Active Renewal

by Brad Stock

We are active in the renewal of Fern Lodge — a renewal of spirit, mission, and facility. Morale is high, and our ample staff stands ready to meet the field’s needs joyfully. The physical renewal is ongoing, with two patient rooms and a bathroom under construction. We also upgraded furnaces and added air conditioning to public areas (such as living rooms), plus other key spaces (such as the kitchen and break rooms). Our focus remains on spiritual renewal and full healing — not custodial maintenance of life or retirement living. The following is a summary of ideals shared with staff.

A standard in Christian Science nursing reads: “An ill-tempered, complaining, or deceitful person should not be a nurse. The nurse should be cheerful, orderly, punctual, patient, full of faith, — receptive to Truth and Love” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures 395). This should be true of everyone at Fern Lodge. Each of us should establish supportive, joyous, one-on-one relationships with patients. Each patient is individual, loved, respected. We embrace them as cherished friends and family.

Every member of staff contributes to an overall spirit of joy and collaboration. This collaboration is more than professionalism. Real comradery is the spirit of fellowship that is essential for excellence at Fern Lodge. Teamwork and a sense of family are keys to improved quality of life for patients and staff. Above all, an emphasis on healing and excellent patient care remains our priority.

The Fern Lodge Board and management have also been praying about service, balance, and multiplication.

Our concept of service is based on Mrs. Eddy’s words in Science and Health: “Giving does not impoverish us in the service of our Maker, neither does withholding enrich us” (79). Such service is not merely a sense of calm human goodness that helps another. True service is spiritual benevolence that blesses all in service to our Maker and witnesses each individual’s true nature as a loved child of God. Such high-minded service and insight heal.

Balance includes the right relationship between all things in God’s harmonious universe. A balance between income and expense, a balance of patient needs with available staff, a balance of proper skills within staff to meet patient needs, and balance between the field’s willingness to give and the needs of members of the field at Fern Lodge (our brothers and sisters in need), regardless of the length of time required for healing. True benevolence knows no limits — financial, physical, or temporal.

Multiplication is a law of God. His blessing on us all is “be fruitful, and multiply” (Gen. 1:22,28; 8:17). Reportedly, Mrs. Eddy said: “Go now from addition to multiplication. . . . Hold to the truth of being and let it multiply” (Irving Tomlinson reminiscence 102). In an undated essay, she wrote, “Spirit causes its own idea to reflect the creative nature of its Principle of Life that . . . governs the multiplication of ideas” (undated, Mary Baker Eddy Collection, Mary Baker Eddy Library [MBEC-MBEL] A11557). During her last primary class in 1889, it is recorded that Mrs. Eddy said that all “is the manifestation of God. It is not the numbers that add and multiply[,] but the Principle: the addition and multiplication of thoughts” (Joshua Bailey notes, MBEC-MBEL A12065). In Science and Health, she gives us many good statements to ponder in line with this concept:

Christian Science presents unfoldment, not accretion; it manifests no material growth from molecule to mind, but an impartation of the divine Mind to man and the universe. (68)

Adhesion, cohesion, and attraction are properties of Mind. They belong to divine Principle, and support the equipoise of that thought-force, which launched the earth in its orbit and said to the proud wave, “Thus far and no farther.” (124)

The equipollence of God brought to light another glorious proposition, — man’s perfectibility and the establishment of the kingdom of heaven on earth. (110)

We encourage you to join with us in realizing an ever-expanding sense of God’s creation, of Spirit’s ongoing renewal of harmony. We seek to see all creation embraced in God’s love — a universal love that brings infinite blessings to those who follow Christ, including all who support Fern Lodge’s healing ministry.

Brad Stock