The Great Rhythms of Life

By Fenella Bennetts, Mar 22 2012 3:52PM

The Journal’s Jeffrey Hildner interviews Fenella Bennetts

Reprinted from the October 2008 issue of The Christian Science Journal.


Check Google Maps and you’ll see that Claygate, in the county of Surrey, England, lies some 15 miles southwest of London—”at about 7.30 on a clock” as Christian Science practitioner and teacher Fenella Bennetts described it when I called her recently. Fenella grew up in Claygate in a family of Christian Scientists, and as she explains in our following conversation she embraced the religion for herself at a young age. She also studied piano and music composition as a young person, earning a degree in music from Cambridge University. Listen in as Fenella explains how these two themes, music and Christian Science—one minor, the other major—counterpoint one another and reveal Life’s great rhythms of harmony.

Fenella, you became a Christian Scientist when and how?
Well, I have been a Christian Scientist all my life. Christian Science came to our family when my grandmother was healed nearly 100 years ago. She was dying. Her brother who had found Christian Science in Holland (my grandmother and her brother were Dutch) came here to England and introduced Christian Science to her—and she was healed. My mother started attending Sunday School, and she became a devoted student of Christian Science throughout her long life. One of my father’s parents had also been healed at a critical point. So I grew up in a family where the practice of Christian Science was the natural way of life. I am the third of now five generations in our family who’ve been students of Christian Science.

And you grew up in Claygate?
Yes, where I now live again. My branch church is First Church of Christ, Scientist, Claygate and Esher (Esher is our larger adjoining community).

Did you go to Sunday School there?
I did. My parents were founding members of the church, and I attended the Sunday School from the first day it existed. So I’ve seen our congregation develop from a group to a Christian Science Society to a full-grown church.

That’s beautiful. You know, I think it’s fair to say that everyone has to make Christian Science their own, even those who grow up in a Christian Science family or go to a Christian Science Sunday School. What helped you to make Christian Science your own?
My mother always encouraged me to pray for myself, and then one day she asked me to pray for her.
I think several things. I always loved God, and my mother read the Bible to me from a very early age. She told me later that my favorite story, which I asked her to read over and over, was about Jesus staying behind in the temple in Jerusalem when he was twelve years old and saying to his parents, I’m paraphrasing here, “Don’t you know that I must be about my Father’s business?” [see Luke 2:49]. My mother always encouraged me to pray for myself, and then one day when I was about eight or nine she wasn’t feeling well and she asked me to pray for her. I didn’t quite know how to go about it, but I so wanted to help her. So I went to my room and opened Science and Health. It fell open to the definition of Church. I suddenly caught a glimpse of the idea of Church as “the structure of Truth and Love . . .” [p. 583]—and I could see my mother as safe in this structure. And she was healed that day.
Then when I was around age thirteen, a school friend asked me to pray for her. Recently I came across a little diary in which I had written Bible verses and notes when I was helping her—and she was healed. That was when I knew I wanted to devote my life to the practice of Christian Science. The seed was planted right then, and this desire was always my guiding priority, although it was many years before it was in full flower. Other career options were open to me, but I only wanted to do what would prepare me for this ministry.
The other strongly formative influence was my Sunday School experience. It was a real rock of spiritual education right up to age twenty. It greatly developed my knowledge and love of the Bible and Science and Health, and my understanding of how to make their teachings practical. I think because of this my love of the Sunday School has never left me. You’ll still find me there every week, teaching. I just love being with children and young adults, and I want to give them what I had when I was growing up.

If one word could be a synonym for the word prayer I think it would be the word listening.

You also studied music from an early age. You’re a pianist and a composer. What connections do you see between your study of music and your study of Christian Science?
Many! And one is the ability to listen. Musical training develops the “inner ear” of a musician. My high school music teacher was a Christian Scientist, and I was the only student studying music at advanced level. Christian Science was our first love, hers and mine, so we often spent half the lesson talking about Christian Science—and then realized we’d better do some music! She set harmony exercises for soprano, alto, tenor, and bass, where one part was given and I had to fill in the others. But we always started from the basis that the music was already a complete idea in Mind, so I only needed to listen for the sound. I practiced this consistently, and by the time I took my final exams it was like taking dictation, I was so tuned to this listening.
And there’s a clear parallel with the practice of Christian Science. If one word could be a synonym for the word prayer I think it would be the word listening. When I take a call from someone asking me to pray for them, of course I need to hear their heart, to hear what they’re trying to explain to me. But I’m actually listening to divine Mind to reveal what will meet this individual’s need.
I remember once opening my mouth to say one thing and hearing something entirely different come out—and the person on the other end of the phone burst out laughing! Laughter or tears are such great breakers of mesmerism. This wonderful laugh came out, and she was healed. And what I said to her was something I had never, ever thought of before. The ever-present Fathering and Mothering love of God, divine Mind, had given the message to me to give to her, and we were both blessed. So that developed quality of inner listening has been tremendously valuable.

