Tradition broken - Healing found

The readings from this last Wednesday’s testimony meeting at the branch church of Christ, Scientist that I attend remind me of a healing I had a few years ago that give a small example of how traditions can creep in and become a constraint, and how healing can be found when releasing them.


This happened almost ten years ago, and about this time of year (January). I was on a commuter train heading for a volunteer activity and was reading the Christian Science Bible Lesson. The topic was Sacrament. Suddenly, there was a sharp pain in my lower back. I jumped a bit and looked behind me. No, nothing sticking out of the seat cushion that poked me. But my back was no extremely uncomfortable. I shifted around in my seat for the rest of the train ride, trying to find comfortable positions, but didn’t find any. I kept pursuing my read of the Bible Lesson, just knowing that there would be something in it that would help relieve this discomfort.

But my back was still painful when I got downtown and remained so for the rest of the day and into the next couple of days. In addition, I developed some flu-like symptoms. I soldiered on with activities that needed to happen, praying as I went and asking God what I needed to learn that would bring relief.

A couple of evenings later, I was lying on our couch and picked up the Bible Lesson to read again. I really reached out to God to show me something that I needed to learn. The lesson that week contained a number of encounters between Jesus and the Pharisees and other religious leaders, all where he reprimanded them for their hardness of heart in holding for various traditions – mostly created over the years by the religious ruling bodies and not truly found in the writings of Moses – over the spirit of the Law and heart of worshipping God.

And that’s when it struck me – I’d been setting up my own little traditions in regards to my spiritual study. And, by these traditions, I’d actually been limiting my study and opportunity to grow and practice what I was or could be learning about God and my relationship with Him. One key example was the study of the Bible Lesson.

Now, I should mention that, because of my husband’s job (he is on-call 24/7), there’s not much opportunity for routine in our days. We never know when he’ll be leaving or returning home – day of the week or time of day. So things happen as they happen, and I’ve learned over the years to be very flexible. Had to or I’d go nuts! J But somehow, in all of this “flexible” lifestyle, I’d gotten into a mindset that if I was going to studying the Bible Lesson, it had to be in the morning. And if it didn’t happen in the morning, most likely it didn’t happen all day, and sometimes this would happen for many days of the week. (Feeling unwell was an exception to this self-imposed “rule” – that’s why I was studying the Bible Lesson in the evening this day.)

And so there’d been many days lately where I hadn’t gotten at this aspect of my spiritual study, and I find it a pretty important tool in my spiritual study and growth. Well, I fully realized what I’d been doing and that there is not really any rule about when and how to study the Bible Lesson. Why had I gotten this narrow-minded about this activity? I don’t know, but I knew I could change it right then and there. And I did. I fully immersed myself in the study of the Lesson that evening, grateful for the time – whether evening or morning – to spend thinking about God, to learn more about His Word, and to gain a deeper glimpse of my relationship with divine Love.

By the next morning, all back pain and flu symptoms were totally gone. And I enjoyed studying the Bible Lesson at whatever was the right time of day for that day ever since. No more restrictions to my study – or to my back! A small thing to get in the way, but a good lesson learned. I try to stay on the outlook for other non-rules that might try to creep in and bind me to routine and tradition and so hamper growth Spirit-ward.

As Mary Baker Eddy wrote in Science and Health:

"God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis." (258:13-15)