The Backstory…
“Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need.” (1)
As a child, this is the grace my family shared before each evening meal. It expressed our gratitude for God for providing all the good that day.
Our family of six experienced all the usual family challenges – health, financial, relationships and employment- and they were worked out through prayer, some quickly, some not so fast. Yet trusting in God as ever-present Love was perfectly natural to me as a child.
Then came my teenage explorative years. It was a challenging but wonderful time of discovering more of who I was and what the world was all about and where I might fit.
After high school I went to university and studied fine art, architectural history and obtained a teaching degree. I married a wonderful man who choose medicine as his occupation (this was an area of knowledge completely new to me but I saw the good of it and found it exciting to learn more about) Then came children and moving around a lot- including working as a music teacher and caring for children, the medical family practice business, and our home.
Yet throughout the many challenges of these years I always felt loved. Divine Love never let me or my family go. And my hunger for spiritual understanding continued to grow.
After a time away from dedicated spiritual study, I turned back to reading the Bible and Science and Health with key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy more regularly and praying and journalling my insights more. I really wanted to be able to heal myself and my family and regain the trust in God that I had felt so easily as a child.
Here are two events that mark turning points on my way to becoming a full-time Christian Science healer.
#1- Discovering spiritual joy through the Celtic Harp
I first heard a Celtic harp played live while at a coffee house. I was enthralled. The woman sang and played so beautifully I felt like I had found heaven on earth. About six months later after our family moved to the Okanagan Valley, BC I purchased my own 36 string Celtic harp from a local craftsman and began to enthusiastically teach myself how to play it.
Although I had been a singer, a recorder player and a teacher for many years this newly discovered love of of the harp ignited a passion, dedication and joy within me that rocketed my creativity and performance into a whole new stratasphere.
Within two years I was playing professionally, teaching, and compelled to write and record music.
By 2004 I had produced two albums.
The first, AnamCara (2001) is with the critically acclaimed harp/vocal trio- AnamCara. (Caroline Mackay, Debi Johnson, Kate Gibson Oswald) Three harps and delicious vocal harmonies that have been enchanting audiences in Western Canada for the past 20 years.
My second album is a solo album titled Musician’s Canvas (2004) It welcomes you into the soul stirring world of Celtic harp with songs of longing, adventure, re-birth, celebration and discovery. Here are a few testimonials about the uplifting power of this music.
“The CD is marvellous – a work of art. It speaks of love for family and the world around us with a strong and sweet voice.”
“Thank you so much for your beautiful CD. Your voice is so true and clear and the harp exquisite and gentle. I love listening while I work at my desk.” – Sue Anderson, Bainsbridge Island, WA
Music speaks directly to the heart and soul. It is always a spiritual language at its core. I felt the healing power and joy of music in a profound new way!
(Look for new releases of my inspiration music soon.)
# 2 – The Instantaneous healing of Max
In 2001 we owned a majestic thoroughbred named Max. He was the most beautiful and intelligent horse and he kept our daughter safe as she learned to sail over jumps. But at one point he became lame. The farrier could find no reason for the lameness and the veterinarian was called. After two months of lameness the vet could find no physical cause and the diagnosis became a degenerative disease.
My teenage daughter was so fearful and distraught I called a practitioner of Christian Science to pray with us and for Max- wanting to basically handle the fear. The practitioner gave each of us some spiritual ideas to study from the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures to think about while she prayed specifically for Max.
This is one of the powerful ideas she shared with me that brought me to God as the one Mind and Max as a perfect idea in Mind, God.
“Mind, joyous in strength, dwells in the realm of Mind. Mind’s infinite ideas run and disport themselves. In humility they climb the heights of holiness.” (2)
I knew Max was created perfectly in God, Mind. This meant he was strong, intelligent, beautiful, graceful, and responsive in Spirit. I truly saw that these specific spiritual qualities identified him. After spending about half and hour truly seeing him in this light my thought turned briefly back to the image of a lame horse. Well this picture just seemed impossible! It had to be a lie about God’s perfectly created horse! He was a perfect idea in the Mind of God and, well, nothing could ever change God!
The practitioner was also made aware that the vet would be coming again in the afternoon to take another X-ray. Upon hearing this she exclaimed, “Oh, I wonder what God looks like on an X-ray.”