Somebody said on the phone one day, “I wish I could think only right thoughts all the time.”
Another thing is the concept that sound and silence are both necessary elements of music. In a parallel way we need to keep spaces—quiet times—in our lives so we can replenish, fill up again. We can’t wait for it to be convenient, because it never will be! So we have to know how to provide and protect the spaces. Mary Baker Eddy was very strong on this, preserving time for prayer, for communion with God. Sometimes people are actually afraid of silence—of being, instead of just doing all the time. But learning to be alone (at one) with God is essential to the quality of our life and our capacity to heal.

Any other connections between music and Christian Science that have been important to you?
Well, somebody said on the phone one day, “I wish I could think only right thoughts all the time.” It was such a heartfelt cry that I found myself describing a special piano lesson I’d had as a teenager. My problem was learning too fast, but not accurately. So this remarkable piano professor looked me straight in the eye and asked, “Why do people play wrong notes?” After a long, meaningful pause he said, “Because their fingers are not over the right notes!” He then gave me a detailed lesson on slow practice—how to feel every note before playing it, without looking down at the keys. He assured me that the slower I practiced, the sooner I’d play up to speed and accurately. And guess what—he was absolutely right!
My phone caller and I saw what a great parallel there was here to scientific prayer. We were learning not to think superficially, to not just fly around looking up dozens of references, or rush into the weekly Bible Lesson and straight out the other side! Rather, we were learning to think deeply, to feel the spiritual foundation of thoughts before they become words or actions. This is how we align our thoughts with God. The Bible says, “The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God” [I Cor. 2:10].

The “Rule for Motives and Acts” asserts the irreducible spiritual fact about God’s relationship to His whole creation.
An example of this comes to mind. Once I decided to take a whole week to deeply study “A Rule for Motives and Acts” in the Church Manual [p. 40]. I found when I was studying Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount at the same time [Matt., chapters 5–7] that all the ideas in these chapters were embodied in some way in this Rule. Remarkable! Mrs. Eddy’s thought was so rooted and grounded in the Sermon on the Mount that she was able to distill the essence of those teachings into this one paragraph. That gave the “Rule for Motives and Acts” a new dimension. No wonder she placed it at the head of the section on “Discipline” and wanted it read in church services once a month.
That week I brought every call for help into the light of this Rule. At its heart is the absolute, unconditional statement of truth: “In Science, divine Love alone governs man . . . .” Not “should govern” or “must govern” but “governs”—asserting the irreducible spiritual fact about God’s relationship to His whole creation. In addition, the Rule’s opening command to “demagnetize” thought was relevant in every call for treatment: “Neither animosity nor mere personal attachment should impel the motives or acts of the members of The Mother Church.” The Rule then provides guidance for developing the Christly qualities of thought that characterize Christian Science healing, and the Rule ends with the wake-up call for alertness to six pitfalls of erroneous thinking. It’s a complete treatment! And the healings that took place that week were evidence of what Mrs. Eddy said: “Of this I am sure, that each Rule and By-law in this Manual will increase the spirituality of him who obeys it, invigorate his capacity to heal the sick, to comfort such as mourn, and to awaken the sinner” [The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 230].

Each one of us needs to develop beyond “what’s in it for me” to “what can I do to help my brothers and sisters the world over?”

What motivated you to become not only a Christian Science healer but also a Christian Science teacher?
Well, my husband and I always seemed to have an extended family in our home, and a Christian Science association is another form of extended family. I love the ongoing commitment teachers have to their pupils—a lifelong relationship. Like parents, we’re not there for the short term, but for the long term! What I love most is seeing people’s lives turned around, redeemed, restored, renewed, healed—just flooded with God’s love and purpose. And just like parenting, journeying together in a teacher-pupil relationship involves patience, persistence, courage, and total trust in God’s guidance—on everyone’s part! But Jesus gave the route map for us all: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself” [Luke 10:27]. That’s what the healing practice of Christian Science is all about, and what teaching is designed to nurture.
Teaching is also about developing the awareness of what we might call life’s “great rhythms.” I remember reading that Mary Baker Eddy thought in terms of decades where other people thought in terms of years. I wrote down a quote from The Christian Science Monitor in a notebook years ago. It was something said by a French ballerina called Violette Verdy, who was also a ballet teacher. First she explained that before developing your own style you must learn the fundamental principles of your art. She then continued, “And you must have the great rhythms. It is the smaller rhythms that make us pity ourselves.”
I love to think of this metaphor as a life pattern, reminding us to keep the big perspectives in life. Mrs. Eddy was such an example of this. If she had been satisfied with just being healed herself, we wouldn’t have this church today—the Church of Christ, Scientist, with its worldwide healing ministry. We can see how her thought developed from a personal and local expression of Christianity to the global and universal structure of the Church that she established in her later years. And each one of us needs to develop in this way too—beyond “what’s in it for me” to “what can I do to help my brothers and sisters the world over?” That’s why the Monitor is such a gift in focusing our prayer for the world.

