what life is about, who and what God is, and how one can heal like Christ Jesus.


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3/28/2013

The Christ is here - a guest post by Kay Olson, CSB

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"O gentle presence." How many times I've thought of those words. They open a poem written by Mary Baker Eddy, Mother's Evening Prayer, which begins: 

O gentle presence, peace and joy and power;
O Life divine, that owns each waiting hour,
Thou Love that guards the nestling's faltering flight!
Keep Thou my child on upward wing tonight. (Poems, 4)

“O gentle presence” are words that affirm that God is with us. Now. Forever.

I experienced this presence in a powerful way last year. It was the evening before a Memorial service for my husband who had passed on the week before. There were last minute decisions to be made. Some of our extended family had decided views that conflicted with mine.  Sitting alone in the family room, I was mulling over the issues thinking I didn't need this problem.

I heard my daughter in the next room gathering pictures from photo albums, making plans to frame them. This was one item of minor contention – whether, and which, photos should be displayed. After a short period of ruminating, a tender quietness suddenly settled over me and enveloped the room. I felt a palpable presence that could only be divine. I knew it was God's gentle presence making me calm. Peace reigned in my heart. I felt it. I sat very still in wonder.

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Suddenly, all the preparations and decisions were irrelevant to me. All I wanted was to hold onto this divine presence. All that mattered was this feeling of God with me. I encouraged my daughter to go ahead with her plans, assuring her that everything would be fine. 

This peace stayed with me throughout the service the next day. And, of course, the display of family pictures was perfect, pleasing and comforting to everyone. 

The peace, joy and power of God’s presence is the Christ, God's action of revealing Himself in unmistakeable ways we can understand, giving us just what we need, bringing healing. This divine presence doesn’t come and go. The Christ is always here with us all, all the time bringing peace and joy and power.


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8/7/2012

A faith that isn't blind 

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What makes the healing prayer taught in Christian Science distinct from other types of prayer for healing? Mary Baker Eddy devotes an entire book - Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures - to this question. Specifically, page 12 clears up some of the fog and mystery surrounding Christian Science prayer. Interestingly, the discussion begins with a statement of what it is not. The healing prayer practiced in Christian Science is not a human “mind over matter” blind faith-cure method. 

Mrs. Eddy writes, “‘The prayer of faith shall save the sick,’ says the Scripture. What is this healing prayer?  A mere request that God will heal the sick has no power to gain more of the divine presence than is already at hand.” 

If we use prayer something like a balloon or emergency flare we send up, - “Hey, I could really use some help over here on my problem,” - where is God in this prayer?  Circling around somewhere outside the problem, needing our help through prayer to find it and fix it?

Holding sickness at the center of a case and bringing God to it indicates a misunderstanding of the Everpresent One. Spiritual healing involves correcting misperceptions of the who and what and where of God. God is the infinite All – the one reality, power, presence. If we are holding onto a problem, or a disease, to be one fixed reality, which we hope another reality, our God, will come to heal – this is a human “mind over matter" blind faith-cure attempt.

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Sometimes faith-cures have positive physical results and sometimes very negative. It all depends on the strength of the human will of the healer acting through his blind belief. But whether the results are good are not, there is no guarantee they will be permanent. And if one’s spiritual understanding of the one reality as God, or Good, isn’t growing, the case can be left in a worse state than before, vulnerable to any new belief – regardless of the appearance of a physical improvement.

As Mrs. Eddy says, "The common custom of praying for the recovery of the sick finds help in blind belief, whereas help should come from enlightened understanding. Changes in belief may go on indefinitely, but they are the merchandise of human thought and not the outgrowth of divine Science."

When it comes to the healing prayer taught in Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy makes an important distinction between a blind belief - holding limited human thoughts about God - and the total yielding to divine Principle, to the Science of God and man, in the human understanding. Mrs. Eddy puts blind belief completely outside of the practice of Christian Science when she explains, “It is neither Science nor Truth which acts through blind belief, nor is it the human understanding of the divine healing Principle as manifested in Jesus, whose humble prayers were deep and conscientious protests of Truth, - of man’s likeness to God and of man’s unity with Truth and Love.”

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There we have Mary Baker Eddy’s statement of what constitutes the Christian Science practice of healing prayer, “the human understanding of the divine healing Principle as manifested in Jesus, whose humble prayers were deep and conscientious protests of Truth, - of man’s likeness to God and of man’s unity with Truth and Love.” 

Jesus’ theology of the perfection and spirituality of man as the likeness to perfect Spirit who is God, and of man as inseparable from Truth and Love, heals. When one protests for, affirms with well-reasoned understanding, the truth of God and man, healing is the natural outcome. Health is the outward evidence of an inner truth. Prayer doesn’t change reality, or exchange one form of reality for another. It is the confirmation of Truth’s, God’s presence and the permanence of health in God’s creation. Healing prayer affirms what is real and true, and physical, mental, emotional and spiritual healing confirms the truth.

