Family Healing

It had been a good family meeting, where we met every member of our family that is dispersed in all the world. Only one thing kept bothering me: one fifteen year old boy, the son of my husband’s oldest boy from his first marriage, who had missed five months of school due to undefinable stomach problems. Since both parents worked, he had been left alone at home with a computer, a coffee machine in his room, and crates of power drinks.

My vocation and my passion is teaching, but I had been retired for a few years by then, and we had many travel plans for the summer months. “I could teach him, try to bring him back up to grade level, maybe even motivate him to take up studying by himself,” I suggested to my husband. He passed on the message to his son and family, and two weeks later, Connor was with us, looking forward to spending four months traveling in Europe and re-learning good study and exercise habits.

“The solution to every problem is more love.” I remembered from MBE’s writings. I could give Connor attention, care, and time to listen to his ideas and thoughts. I told him how I saw my teaching mandate with him, and that I expected him to go to Sunday school when we were in Geneva. The first few days were tough: jet lag and caffein withdrawals reared their ugly heads and aches and pains made walking hard.

Every morning I rose early to pray and really remind myself that it was the image and likeness of God the almighty, the all-knowing, the all-loving, sitting beside me, not a balking teenager who complained of this allergy and that ailment. When allergies made Connor sniffle and cough I reminded myself that Connor is an expression of the one Life which is whole and free. When he was slow to grasp an idea or retain a rule I reminded both of us that he was the manifestation of Mind, who could neither forget nor “mess up”. When I saw the lights on at 4AM I reminded myself that Connor is a manifestation of Truth, and did not even ask him how late he stayed up or what he did in the night. And to keep myself joyful I affirmed that I was the manifestation of Soul, content, cheerful, seeing beauty all about me.

Every night we were both exhausted; I did not leave Connor much time to engage in gaming, but kept him busy with studies. One night at 10 he made inquiries about Lucifer. We went to the Bible and found this passage in Isaiah 14:12:

You said in your heart,

    “I will ascend to the heavens;

I will raise my throne

    above the stars of God;

I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,

    on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon.

I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;

    I will make myself like the Most High.”

So we decided that every time we are tempted by self-will, self-justification and self-love, there is the Satan, or Lucifer, who is a fallen angel. Connor told me he had seen movies about Lucifer that “adults” would be scared of. Well, I had Fenella’s poem about angels which we read just before retiring for the night. It calmed the both of us.

As we drew up a curriculum of daily activities, I put God in control. I read a most helpful editorial in one of the publications, called “Divine Mind moves You”. It said “Mind’s governing action defines everything - from the slightest movement within or regarding our bodies, to the movement and direction of a conversation, to where our whole lives are headed, to every event in the whole universe.” It reminded me that Mind is both, wholly good and wholly intelligent.

Addiction to gaming was helped by both of us writing an essay and comparing notes: I wrote “Why I have such an irrational aversion to internet gaming”, and Connor wrote “Why internet gaming is important to me”. After reading each others’ essays we discussed the issue and decided to agree to disagree and find a compromise we could both live with. I also talked to one of my sons who is into computers, too, and he strongly suggested I should not outlaw gaming outright. It would take Connor’s only community of friends from him, with whom he had been in contact for five years. Especially since he did not have active friendships since leaving school five months earlier.

Connor was in a very weak physical condition, and it took six weeks of daily walks to the store and back before he could “beat me”. I jokingly told him that he had finally arrived at the level “little old lady”. Besides the school subjects I was led to coach Connor in “making conversation”, we read and discussed world events, researched the history and geography of all the countries we visited,cemented the mathematical foundations and reviewed English grammar, which were both very shaky.

Four months passed by very quickly. We never missed a day of study, and the results were most encouraging. We had been starting our days with a half-hour Bible reading, even though “it meant nothing” to Connor. I reminded him that the square root of a number “meant nothing” to him either, but he still had to learn to find it. In the last month we did adjust our curriculum to learn about world religions, and we covered Buddhism, Islam and Judaism and their founders. Wonderful discussions grew out of these studies!

Now Connor is back at home, and his parents are thrilled with his progress. School will start in a couple of weeks, and I am confident that Connor will do well and have a good time.