I am not having a very good day in Boston. I woke up with a migraine and an incredible sense of ennui. I’m generally quite a motivated person, but once every few months, I get into funks, overcome with nagging questions.
Why am I doing what I’m doing? Will I ever be employed? Does anyone even read this? Should I have continued my job search rather than biking?
Maybe it was the way I was raised, but I always get the feeling that my career path is a ladder, and if I miss a step, I’l fall to the bottom and have to start all over again. Or maybe it’s like a series of escalators, and if I choose the wrong one, there’s no way to go back and get a better one, without running down against the moving steps that are trying to keep me in my place.
But I got up, took a shower, and went to put in my contacts. I ended up just poking myself in my eye, which is now red. When I went to pick up my bike to go to the headquarters of Christian Science, I struggled to get my bike lock opened, and eventually flung it into a garbage bin full of grimy water (by accident, of course). Then, I picked up my bike and knocked a flower pot off of the porch, and had to scoop up all the dirt. I think I killed the poppies.
Anyhow, I eventually made it to the First Church of Christ, Scientist, which is the where the fait began and its current world headquarters. While the church only has a few hundred thousand members worldwide, Christian Science Reading Rooms are almost ubiquitous in many cities across America, and are one of their hallmarks.
Christian Science was founded in 1879 by Mary Baker Eddy, a woman who was sickly most of her life and is known to have suffered a spinal injury in 1866. When she turned to her Bible, she found herself cured, and after even more study, was able to cure others. Eventually, she was to write the book “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” seen as a companion to the Bible to Christian Scientists.
Christian Scientists believe that sin, disease, and death are not part of reality, but lies and deceits meant to disguise the truth of God. Here is a quote from Eddy, for example:
“A wicked mortal is not the idea of God. He is little else than the expression of error. To suppose that sin, lust, hatred, envy, hypocrisy, revenge, have life abiding in them, is a terrible mistake. Life and Life’s idea, Truth and Truth’s idea, never make men sick, sinful, or mortal.”
Christian Scientists believe that Eddy’s teachings instruct its followers on how to overcome the unreal obstacles to gain true knowledge of Christ’s perfection.
But another hallmark of Christian Science is its embrace of female leadership. Started by Eddy, who is to this day the Church’s only pastor (her book acts as pastor currently), she also referred to God as the “Father-Mother,” making the language gender neutral.
Here is the outside of the church. On the right is the original church, built in 1894 in Romanesque style (It’s quite amazing that a religion was able to build such a large church only 15 years after its founding). On the left is an extension built in 1906 in Byzantine-Renaissance style. In the front is a reflecting pool which dominates the 14-acre Christian Science Plaza in the heart of Boston.
I took a tour of the church, which was rather anti-climactic. It only went to the main rooms of the two churches, and, unlike many other tours I’ve been on, was not full of interesting tidbits. But Christian Science is a religion that favors simplicity, and this may simply reflect that.
This is the inside of the old church, with frescoes on the wall in simple designs. Services are still held in this room, although not the main services:
This is a closup of one of the stained windows, with Jesus calling to Lazarus:
And here is the addition to the building, with a much larger seating space. The presence of the organ overwhelms the room, being one of the largest pipe organs by Aeolian-Skinner, a very famous Massachusetts manufacturer:
Anyhow, that was the end of my tour. I wanted to ask the guides some simple questions, but when they heard about my blog and what I was doing, they wouldn’t talk to me unless I went to the public relations office, which was closed. I wasn’t going to jump through hoops for simple questions about the church, its history, and their perspectives (nothing that controversial or topical), so I left, nonplussed.
On my way to Cambridge to meet my friend, I caught some Mennonite missionaries in Harvard Square, who were giving a choral concert:
So, I guess my day wasn’t that horrible, but I’m not in the best mood. Blessed be.
