Anon

I want to thank you for being honest enough to write A COLLISION OF TRUTHS that I have just finished reading this morning.  In so many ways, it seemed I was reading the story of my own experience as a Christian Scientist!  I have been in the CS faith since about 1963, being introduced through my paternal grandmother.  I had a lot of trouble with the rest of my family that did not like CS one bit. However, it seemed so logical to me and appealed to my intellectual side at a time when I was just beginning college and desperately needed something.  Through the intervening years, however, I have come to have the same struggles that you experienced.  Physical healing has always eluded me, though I, too, can point to so many instances of being led to move step by step through my life.  In fact, I feel that the transformation of my entire life IS my healing.  As you found, many Scientists turn to medicine but keep it secret.  I have come to feel that this is very likely the main reason our church seems to be dying.  In our region most of the churches have closed and here we have a society with about 5 members, no musicians, no soloist—pretty depressing.  As you noted in the last chapter of your book, I can’t help wondering how Mrs. Eddy would respond to the advances made  by medical science that are pretty much impossible to ignore.  I have had several surgeries for repairs that have all been successful.  I was not willing to go blind from a detached retina, or be crippled with a ruptured neck disc, etc.  I don’t need to go on and on, but I thought you would be glad to know that there are others like you out here.  We still go to church…part time…but have no been members for quite a few years, though we do get invited to read in one or two places that have need.  Again, many many thanks for your brave book.  It means a great deal to have someone begin this discussion that the church should be having with its shrinking pool of members!

MD

Hi Bob, I discovered your book while facing a similar situation with my Mother; caring for her via in-home-hospice, who was also a life-long, devout Christian Scientist like your Mother. I watched her suffer unimaginably as she slowly wasted away of uterine cancer for a period of 4 months last year, finally passing away the day after Christmas. Enduring this experience caused me to seriously question the beliefs that I had been raised with as a (now former) Christian Scientist. I felt a kinship with you as I read about your life experiences because so much of what you said resonated with me as well. Like you, I was raised as an only child. In addition, I was adopted (by my own biological Aunt however, which allowed me to stay within my extended biological family), so I could relate to your children’s experience. Besides my Adopted Mother, the two other’s in my family who had the greatest influence on me was my Aunt and Uncle. My Aunt was also a devout Christian Scientist and Nurse working at the Local BA, while my Uncle was much like your father, an agnostic who, I also later found out, had a deep rooted animosity toward Christian Science. He was a technician at Lockheed and inspired scientific curiosity in me at a young age, taking me to many “family days” where many of the rockets and spacecraft projects he had been involved with were displayed. As a result, I am keenly interested in science, particularly physics and the related astro-sciences and subjects such as Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and String Theory. I too marvel at what we witness in the world of nature around us. I also have deep questions about the esoteric nature of life and am on a personal quest similar to yours – trying to figure out who we are, why we are here, what the nature of this “connective consciousness”is, (or Carl Jung’s “synchronicity” as described in your book). I have come to my own conclusion that “God” had not willed my Mother to die such an excruciating death (she fortunately had enough of what I would call “common sense” to draw the line on Mary Baker Eddy’s “radical reliance” on “the Truth” when she was enduring the tortures of cancer and agreed to take Morphine). I thoroughly enjoyed reading about your life account and personal quest. I feel comforted knowing that there are others who have tread where I am treading and who are seeking deeper meaning that goes past the Church Dogma.

I also appreciated your restraint when discussing your anger and diverging views with CS. Like you, I could not believe that a benevolent God could allow my Mother to suffer and wondered where God and Christian Science was, when she needed them the most. Unfortunately, she did not have a Practitioner who was as enlightened as your Mother – she refused to continue with the case when she discovered my Mother was being given home-hospice and taking medication, even though my Mother was “Class Taught” and the Practitioner had been her “Teacher” for decades. She had also been my Sunday School teacher. While, to this day, I resent and have great anger for what I viewed as my mother being abandoned by her Practitioner and her Faith in her greatest time of need, I don’t have a fundamental “hatred” for the religion as some in my family have. While I disagree with many of the dogmas relating to seeking medical attention; I have seen the enormous positive effect it can have on people – the calming sense of peace that they get by knowing that God is right here with them – right now; that knowing their true State of Being can help them overcome any issue that may arise. Many times I could see my Mother experience a great deal of relief while “knowing the Truth”. Was it simply an issue of mind-over-matter? I don’t know. But I do know that there is something going on beyond our current comprehension. What exactly that is, we have not yet discovered. There does seem to be some thread of truth, of enlightenment, in many of the major schools of thought on life. I eagerly await the future unfoldment of scientific thought, both physical and spiritual sciences.

Thank you for letting us glimpse your life through your eyes.

CB

Thanks so much, Bob.  I feel as though I know you personally, and wish I could sit and enjoy talking with you.  As a fence-sitting luke-warm life-long Christian Scientist myself wrestling with some degree of hypocrisy, wanting my kids to get what they can from their Sunday School at least as a grounding in morality while being asked to accept and understand the conflict represented by their very medically-minder mother who hates Christian Science, I appreciate your sharing with the world.  As one compiling a bibliography on Christian Science I am familiar with dozens of former Christian Scientists and their wrath for their former faith, I have the unmost respect for the measured, restrained manner with which you’ve handled your pain and the persevering wisdom your sojourn reflects—which flies in the face of the simplistic hatred exhibited by those who are unable to cope and take personal responsiblity for dealing with their choice to only belatedly reject their former faith, child cases notwithstanding.  Too complex to go into any further!

Twistor on Forum

Hi Robert,
I have now read “Collision” at last – I enjoyed it immensely. There was much in the account that resonated strongly with my own experiences. Particularly the cases where you or your loved ones started a CS treatment, but were eventually forced to resort to medical methods. This became the norm in my family – when someone was ill, I knew the sequence – pray, call a practitioner, call the doctor, get well.
You had some pretty tough experiences along the way – much of it was very sad. Your mother’s experience reminded me of my grandfather – the strongest, most dedicated scientist on the planet – it was a great shock when, at the age of 90 he had a stroke and had to be cared for.
In my case, there is nothing left of my belief that CS is in any sense the truth. Although there are many theories about interconnectedness and holistic views of the universe, these theories are at this stage only that – un-falsifiable hypotheses. I find nothing in the universe that points to a controlling intelligence. However, I find the universe quite fascinating and am glad to be part of it !

ml

I rose very early this morning and began reading your book. I could not put it down and my heart was with you the whole way. I finished it at 9 a.m. or so, but will reread the Epilogue again – and then again – as EXACTLY what you have been reading and contemplating has been my experience for years. Perhaps not all the same books or articles but Quantum theory, chaos theory, Theory of Relativity, string theory, black holes – I don’t for a moment say I understand much – have been exposed to me and I think and read, and listen, to all that I can concerning the structure and nature of this universe. I am so happy to have read what you wrote about concerning a Conscious universe.