Blog Update

Just a quick note that I am returning to posting biweekly rather than weekly as I was doing through June – August. Posts will still go up on Sundays at 07:00 Pacific Time (Canada). My next post will go up on September 10th. Thank you for your support!

Decluttering

As I write this post, I am in the middle of relocating from a community I’ve lived and worked in for over thirteen years to a new community in a completely different part of the province I call home. It’s a bit funny to realize that, as I write this, I’m in the midst of decluttering and packing for our move, but once this post goes up in about three months, we’ll be settled into our new home, and I will hopefully be in a new job. I’m moving for a few main reasons: one, my partner transferred to a new job; we are moving to a smaller more laid-back community we have wanted to live in for several years now; and we have family in the area that we want to be closer to. My partner has been there for over two months, now I will be following her there. My last day at my previous job, that I had for nearly twelve years, was yesterday. Big changes are afoot.

Was there anything good about it?

I started this blog both as a critique of Christian Science, and to tell my own story (which is, in itself, a critique of Christian Science), and by doing so, to find my own healing from the effects Christian Science has had on me. So, I imagine a few of my regular readers who are apologists for Christian Science (and I know there are a few, based on my comments section and emails I receive), may wonder, is there anything about Christian Science that I think is good, or has been a positive influence on me? You might be surprised to find out that the answer is yes, albeit a conditional yes. There are not many, but there are a few.

This sounds familiar…

Image Credit: The Career Therapist (thecareertherapist.com).

I recently posted this meme on my Facebook timeline. It resonated strongly with me, and is a succinct description of my experience in Christian Science. It prompted some interesting discussion in the comments among some fellow former Christian Scientists I’m connected to on Facebook, and one comment thread inspired me to dive into a subject I’ve touched on before: other spiritual movements of the 19th century, some of which survive to today, that have some of the same DNA as Christian Science. Today, I want to take this discussion in a different direction. There are echoes of Christian Science-type thinking present in other cultish movements. 

Former Christian Scientists and relationships: postscript

I enjoyed writing this series of posts. In many ways, it was challenging, and I learned a lot from doing this, not just about relationships, but about writing in general. I went in without a clear roadmap of how it was all going to “play out”, an approach that left me with probably more editing on-the-fly to do than I should have had, and I feel that the quality suffered. Consequently, now when I tackle big and potentially complex or controversial topics, I write a proper outline before I dive in and put “pen to paper”, so to speak–that is how it is supposed to be done anyway. As much as possible, I let my respondents speak for themselves, with as little of my own commentary as possible. The responses I received ended up outlining the series, and while I think I could have done a better job, I can be satisfied with what I’ve got.

Former Christian Scientists and relationships: we left together (4 of 4)

This is the fourth and final post in a series of posts that address the data and stories I’ve collected in my survey of former Christian Scientists and their experiences in long-term relationships.

We met at Principia Upper School. My partner attended Principia College briefly while I was still at the US [Upper School]. After we left Principia, we both separately started moving away from CS [Christian Science], then later got together (we had dated on and off while at Principia).¹
~Survey respondent

My interest in the topic of former Christian Scientists and relationships came from an angle I found to be interesting: those who were both Christian Scientists when they met, and left Christian Science while they were together, in a relationship. Most people I’ve observed among the ex-Christian Scientist crowd, are either with partners who never were Christian Scientists, or their partners left Christian Science before they met. I’ve found it to be less common, on the whole, where people left Christian Science while they were together in a relationship.