Discovering Mrs. Eddy

by Chelsea Palm

I was raised in Christian Science so I’ve always known who Mary Baker Eddy was. But it was not until I reached Boston that I began to really learn more about her life and see what she went through.

I’ve begun to delve into biographies and have walked the Longyear exhibits over and over again, soaking up as much information as I can. On the surface I have learned more facts such as her birth date, who was in her family, when they were born, and the ages Mary was when she got married all 3 times. But it is the deeper research that is truly enlightening me and making me realize the struggle and perseverance that went into her life.

I have started to see the human pain that she went through, but I’m also seeing that “…this severance of fleshly ties serves to unite thought more closely to God, for Love supports the struggling heart until it ceases to sigh over the world and begins to unfold its wings for heaven.” (Science and Health 57:26 this) The loss of a dear husband which left her a young widow, the separation between her and her son, the failure of her second marriage—all of these material struggles prepared Mrs. Eddy to discover where life truly is.

To me the most fascinating pieces of her life are after 1866, where she delved into understanding the Science of Christ that she discovered. She initially taught students privately in their homes, moved from place to place, established her students’ public practices of Christian Science and supported them through her own prayer. Later many more students came to her home to be taught and she even established the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in Boston. All of this and the revelation she had to write it down in a book, show Mary Baker Eddy’s strength and desire to be a healer, and it shows her humility and compassion.

Spending three years from 1866 to 1869 researching and studying the Bible, and then sharing what she’d learned in Science and Health (which was first published in 1875) speaks to her dedication to humanity. And her successive revisions and editions of the book show how she was constantly listening to God and working on evolving the sentences so
that the reader could understand the truths that Mrs. Eddy understood. Seeing the evolution of the first line of Science and Health is a wonderful example of the unfoldment of this book. Changes were made that only helped to clarify the truths in it. The book’s never changed.

Learning about the development of the church was a revelation to me (I now wish to really understand the Manual of the Mother Church better in order that I do not swerve from it). I never realized that Mrs. Eddy actually disbanded the church at one point, to be reinstated when she organized it in a way that would allow it to last for all time. And I never knew that there was a time when the pastor of our church was not the Bible and Science and Health.

I have come to value how the church is organized. There is no human personality in it, and each service is a revelation of truth. I have been able to see that Mrs. Eddy’s clear conviction and understanding of divine Science allowed her to heal. I’ve come to understand that healing can happen purely mentally and it can happen after a sharp, loving rebuke. She healed the sick sometimes by not saying a word and other times by demanding that a person get up. It all depended on what the mental atmosphere was like. I’m referring to the resistance or acceptance, in thought, of spiritual truths. For those looking and expecting healing, they were willing to turn their eyes and thought away from the material situation and look up higher, towards God. With a person whose thought was willing, Mrs. Eddy was able to simply and silently affirm truths and the receptive thought or individual was healed.

I am greatly inspired and realize that I have only to study more and truly understand and believe these words and truths in Science and Health and the Bible, and then I, too, can be a better healer. I am grateful for Mrs. Eddy’s compassion and determination, and for her spiritual and metaphysical thought that allowed her to be receptive to God’s voice and to bring Christian Science to the world.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 3rd, 2007 at 11:07 am and is filed under Church, Mary Baker Eddy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.