I just love the sense of wideness the sky brings and the questions it makes you ask.

You mentioned to me that your name is on a microchip on the surface of Mars. That’s pretty cool. Tell me about that. My guess is that it has something to do with connecting you to those big perspectives and great rhythms of life?
Well, I’ve been interested in astronomy since I was a child. The exploration of space is one of the cutting edges of human endeavor, and I joined the Planetary Society in its early years to keep in touch with that exploration. The microchip carried the names of all the Society’s members at the time, and it was on the Mars Rover, which landed successfully in 1983. It’s fun to think about that chip out there!
But more than that, I’ve always loved looking up. It saddens me when people have never looked up into the beautiful night sky or discovered anything about it. I just love the sense of wideness it brings and the questions it makes you ask. I’ve often thought that if you just look at your feet, your circle of vision is very small. But if you look out the window, your circle of vision expands enormously—even more so at night. We need a state of thought that is outward looking, pushing the boundaries of understanding. Mrs. Eddy spoke about “the vastness of Christian Science” [Science and Health, p. 330], and we need to go there.
One of God’s qualities is that He is infinite. How often do we stop and ponder that—really stretch into it, deeply encounter the fact of God’s infinite goodness, infinite wisdom, infinite love? And then ask ourselves, What are the implications for us if God is infinite? This idea is huge. It moves us out of a limited sense of ourselves and our lives and moves us into a comprehension of God’s boundless provision and purpose for us. Understanding God’s infinity leads us to be spiritually proactive thinkers.

We all had total trust in God’s uninterrupted provision of good for us.
And spiritually proactive thinkers are vitally important today, because we hear on every side that we’re hemmed in by lack and limitation. Global resources, energy, water, food, health, finances, mortgages—you name it—there just seems to be belief after belief of lack, limitation, and finiteness. So when we’re faced with limitations, what do we do? The answer always lies in understanding more about God, understanding that God is infinite—and therefore good is unlimited! This fact breaks open mental prisons. I don’t say this in a theoretical way, because three times in our family life we faced critical financial situations.
The first time it was linked to recession and loss of work. My husband had no work beyond a few weeks ahead. He was an architect, and all building work in the country was brought to a halt by the government. Great big architectural firms were going bankrupt. We had two very small children and a huge mortgage. What were we going to do? Well, we sat down with my husband’s architectural partner and his wife to pray about the situation. And although the outlook was dire, we were honestly not afraid. We all had total trust in God’s uninterrupted provision of good for us. We each followed ideas that came to us through prayer and took on jobs that we might never have done but for the severity of the situation. My husband took a small, part-time job teaching architecture, and this job eventually grew and grew until it become the main source of income for our family for the next 30 years! So nothing but good came out of this experience.
Another of these critical times came just when I was going into the public practice of Christian Science healing. I knew I had to understand more deeply than ever before what it means that God is infinite. As this understanding expanded, it literally changed the whole basis of my thought, slowly but surely. Our situation stabilized, and each member of the family moved forward into “a wider sphere of thought and action,” as it says in Science and Health [p. 265].

It’s a wonderful thing to let the labels drop off—cultural labels, national labels—and just see your brothers and sisters as God’s universal family.

Your own life has certainly done that. You served on the Board of Lectureship for 11 years and lectured in 22 countries around the world. Pretty amazing. What new perspectives did you gain during those years?
Well, if I have to choose one thing, it’s the understanding that we are all one as the children of God. If you let go of the view of people as mortals with a certain background, you begin to see right through to the sons and daughters of God. Then you can step off a plane in a new place, a new culture, meet people you’ve never met before, and connect with people’s hearts wherever you go. It’s a wonderful thing to let the labels drop off—cultural labels, national labels—and just see your brothers and sisters as God’s universal family. And it unites you instantly.

Was there a special lecture moment during those years?
Yes, many, but here’s one. It was with a group of women in a large prison in the US. I had no idea what I would say to them when I got there—I had never been in this situation before. So I just prepared with deep prayer to gain a crystal-clear sense of each one as the beloved child of God. When we got there, with all the clanging doors behind us that we had to go through, I found myself filled with this absolute love for every single one of the women. I was truly comfortable being there, which was the very opposite of what one might imagine. It was so easy to be with them, to talk with them, to express this spiritual love. It really took me by surprise, as well, to see how the love of God works. Afterwards I realized that it had been literally impossible to think of these women as criminals or as having suffered criminal abuse themselves. They were just as much God’s children to me as any of the hundreds of people I’d met all over the world. And at the end, it was quite touching. Many of them came up to have a hug as they left the room. I never expected that.

