Search: healing

To get to the bottom of events, to know how something really is: that has motivated me since my childhood, to ask questions. Quite early, I found answers in music, while playing the piano and composing; tones, sounds, and rhythms opened great, wonderful spaces.

During college, a significant healing established me on a path to not only better know and understand God, but also to understand why that mattered . After being ill in bed for a week, I was healed overnight after a Christian Science practitioner (whom I’d asked to pray for me) spoke to me about the First Commandment in a way that challenged and revitalized my thinking.

Since childhood, I felt on a quest for understanding truth. I spent summers voraciously reading book after book to solve the mystery of the meaning of my life and the world.

As a young adult, I would have identified myself as Christian, spiritual and non-religious. I am not sure if I found Christian Science or Christian Science found me.

In Junior High School my girlfriend asked my religion. I finally “confessed” to being a Christian Scientist.

I live in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, with my wife, two daughters, a son, and nine grandchildren. I ran across Christian Science at college at a time when I was starting to doubt the usefulness of religion in life, after having attended a Christian denomination since childhood.

I learned of Christian Science in my middle teens. Our family came to it through a “miraculous” healing of a relative. I tested it, and was amazed at the consistent results. The Science proved to be genuinely scientific. Its practice became the basis of my studies and early career. That career took some radically different zigs and zags. From research director at an international relations and mediation institute in Italy, to labor organizer in New England, to foundation director, to university professor, to peace and civil rights activist, to founding an anti-racism project which was the basis of the YWCA “Social Justice Award”. The focus, the common denominator of these careers, was solving problems.

My parents were Christian Scientists, and I had the great benefit of Sunday School teaching, and learning that God is always present to meet the need—always our “first aid.” When I married and had children, they were bought up in the same way, with my husband’s agreement, and I saw what a boon it was to be able to turn to God as the only Father/Mother. When I joined a branch church, I was asked to work in various positions and realised that if I were to be of help to the Church, I needed to progress in Christian Science, so I took class Instruction and was then appointed First Reader. To my surprise, people came to me for healing treatment. This impelled me to advertise as a full-time Journal -listed practitioner.

I grew up in an ecumenical household, with one parent practicing Christian Science and the other active in another Christian denomination. For many years, I alternated in attending the Sunday Schools of these two churches. And while I deeply appreciated the kindness and love of both congregations, I was ultimately drawn to how Christian Science showed me that God was knowable and ever-present, and that prayer was practical and effective in resolving whatever difficulties we face. College provided me with many opportunities to test the reliability of spiritual healing in Christian Science, and I found it fully freed me from contagious illnesses, sports injuries, and recurrent depression. It also helped me navigate through the moral complexities of a secular culture, allowing me to live joyfully independent of peer pressures.

I was so blessed with the opportunity of receiving spiritual education in Christian Science at home and attending a Christian Science Sunday School. I always loved the Bible's message and Mary Baker Eddy's teachings in her book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures . I had several healings praying for myself. When I was 12 I wanted to get involved in supporting church activities. I became a member of The Mother Church and a branch church, and started to participate.