Blue Windows: A Christian Science Childhood (ISBN 0312180543)

Amazon.com Review:
Frequently caricatured as the religion that rejects medical treatment, Christian Science gets a balanced, nuanced appraisal in this memoir by a writer who grew up within the faith. Barbara Wilson appreciates Christian Science's unusual openness to women, who gained self-respect and status as its practitioners and healers, but she bares its inadequacies in a wrenching account of her mother's battle with cancer, suicide attempt, and eventual death. Her precise, unsentimental prose delineates a decades-long journey toward self-knowledge and peace with her past: it's a very American saga, sensitively told.

Well worth reading:
This book is a fairly good memoir, despite long digressions into overly detailed memories. I skimmed some chapters, especially in the first half. However, as therapy for a recovering Christian Scientist, it was a wonderful experience that I would highly recommend. Particularly in the second half of the book, when Ms. Wilson gets into the meat of her family's troubles, her writing style hits its stride and the insights are especially clear and penetrating. It may be flogging a dead horse to critique Christian Science these days, as it fades away with the passing of the last generation to grow up without antibiotics. However, those of us who were raised in it need to critique it for our own benefit. The public image of CS has to do with shunning doctors and medicine. There's much more to it. In my family, as in Wilson's, the greatest pain was caused by the avoidance of relationship problems and mental disorders. An untreated infection may kill you quickly, but an abusive parent can affect your quality of life, and those of the rest of your family, over many years. My father was a third-generation Christian Scientist, First Reader of our church, and served on the board of a CS sanitorium. He went to church twice a week and served on countless church committees. I'm sure he never once tasted alcohol or tobacco, he never went to a doctor, and he always had one of us sitting by the TV (in the days before remote controls) to turn down the volume when ads for medicine came on. He was also an abuser with chronic untreated depression and suicidal impulses. Nobody could acknowledge that my father's abuse was happening because we had to pretend that life was Perfect. This made us all enablers. Society is full of abusers and people who enable them, but few have a basis for enabling that's as powerful as the belief that the abuse literally doesn't exist. In Christian Science, if you see abuse, this is a problem in your perception--an instance of Error. You need to work on your perception, not on the person who seems to be imperfect. Domestic abuse thrives in such a setting. There are statistics that show Christian Scientists live shorter lives. I don't know of any statistics on how common abuse or mental illness is in CS families. My guess: very common. Kudos to Barbara Wilson for talking about this in her own life, and helping the rest of us survivors of CS to confront and fix the problems in our families that medicine can't touch.

Thoughts from a Christian Scientist:
As a Christian Scientist I actually think that books like these are important, because they remind us that unless we are alert, a culture of conformity, pretense and stiffness can steal into the church (indeed, into any human institution). This undermines the true spirit of Christian Science, and hinders the spiritual progress of our members. As a dedicated member of my church I have no hesitation to openly state, with my name signed above, that Christian Science, aflame with love and understanding, is first and foremost _practical_. Why? Because divine Love meets _every_ human need--in fact these very words are stenciled on the wall of almost every Christian Science church in the world. God can give aid through a doctor as well as through a spiritual healer. As stated in our textbook, Science and Health, page 444, line 7: "If Christian Scientists ever fail to receive aid from other Scientists,--their brethren upon whom they may call,--God will still guide them into the right use of temporary and eternal means. Step by step will those who trust Him find that 'God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.'" I think the vast majority of Christian Scientists understand this and realize that we are gentle and kind healers, not judgmental martyrs. I am happy to see that the younger generation of Christian Scientists is more practical, inspired, and open about discussing these issues and practicing pure Christian Science without peer pressure, false pretenses, or condemnation. I am also happy to see many people asking for an alternative to the world of medicine, and I pray to be ready to help. And I also hope that this book will help anyone who felt they were hurt by an erroneous church culture (be it CS or otherwise), and remind us all not to make the same mistakes. That said, it is very good to recognize the difference between Christian Science, and a corrupted, fearful, angry sense of it.

If you can recite the scientific statement of being...:
... then you were raised in Christian Science and may be struggling to make sense of your experience. Read this book. If you love someone who is a lapsed Christian Scientist, read this book. Wilson lends historical perspective and emotional insight as she lovingly and thoughtfully articulates that peculiar childhood. I found her explanations thought-provoking, tremendously helpful and well-written.

blue windows:
This story of a Christian Science childhood makes it obvious that Christian Scientists are no better prepared than 'ordinary' folks to recognize mental illness and deal with it. This is especially true of depression in men--the case in this family. It has only recently been discovered that angry men are frequently depressed--they are angry at their depression, and at those around them. This young woman does deal successfully with her problems.

Sorry for those who know not:
I am always so sorry for those who blame a religion for what they, the person, does not understand, but who refuse to condemn orthodox medicine for the deaths it actually causes! It is not the religion that has failed, nor is it the religion which has caused the death or discomfort, or unhappiness, or whatever, but of course that is an easier place to put the blame than on one's own mother who actually made the choice...........