Once again, I find myself running out of gas so to speak. Back in my early days here, when I started the Lesson Sermon series, I jokingly said to a fellow blogger that the end of this blog would be when I wrote my last post in that series. I still have two more to go (three if I address the topic of Thanksgiving), and I plan to cover them, but I am going to pause on the bi-weekly posting schedule I have been maintaining.
I will not produce content just for the sake of content, there is enough useless crap on the internet and I do not wish to add to it (although I’m sure some people might think all of the content I have produced here is crap). If it isn’t quality, it isn’t worth your time (or mine). I also feel that this blog has a distinctly more personal (vis a vis my personal experience) focus, and the content that I want to work on now is more general in nature regarding Christian Science, religion and its general effects. I want to create content and resources that support the journey of the person leaving, or trying to leave, Christian Science, as well as to educate people in general about Christian Science, how it affects those who have been exposed to it, and the experience of having been a Christian Scientist. I also don’t want to be tied to a set schedule of posting content for now.
While I’ve been posting general content here since I got started, I feel now that this blog is maybe not the best forum for that type of content, especially when it departs from my own personal experience and perspective. I re-started this blog early last year at the recommendation of my therapist to help me process the mental health challenges I had been dealing with over the previous year or so. I have unpacked a lot of stuff, and writing this again has helped me tremendously, but there comes that time when you realize that you’ve sort of done what you came to do, and that you’re just beginning to re-hash the same stuff, and what good does that do? As I’ve said before, I don’t want to become the anti-Christian Science version of Science and Health, where I say over and over “Christian Science is deadly bullshit!” or whatever my current mantra is, and I’ve said the “bullshit” line a lot (because Christian Science is bullshit). I don’t need to parse it a million more different ways. My mental health journey is one I will always be on, so stuff will inevitably come up from time to time, some of which may end up in a post here. However, I am in a better place now simply because I have been, and am, actively doing something about my mental health. Mental health is something nobody should ever ignore. It is every bit as important as physical health.
I am also back to work full-time in a demanding job, after nine months of blissful unemployment. Consequently, I don’t have the same amount of available spare time or mental bandwidth to keep up regular content production here as well as the other places I want to place my focus on. My partner and I are new to our community, and we live on a rather large island that demands of us to explore its every scenic corner–and there are a lot of them. Getting outdoors is therapy for me, it grounds me, and it keeps me sane. Putting your hands on a 90+ metre-tall tree that’s around 900 years old kind of puts things into perspective and makes you realize that the inane crap you’ve been stressing about maybe isn’t all that important.
I want to direct you to another site where I produce content, and I now plan to focus more of my content production efforts there: The Ex-Christian Scientist. This is a project I have been a part of (to varying degrees) since it got started, around a decade ago. I am a writer/editor on the site, and we accept content from anyone who wishes to contribute. I work with a group of other survivors of this cult known as Christian Science to produce a resource we wish we had available to us when we started our own escapes from Christian Science. I feel that some of the kind of content I want to work on now has a better and wider audience there than it gets here, and I am working on some good (at least I think it’s good) content that will hopefully be appearing soon.
Along the same lines of good resources for former Christian Scientists, soon to be former Christian Scientists, and those who are simply interested, I want to put a plug in for a new podcast that is available on a number of platforms: Leaving Christian Science Podcast. You can find it on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Podtail, Castbox, and Rephonic. Here, you can see and listen to many former Christian Scientists (including yours truly) tell their stories.
So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you to all of you Constant Readers* who have been with me, and continue to be with me here–even my critics and erstwhile Christian Science/God/Jesus/religion apologists. I have enjoyed the interactions I’ve had, either through email or in the comments, with everyone–including the apologists. I will continue to post content here occasionally. I do have a few items in the drafts bin that may eventually see the light of day. I will continue to monitor the email in-box regularly, and and post comments as they come in. As I have come to realize, Christian Science will never truly leave me (even though I wish it would), so I will probably never fully close the book on this blog.
If you do want to be notified when I post new content, just hit the “Follow Me” link on the sidebar on the home page, and your email will let you know when a new post has gone up. Whenever I produce new content, it will always be scheduled to go up on a Sunday at 07:00 Pacific Time Zone (UTC -8:00 Standard Time/UTC -7:00 Daylight Savings time). You can also follow the Facebook page that I keep for this blog, Emerging Gently.
