As a nun, I often thought about Christian Science, the religion I was raised in as a child and young adult. I noticed that my studies in Christian Science had placed a filter within me, a “divine Science default mode” so to speak, that was always active. Whatever was not in accord with the truth of Christian Science was almost automatically sifted and carried away by the wind. In fact, this filter, or default mode, had never left me even though I’d often tried to disable it.

After my mother’s passing, I left Christian Science and even went so far as to sever my membership in The Mother Church. I may have severed that relationship externally, but since Church is, as Mary Baker Eddy defines it, “The structure of Truth and Love,” I could never really be removed from such a structure as it “rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 583).

One evening, when struggling over whether or not to leave the monastery, I found the website of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston. I was amazed at what I found. Just seeing the edifice of The Mother Church again after all those years roused my heart and brought back so many wonderful memories. I thought of my first Sunday School teacher, who always wore outlandish hats, the brims of which were so large they could give shelter to a little girl like me. I thought of the Christian Science family who owned and operated the first kindergarten and elementary school I ever attended. The peace of divine Love was so palpable there. I recalled the visits to practitioners’ offices. The many healings I had experienced suddenly flooded my consciousness.

Then, I remembered my visit to The Mother Church many years before and how attendance at the services was akin to being in an ark, covered both inside and out with the bitumen of Truth, safe and nestled under the rainbow of divine Love. The Mother Church, like the ark in the book of Genesis preserved those within it, preserves undefiled the truth of Christian Science and guards the purity and innocence of “the understanding of Spirit, destroying belief in matter,” holding intact for all eternity and for all people “the idea, or reflection, of Truth, proved to be as immortal as its Principle” (Science and Health, p. 581).

That evening, I availed myself of the question/answer forum on the Church’s website. I was trying to locate a pamphlet that I had often read in the past on spiritual reflection, a revolutionary concept revealed to Mrs. Eddy. That initial question proved to be the beginning of my ongoing correspondence with a Christian Science practitioner, employed at The Mother Church to respond to e-mails. This correspondence ultimately led me back to membership in The Mother Church a few years after I left the monastery.

Wherever I step in my journey, I am buoyed by my membership in The Mother Church. Not only is the edifice a magnificently beautiful physical structure, but it is equally a radiant, fortified inner structure “which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Heb. 11:10). In Mary Baker Eddy’s writings, we encounter the emanation of divine Mind, the divine utterance, the voice of Truth to this age. “The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it” (Ps. 68:11). Great indeed are those who published it, and great are those who continue living it, “working out the harmony of Life and Love” (Science and Health, p. 26).

If we remain diligent and listen for that still, small voice of Truth that is published and proclaimed by The Mother Church; if we seek refuge within that Church, which is our indestructible ark, the sweet fragrance of Christian Science will permeate thought throughout the world.