luciagreenhouse

On May 23rd at 7 pm, I will be speaking at the Gleason Public Library in Carlisle, MA. This event will open to the public!  Please come and bring friends!  Thank you to John Ballantine for making this possible.

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

7:30 pm (approximately*)
Annual Meeting of the 
Katonah Village Improvement Society and the Katonah Village Library
Katonah Village Library, in the Garden Room

26 Bedford Road, Katonah, NY 10536-2121
(914) 232-3508
*Immediately following Annual Meeting at 7 pm.

January 31, 2012
8 pm
Books & Books
265 Aragon Avenue
Coral Gables, FL 33134

February 2, 2012
12 Noon
The Moorings Literary Society
Author Luncheon (by invitation)
Vero Beach, FL

February 2, 2012
6 pm
Vero Beach Book Center
2145 Indian River Blvd.
Vero Beach, FL 32960
(772) 569-6650

Sunday, February 12 at 4 pm
Larchmont Library
121 Larchmont Avenue
Larchmont, NY 10538
(914) 834-2281 Fax: (914) 834-0351
(To be held in the Village Center behind the Larchmont Library)
Refreshments will be served beginning at 3:30pm. This program is sponsored by the Friends of the Larchmont Public Library.

“I want to thank you for writing this book and for your courage to share your story…
I too have had a very similar experience, being raised by a Christian Scientist. Your story has really validated me by helping me know that I am not alone and that I am not crazy!… I struggle with the frequent guilt, shame and self-condemnation that intellectually I know is not part of who I am. It is based on the conditioning that I was raised with.”

I have received many letters, emails and Facebook messages from former Christian Scientists—and even practicing Christian Scientists– thanking me for publishing fathermothergod; for telling the story of what happened to my family when illness struck in 1986. I’m not sure I understand exactly why these correspondences came, initially, as such a surprise to me, but I think it has something to do with an underlying, lingering, irrational belief that my mother’s experience was somehow an anomaly in Christian Science; that there might, in fact, be sufficient evidence to suggest that praying away illness and injury works. If you hear something enough—like every single day of your childhood— whether or not there is truth in it, you have a hard time not believing it.

Phone conversations and written testimonies of others’ journeys out of Christian Science all point to what is obvious to anyone (who is not a Christian Scientist): Christian Science is not a science; it is nothing Jesus would have advocated, and it is not an effective alternative to medical care. With heart-wrenching honesty, people are coming forward with accounts of the damage inflicted by this dangerous theology of denial, and the residual scars they are still struggling with.

I spoke with an elderly husband and wife who lost their twelve-year-old daughter decades ago to appendicitis. It has taken them more than thirty years to begin to talk about it. I was sent a manuscript from a woman who has spent fifty years trying to come to terms with the deaths of two of her babies, one from pneumonia, another from what was probably malnutrition stemming from difficulty nursing.

I spoke to a woman whose sister died last year under circumstances strikingly similar to my own mother’s: shrouded in secrecy and denial of horrific symptoms and suffering. Another woman wrote to me about how she broke her leg as a young girl. Her mother and a practitioner prayed about it for four excruciating days before her father (divorced, without custody) finally intervened and took her to a hospital, where her leg was re-broken and set. One woman described the needless pain and idiocy of untreated strep throat. Another woman described how, when she was eight years old, her mother died a long, painful death from untreated breast cancer.

In every one of these Christian Science cases, when illness struck, the patient’s family was burdened by imposed secrecy and isolation, and the shame of being told—and  being told to believe—that the problem was mentally conceived by the patient and his/her family; that the illness or injury was essentially the patient’s fault (and/or the family’s fault); that it was the outward manifestation of incorrect thinking.

Not surprisingly, Christian Scientists have also written to me. They point out (as if it needs pointing out) that many more people die in hospitals than in Christian Science care facilities. But this is what I want Christian Scientists to know: At a family’s darkest hour, whereas the Christian Science modus operandi is to deny the existence of any problem at all, the compassionate response of other religious and non-religious communities, is to help a family draw together and deal with the problem(s). Sometimes this means helping to navigate the labyrinth of a hospital. Other times, when the family is facing end-of-life issues, the compassionate response is to help them figure out how to say good-bye. This is not done in Christian Science because illness is denied right up until it is time to start denying the existence of death. As one woman wrote to me:

“One of the saddest and, to me, most damaging aspects of CS is that the mandate of silence and denial separates us and denies us the close community that is the only thing that may help make the unbearable bearable.”

To all of you who are sharing your stories with me, thank you. I am hoping that someone in the media will realize that the survivors of a “religion” that has destroyed hundreds of families, and caused immeasurable harm to countless individuals over the last hundred and thirty-five years, deserve to have some questions asked on their behalf: why are there still laws on the books in many states protecting parents’ rights to practice their religion at the expense of their children’s lives? And why does Medicare pay for stays at Christian Science care facilities, which are unlicensed, unregulated and responsible for what can justly be characterized as torture by neglect?