Jesus said, “To this end was I born… that I should bear witness unto the Truth.” (John 18:37)The same goes for each one of us. Healing is normal to the Christ. It is not a special talent or unique dispensation given to some and denied to others. Christian healing – Christian Science healing - is the natural confirmation of God’s presence and power – His Christ - here and now reflected in us.


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7/30/2012

The simple theology that heals

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Christian Science has this beautiful, clear, pure, spiritual simplicity to it.  The entire theology can be boiled down to a few basic points:

1) God exists. 
2) God is good.
3) God is all. 
4) The universe, including man, is the reflection of God.
5) There is no evil.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, explained that her work consisted of 2 parts:

1)  Discovery of this Science – of these five basic points
2)  Proof by present demonstration that this is the Principle by which Jesus healed.

We can’t have the discovery without the proof.

Mrs. Eddy discovered the action of the divine Mind on human minds and bodies.  But limited mortal thought patterns have worn a groove in collective human consciousness, probing, diagnosing and picking apart matter as both cause and effect. Hence we are drawn into thinking that problems are material and thus complicated or difficult to heal.

For Christ Jesus, theology and medicine were one. Jesus’ theology is simple and clear.  God is all, Good. Evil is nothing, unreal. What we face in every case is a challenge to the simple theology of the Christ.  Can we depend on the fact that God is good? Can we prove it? Is man really reflection – the image and likeness of God? Can we demonstrate it?

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Every case touches on a theological question.  The task of a Christian healer is to simply answer the question and watch the proof appear.

The work should always be this simple.  But it isn’t without opposition. That which Mrs Eddy named mortal mind – limited, matter-based reasoning that generates doubt and fear - would make the task of healing seem complicated, unclear and difficult. Fear and doubt impel us to overwork, or underwork the healing activity of prayer, to doubt our experience with the Christ, to change methods repeatedly and ultimately let the problem run the case.

I received a phone call from a father whose child had jumped from a tree house and injured his calf. It appeared to be broken. I was asked to pray for him while the family sorted out the practical care. When I hung up the phone I immediately thought, Well, God, what do you have to say about this? 

I had Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures open on my desk. My eyes fell on a statement of Jesus found on page 45, “Spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.”

Looking up from the book, I thought, Don’t be fooled by the picture of flesh and bones. That is not who this child really is.  His substance is Spirit. All that he is and has comes from the Spirit that is God.

It seemed such a simple response to the theological question, Is this boy the image and likeness of God?

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As I considered the implications in prayer – that he was in fact spiritual and that anything pro or con going on with flesh and bones didn’t touch him – a doubt cropped up. I wanted to be sure I was getting the message correctly. I wondered, But wasn’t Jesus just talking about himself? Then I turned the page and read, “The divine Spirit, which identified Jesus thus centuries ago, has spoken through the inspired Word and will speak through it in every age and clime. It is revealed to the receptive heart, and is again seen casting out evil and healing the sick.” (46)

OK, I thought, so Spirit knows this child the same way it knew Jesus - as perfect, spiritual, whole, unbroken, invulnerable, unfallen. The same Spirit voicing truth through Jesus' words to his disciples was communicating to me in the inspired Word of Science and Health in this age. My receptive heart was accepting the message.

Then up popped a fear. Can it be this easy? What about the broken bone? Don’t I have to do something about this in my prayer?

I looked down once again at the book and read the next phrase as though it was being spoken with force, “The Master said plainly that physique was not Spirit…”

I remembered Jesus’ instruction in the Sermon on the Mount and thought of it in relation to prayer, “Let your statement be, 'Yes, yes ' or 'No, no'; anything beyond these is of evil." Matthew 5:37

I needed to say Yes, Yes to the plain and simple reality of unbroken, uninterrupted spiritual being. And I needed to say a direct and clear No, No to the physical belief that the child was material and breakable.

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That was it.  I consented and said YES, YES.  In fact, I was so taken by what I was saying YES to, that I forgot the case entirely and continued reading.

The phone rang about 30 minutes later. It was the mother. She told me that two minutes after they placed the call, she was holding her son and praying to know what to do next. They had discussed calling an ambulance or driving him to the hospital. Then they heard a distinct sound coming from his leg “like the sound of a zipper.”  And he was healed just like that.

The pure simple theology of the Christ is revealed. And it heals.


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6/11/2012

Life without age or decay

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A year or so after my first husband passed on, I caught a glimpse of a white head and wrinkly face on the living room mantle. I took a closer look at the last photo taken of him. I had no recollection of him like that.

He had been 34 years older than me; and yet, even after fifteen years of marriage, I had never noticed the age difference. In my eyes, he never acted or looked older. I showed my daughter the photo and asked if she remembered her dad as aging.  She didn't, either.