The miracle of God’s love is that it’s unconditional.
The gem I took from that experience was how important it is to keep this unclouded spiritual view of everyone in every context. If we did this in our churches, in families, in business connections, in politics, among the nations, think what it would do. We actually have the right and the God-given ability to do this—to see the face of the sons and daughters of God, and silently, mentally, spiritually, to remove whatever masks may be obscuring this reality. Maintaining this view would literally transform our families, churches, governments, and our world. And that precious experience renewed my commitment to do that.

It sounds to me like you’re talking about unconditional love.
Yes, and that word unconditional is truly remarkable. We can trot it out, and it sounds simple. But, my goodness, it’s profound. Mrs. Eddy said, “The great miracle, to human sense, is divine Love, and the grand necessity of existence is to gain the true idea of what constitutes the kingdom of heaven in man” [Science and Health, p. 560]. The miracle of God’s love is that it’s unconditional. Jesus said, “For he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” [Matt. 5:45]. This love doesn’t have to be earned—it’s given already. And each of us has the ability to receive it, to identify with it, to allow it into our hearts and lives, to know that we are the beloved of Love. And then, by extension, so are all those upon whom our thoughts rest. This was what inspired Mrs. Eddy in her own healing work. As she was reported to have said, “I saw the love of God encircling the universe and man, filling all space, and that divine Love so permeated my own consciousness that I loved with Christlike compassion everything I saw” [We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, p. 68].

I knew that no negativity was left in my thought at all.

I think it’s natural for someone to wonder how God’s unconditional love for us plays itself out in practical terms—to wonder how divine unconditional love leads to the tangible rearrangement and improvement of our human experience.
That’s a very logical question. I think one of the most vital keys of being able to love oneself or another is to find the way to forgive. The hurts that can lodge in people’s hearts so often seem to block that particular light. But you have to ask, is forgiveness really just one person trying to forgive another person? And that’s when people stop right there—because it seems utterly impossible! But when you come right to the heart of it, you find this isn’t what forgiveness is about. I had an experience once that took a year and a half, but which proved it to me. Eventually it just left me with the gold out of the crucible.
Right at the end of this experience, I realized with tears that I needed to pray for my own forgiveness! I prayed, Father, forgive me for ever having seen myself or any of your children as less than Godlike. It was such a deep prayer, and into my open heart came the shining message, There is nothing to forgive. And when I opened my eyes and wiped away the tears, I knew that no negativity was left in my thought at all. It had been wiped away, and I was free! That cleansing of my own thought brought about the complete healing of the very delicate, hurtful situation that had been troubling me.

What I hear you saying is that you had to study and pray diligently, with pianist-like slow practice, during that year and a half to come to terms with this. And your persistence connected you to another great rhythm—the great rhythm of God’s unconditional love, which released you from the misery connected to unforgiveness.

There are countless ways that people discover the love of Christ.
You’ve put it so well—that’s exactly it. Because throughout this ordeal the pain of the hurt and disappointment, the whole complex scenario, kept recurring without warning, like storms in my thought. I kept having to rework this idea of God’s unconditional love so I could remove any personal sense of hurt or anguish. And finally I thought, Well, there has to be some wonderful life lesson that I’m learning from all of this for it to have taken so long. And of course, it was a life lesson in forgiveness—gaining my own forgiveness! It was the lesson we find in the opening pages of the chapter “Christian Science Practice” in Science and Health: “If the Scientist has enough Christly affection to win his own pardon . . . then he is Christian enough to practise scientifically and deal with his patients compassionately; and the result will correspond with the spiritual intent” [p. 365].


Is there a final thought you’d like to share?
Yes, just this—that there are countless ways that people discover the love of Christ, find their way to Christian Science, experience healing. People’s life journeys may be incredibly different, but each individual is of equal value and beauty in the sight of our heavenly Father-Mother God. I often think of the man in Acts Chapter 3 in the Bible, sitting at the gate of the temple that was called Beautiful. He thought he was helpless, on the outside looking in, permanently excluded from good. But Peter and John knew who he was in God’s eyes—this man, too, was the son of God—and after he was healed he jumped up and went with them, right into the temple, rejoicing! And his story still lives in our hearts today as the evidence that we all have our place within the beautiful temple of life, not on account of our human history, but because every single one of us is the beloved of Love and an equal heir in the kingdom of heaven.