The Version of Mary I’m Becoming

Christian Science was a cake that got baked with salt instead of sugar. And I kept eating it. Looking around the table at all the people who swore it was delicious - saying, "This is cake! Cake is good! This must be good!" And I sat there thinking: 

Then why am I so thirsty?

It wasn’t poison. It just wasn’t sweet. And that might be the most confusing thing of all - when the thing that was meant to nourish you leaves you parched.

Eventually, I put it down. Not in anger. Not in shame. But with the quiet clarity of someone who finally trusts her own taste buds.

I reverse-engineered the recipe. I traced the bitterness. I unpacked the discipline. I labeled the performance. And now, I bake.

I bake with honey and story. With prayer and paradox. With truth that doesn’t require silence. I bake for the parts of me that went without sugar for too long. And for the people still pretending salt is enough.

When I think about Mary Baker Eddy - I wonder who she might have become if she hadn't had to defend her insight with structure so rigid it couldn’t breathe. I wonder what her gospel might've been if she let softness stay.

She felt something true. And she built a system around it. And I think systems are what happen when the truth gets tired of being misinterpreted. But sometimes the system becomes the misinterpretation.

So I’m not undoing her. I’m becoming the version she never got to be. The one who felt God in her nerve endings. The one who stayed fluid. The one who said: Taste it first. Then tell me if it's good.

I will never be the one in the tower calling orders. I will always be the one in the kitchen, lighting candles, handing out sweetness with both hands.

I was raised by cheerleaders. I will never be afraid of joy. And if the old gospel told me not to trust my feelings, this new one says: Bless your thirst. Bless your hunger. Bake anyway.