My daughter arrived at the barn early in the afternoon to be alone with Max. She sat quietly in his paddock and sang hymns and prayed with him prior to the vet arriving.
I got there about an hour later after picking up my son from school, this is what happened:
I remember feeling safe and calm as I walked toward the barn. As I entered I could hear voices and the thundering sound of hooves. As I turned the corner, I saw Max galloping around the indoor arena! No sign of lameness. No impairment. He was just naturally running and “disporting” himself.
The joy that we felt was beyond words and it left a deep impression on my daughter and I. Two months of lameness and a hopeless diagnosis had quite simply-vanished!
The next day I asked the vet what she thought had happened. She acknowledged that his immediate recovery from lameness was not medically explainable. Then she smiled at me and said it was truly a “miracle”.
This was December 12, 2001. Max went back to all his normal activities and never had a recurrence of this problem in all the years we had him.
A transformation continues…
This dramatic healing of Max marked the renewal of my hope that as an adult I might be able to understand life more spiritually- to see divine Love’s perfect creation more clearly and completely. To renew my trust in God that I had so innocently possessed as a child.
I truly longed to understand the laws of God as explained in the Christian Science textbook and that Christ Jesus demonstrated and lived- the Christ healing Jesus assured that we too could practice (see John 14:12).
In 2005 I found an accredited teacher of Christian Science that was just right for me and I took a 12 day intensive course of instruction in Christian Science healing. In the years since I have come to understand the genius of Jesus timeless and practical Christ work- his teaching example, healing work and incredible sacrifice made for humanity.
Christian Science is so much more than a religion to me. It is the divine Science of Being! It can heal every ill the world seems subject to as one understands and practices it ever more consistently. We can discover and live more of our true spiritual identity, the Christ in this world. To follow and honour this pure relationship with our one divine Parent (often termed God) is a privilege.
In her book No and Yes Mary Baker Eddy makes this thought stirring statement,
The two largest words in the vocabulary of thought are “Christian” and “Science.” The former is the highest style of man; the latter reveals and interprets God and man; it aggregates, amplifies, unfolds, and expresses the All-God. (3)
Looking forward
The times we live in are challenging yet exciting and they are filled with spiritual promise. The world needs more Christianly scientific healers.
There came a point in my life where it felt like the blessings I had received from the study and practice of Christian Science needed to be paid forward and shared through a healing practice. The public practice of Christian Science was a divinely natural step of gratitude for me. The healing results will ultimately bless us all and inspire hope for humanity.
Looking back, I can honestly say that my life is now more balanced and the worldly challenges are met with greater courage, wisdom, compassion, insight and confidence.
Going deeper
Learning to see and think more spiritually is truly a transforming experience. Divine Principle, Truth, is actually transforming how we perceive and understand the universe and the world we live in.
For example, there is an entrenched belief that the world is material- basically made of a limited physical substance called matter. This concept is currently giving way to a new understanding that matter is not a substance, not what we traditionally assumed it is. We are discovering that we are essentially living in a mental environment. This new understanding is supported by the emerging scientific understanding through quantum physics. This new ideal is actively pushing out the old beliefs and assumptions about matter, time, space from the currently held theories of the universe. Yet, thought and experience in our everyday world has not caught up with this discovery yet! It can seem very hard to give up old ideas!
We live in amazing transformative times! and change is never easy.
Only 500 years ago the world was generally accepted to be FLAT and the earth was considered to be the centre of the universe. Now we know better and are actually travelling to distant planets and able to look out from the stars!
We have entered a new millennium and the divine Science of the Christ has been given to humanity in this age to help us understand the power of Truth and Love and sort through all the conflicting data coming at us right now. To help humanity rediscover our birthright, the natural and indigenous relationship with divine Love, our one everlasting Parent and source of Life.
Jesus demonstrated this relationship perfectly for our benefit and example. We have been given the all the tools we need for humanity to transform and progress in this age! It is all about LOVE.
The Discoverer and founder of Christian Science Mary Baker Eddy describes the the age we live in this inspiring way-“We live in an age of Love’s divine adventure to be All-in-all.” (4)
And what a grand adventure it is!
- Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 494
- ibid p. 514
- Mary Baker Eddy, No and Yes, p.10
- Mary Baker Eddy, The First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany, p.158
Kate Gibson Oswald CS 