Thank you to everyone who has read fathermothergod and decided to share it with friends. It is a dream come true to have my story read by a broad audience. I now know it means a great deal to others who have also traveled down this path, so please keep spreading the news. Word of mouth and book clubs are the best marketing tools for unknown, first time authors. (That, and an appearance on Ellen. FYI, she was raised as a Christian Scientist. Anyone know her personally?? Pipe dream, I know, but getting a book contract was a pipe dream too, so why stop there?)

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. May you have a wonderful day with your family and friends.

Follow link to podcast.

Click HERE to read the full review.

I was just reading a description of Jim Henson’s funeral at the Church of St. John the Divine in New York City, in 1990. (Google it. It is an exhilarating read.) What a wonderful tribute to a remarkable man of extraordinary talent. After his death at age 53, there were many rumors flying about cause, which was strep A pneumonia. Some people at that time of heightened AIDS fear and homophobia postulated that Jim Henson had died of AIDS, and that the cause was covered-up out of fear that making a connection between AIDS and homosexuality and the Muppets would be bad for the Muppets, bad for PBS, bad for kids, bad for America.
What fewer people speculated on was Jim Henson’s Christian Science upbringing in a Christian Science family. Even as an adult he had been active in the church. A Christian Science Sunday school teacher in his twenties, he later wrote to his church stating that he was no longer practicing the faith. (Wikipedia.) Did he die because he was a Christian Scientist? No. Is it possible that he put off going to the doctor in part because he was raised in a lifestyle that did not include check-ups, antibiotics, trips to the emergency room? Very, very possible.
One of his last public appearances was on the Arsenio Hall show, on May 4th. That day, he mentioned to his publicist that he wasn’t feeling well, and had a sore throat, but thought it would go away. May 16th, he died in a New York City hospital, but he only went there after he had started coughing up blood early in the morning on May 14th.

Las Vegas Review Journal guest reviewer Jami Carpenter writes “(fathermothergod)resonates with anyone wanting to understand another’s beliefs, or trying to understand his or her own.

Click HERE to read the full review.

fathermothergod just received a fantastic review in The Minneapolis Star Tribune calling it  “A courageous and finely crafted portrait of a young woman struggling with her family, her faith and that awkward space between being a child and growing into adulthood.”

Click HERE to read the full review.

Very interesting day in Chautauqua!
First, a big article in the Chautauqua Daily about fathermothergod. In the article, the New York State Committee on Publication for the Christian Science Church weighed in (Chautauqua likes to be very fair!) which gave me enough of a heads up that I was able to prepare in the event Christian Scientists turned out for the reading.
And they did.
Of the roughly fifty people in attendance, I’m guessing about five or six were Christian Scientists. After I spoke and did my reading, I started a Q and A. A few questions into it, a woman stood up and introduced herself as a lifelong Christian Scientist, a Practitioner and a Teacher. Funniest aspect of the whole thing was that I decided I would read the excerpt about Sherman’s and my visit to our mother’s practitioner, describing her as silver-haired, elegantly dressed. A dead ringer for the woman in the audience!!!
She and another Christian Scientist spoke, and tried to attack my credibility, but having spent years in a C.S. boarding school, and having a Practitioner and Teacher for a father kind of squelched that. A man got up, probably in his mid fifties, and said he and his children had all been beautifully protected by Christian Science, etc etc. Another member of the audience asked him, “but what would you do if your child were critically ill?” He didn’t give much of an answer. He then quoted the last part of the interview in the paper, where I called Christian Science anachronistic and said that behind the facade of the C.S. Monitor is a darker, more frightening truth. He tried to make me look like I was full of anger and bitterness. I explained my use of the term anachronistic….about how CS. was founded late 19th century before the advent of modern medicine: no xrays, no penicillin, etc, when saying a prayer might, in fact have been a better option sometimes than going to a doctor….
Several people came up to me afterwards and commended me on how I handled the hostile attendees, said the anachronism answer was especially meaningful.
Oh, one other thing. One of Christian Scientists who spoke said there was nothing in the church doctrine that says you can’t go to doctors. I was armed with some great quote –thanks to some quick reference work done by Rita Swan early this morning! — from Science and Health to refute his claim. Here’s the one I used:
“A physical diagnosis of disease–since mortal mind must be the cause of disease– tends to induce disease.” This is what Mary Baker Eddy wrote in Science and Health, the Christian Science textbook on page 370.
Why would anyone ever go to a doctor if getting a diagnosis meant getting sicker???
Lucia