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Note:
*Constant Reader is an endearing term that author Stephen King (one of my favourite authors) uses in describing his dedicated readers. I used to use the term “Dear Reader(s)” in this blog to describe my readers here (thinking I was emulating Mr. King), but I like the term Constant Reader better, and if it is OK with him, I will borrow his term.
Emerging Gently 
I have enjoyed reading your blog, both before and after your hiatus, and I’m sorry to see it fade away. The exchristianscientist website is a good one, and I may check it out a little more often. Or not. I am so very far away from CS by now, that a lot of the issues discussed there are just vague recollections for me. (The seven synonyms for God: what were they again? Reading the lesson: did I ever do that?) I don’t seem to have a lot of the resentment that boils up there – although my husband tells me I probably should.
I wonder to myself, were my parents crazy because they were Christian Scientists, or were they Christian Scientists because they were crazy? Both probably equally true. It definitely affected me more than I thought it did, and in some ways I have seen this through reading your blog. An idea here, a suggestion there in even what might appear to be a mundane comment have been very helpful. I have identified a thought pattern or two that need to be addressed, and I’m going to throw away my “books,” leather-bound presents from my parents (haven’t done it yet, but I will) so thank you. Maybe today. I’m going to throw them away today.
I might be in the Facebook group, I’m not sure – I might have joined it a few years ago, but I kind of hate social media and I don’t even know how to find whatever groups I’m in.
If I believed in praying (I don’t!) I would include you in my prayers. (I realize this sounds really stupid.) If I was Irish, I could say, “may the road rise to meet you,” but I’m not Irish, and the road did rise to meet me once, and I ended up with a big gash on my forehead. Just saying “Take care, my friend,” doesn’t sound like quite enough. In any event, I wish you all the very best!! in your life and in your continuing journey.
Thank you! I am part Irish (really–my grandmother’s older siblings were born there). One proverb I’ve heard, which I will offer to you, “May your home be too small to hold all of your friends.” Don’t worry, I’m not fading this away. I still have more content to write, I just don’t want to be tied down to a schedule anymore. It was easier to come up with content when I wasn’t working full-time, but now that I am back to work after a nine month hiatus, I just have less time, and the time I do have I want to focus elsewhere for the most part. I am glad that I have been able to be of some help to you through this blog. That’s a huge reason why I created it. Now, you’re making me wonder if my parents were crazy, or if Christian Science made them crazy. I don’t know. I tend to think Christian Science made them do crazy stuff. I usually always circle back to where the fault truly lies: with Christian Science.
CS seems to attract higher concentrations of certain personality types. Are you antisocial, a hermit or some kind of sociopath? The CS church will never obligate you to go to a potluck supper, play softball or even attend a wedding- and you don’t even have to be nice to your fellow congregants.
Do you have a personality disorder that means you are prone to dissociating, splitting or projecting? CS, where everything is black and white with nothing in between, and bodies are not real, is perfect for you, and has the added benefit of demonizing mental health care.
Is it important to you to win every argument, tell others how to think and even how to live their lives? This is possible with phrases such as, “Tsk, tsk, what would Mrs. Eddy say about that?”
One CS church where I once substituted as the church organist: the music chairman met me early on Sunday morning, let me in and showed me to the organ loft. When the service ended, I played a very short postlude. Most of my postludes were very short; this one was one minute to a minute and a half, max. I packed up my sheet music, got my coat, and … everybody was gone. There wasn’t a soul left in the entire church building. Did they expect me to lock up, too? All the ushers, readers, everyone, had gone. It was creepy. I ran out into the parking lot, and flagged down the very last car before the driver raced out of there to get home.
That has got to be indicative of something mental going on there.
Interesting thought. In one of the on-line groups I am part of, we have had many conversations over the years about Christian Science seeming to be attractive to certain personality types. I do think it nurtures narcissists. The core teachings of “YOU are the PERFECT child of God…” and all of that is like catnip for narcissists. My CS Teacher was definitely up there on the narcissism spectrum. I think also, as a faith, CS is narcissistic. I remember hearing members of the Board of Directors in Boston going on about the “majesty of Christian Science” (exact words). My CS Teacher taught us that Mary Baker Eddy was the woman from the Apocalypse, as depicted in the Bible book of Revelation.
I am very introverted, so back in the day, I was one of those churchgoers who was usually gone fairly quickly. I think if there had been any sort of fellowship activity, I would have participated though. I don’t do idle small talk very well–especially with people I don’t like or know well, but organized activities where you can hang out and get to know people on a more causal level and do things together, I’m all in.