A “Portrait of Dorian Gray” moment? I don’t think so.  My husband just didn’t see himself as an aging mortal. He didn’t live his life that way. So, we didn’t see him that way either. I can only remember him as strong and handsome, vibrant and active. The photo may have captured the world’s belief about age, but he never looked like that.

Some months after the photo incident, I read an account of a woman whose child had drowned at about eighteen months. Seven or so years later, the mother still deeply grieved. Praying to have the heaviness lifted off her heart one afternoon, the mom fell asleep and dreamed. She saw a young woman, beautiful, who looked to be in her late twenties. The woman said to her, "I am happy, don't be sad." When she awakened, the grief was gone.

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Had she seen her daughter in the dream? According to a mortal timeline, the child would have only been 8 or 9. But it occurred to the mom that she had seen her daughter – but not as a mortal or a ghost. She glimpsed the eternal idea of God, reflected by her daughter – beautiful, healthy and alive. She realized that while she, the mom, had believed her daughter had passed through mortal stages of infancy and toddlerhood, and that then her life had been brutally interrupted; that, in fact, she had only and always existed at her highest and best, as the mature and magnificent reflection of the divine, unending Life who is God.

The Psalmist said of God, “You will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. You have made known to me the path of life.” (16:10,11)  Mary Baker Eddy wrote in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "The radiant sun of virtue and truth coexists with being. Manhood is its eternal noon, undimmed by a declining sun." (246)   

If manhood (including womanhood) is the eternal noon of virtue and truth, and if this is the “path of divine Life” that God makes known to us, could it be that babyhood, adolescence and old age are simply mortal, limited views of a spiritual being that only ever exists at its highest and most beautiful?

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A year or so after my husband passed on, I also dreamed of him one night. In the dream, he was preparing to work on the roof. In a brief conversation we said how much we loved each other. Then he climbed the ladder and disappeared. In this dream he looked exactly as I always saw him – active, healthy, brimming with purpose. I didn’t see an age or stage. In fact, he seemed ageless.

Pulling these pieces together in thinking about true being, I have a whole new sense of existence at “eternal noon”. God’s man is not, and never has been, an immature mental, emotional or physical being. We are neither underdeveloped (babies), overdeveloped (aged), nor under a state of development (uncomfortable, agitated adolescents). God’s creation exists right now at its highest and best. That is how God, as Mind, creates and reveals each one of us, His perfect ideas.

We are neither dimmed by decline nor needing to grow brighter to reach our noon.  We are always the brightest and best. Each one of us! And this day is about recognizing some yet undiscovered (but very present) aspect of our brilliance – true spiritual being at its eternal noon - and simply letting it shine.

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Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup;
you have made my lot secure.  

The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.

I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me.

I have set the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the grave,
nor will you let your Holy One see decay.

You have made known to me the path of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence,
with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

 (Psalm 16:5-11, NIV)


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2/4/2012

Class of a lifetime

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_Christian Science is a living truth. When I first became interested in the practice of healing prayer, I wanted to learn more about the life and teachings of Christ Jesus, including how to pray effectively for others. Looking for a teacher to take a formal course was a logical step for me. So I began to pray about taking a primary class in Christian Science.

The relationship established between a Christian Science teacher and pupil is a lifelong bond. Teachers become mentors that are always available to support their pupils' practice of prayer. I knew that, before choosing a teacher, it was important to ask questions and to learn what I could about the class and the support that would follow it.


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10/18/2011

A certain form of prayer

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Me, back in my lecturing days.
Many years ago I developed symptoms of laryngitis during a weekend of constant speaking engagements. Saturday, I lectured six hours nonstop in a noisy environment. It seemed to put a strain on my vocal chords. I couldn't make a sound on Sunday morning and I had another important presentation to make at three in the afternoon. As I often do when confronted with crises - health problems included - I turned to the prayer system of Christian Science for help. 

The Christian Science method of prayer involves spiritual reasoning that follows very closely the elements included in the Lord's Prayer that Christ Jesus gave to his followers. Each prayer is original, unfolded through inspiration, and starts with understanding God's true nature as Love, Life, Spirit - our true and only Father or Source. It hallows the Christ as the link, or divine message of good, that brings to humanity the capacity to heal and be healed. It takes a look at the true nature of God's creation, including man, as spiritual reflection, and of God's will of good for all on earth and in heaven...


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    Michelle Nanouche, Christian Science teacher, spirituality, healing, prayer

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    I have practiced Christian Science professionally in
    some form since 1979.
    But my journey with
    Christian Science started
    in a Sunday school
    where as a young child
    I was taught the Scriptures and some simple basics
    of Jesus' method of
    scientific Christian healing.
    A significant experience
    at the age of twelve
    opened my eyes to
    the great potential
    of this practice. 
    After impaling my foot
    on a nail,
    I prayed the way I had learned
    in Sunday school.
    Within moments
    the pain stopped
    and healing began.
    By the next morning the wound had disappeared completely.
    Having experienced
    the great potential
    ​of Christian Science,
    there would be no
    turning back. 

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