Blue Windows: A Christian Science Childhood

by Barbara Wilson, Barbara Sjoholm

From Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christian Science, to Deepak Chopra, Americans have struggled with the connection between health and happiness. Barbara Wilson was taught by her Christian Scientist family that there was no sickness or evil, and that by maintaining this belief she would be protected. But such beliefs were challenged when Wilson's own mother died of breast cancer after deciding not to seek medical attention, having been driven mad by the contradiction between her religion and her reality. In this perceptive and textured memoir, Wilson surveys the complex history of Christian Science and the role of women in religion and healing.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Cult Classics, Cults, Religion

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Barbara Wilson is the pen name of author and translator Barbara Sjoholm. Her mysteries, written under the name Barbara Wilson, include two series, one with printer Pam Nilsen (Murder in the Collective) and one with translator-sleuth Cassandra Reilly. Her mysteries include the Lambda-award-winning Gaudi Afternoon, made into a film of the same name. She was a co-founder of Seal Press and in 2020 received the annual Trailblazer Award from the Golden Crown Literary Society for her contributions to lesbian literature. Her books have been published in England and translated into Spanish, Finnish, German, and Japanese.

Reviews

[Barbara (The Bibliophage) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book - and I loved parts of it. It's a fine line to combine a painfully heartbreaking memoir with a historical and philosophical perspective and the author finds a good balance. Unique and deeply thought-provoking read.

[Lisagarden · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is really interesting. Barbara Wilson did an amazing job. It covers a lot within the semi autobiographical story of a young girl from a family with a history of Christian Science Practitioners whose mother struggles with cancer.
There is also historical information about Christian Science, about when it first came of age and the importance and power that it gave women in midwest America at a time when they had little and were starting to fight for it through Suffarage.
It shows the struggle of a child raised within the Christian Science world and the confusion and pain of losing her mother. Her world is set in Long beach California in the 50s and 60s- a world I recognize clearly in the writing. I found this book really rich with layers of story,history,ambiance and the struggle of growing up in a family filled with contradictions.
(as are most families!).

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to admit: I judged this book by its cover and totally put off reading it (it was assigned). But this is not just a memoir. It's a memoir-biography-historical lit-travelogue and more. Wilson does a fine job of balancing her own personal story with the story of Mary Baker Eddy, the history of the Christian Science religion (fascinating), and the stories of others who choose to stay and leave the religion. Super interesting history of our country's transcendentalist/mystical past, our search for health and healing. And in the end, that's what the book is really about: Healing, the promise of the childhood religion that fails her, is what she searches for over and over again. And by the end, we get the sense that she's found it.

[Sheri · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are curious about what life is like for a deeply caring child of fundamentalist parents (Christian Scientists) who refuse medical care for themselves and their children due to religious beliefs, this is an excellent, though often sickening, read. It addresses the internal family politics where beliefs diverge, but families still try to love and help each other, often through great emotional trauma. Very insightful written.

[Silvio111 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Barbara Wilson's chronicle of growing up in a Christian Science family, and subsequently finding her way through a painful adolescence in which she loses her mother to mental illness, and must live with a truly "evil stepmother," all the while finding her way to becoming a writer is quite a revelation. Her examination of the family and religious ethic of denial of unpleasantness, placed in the context of the history of Christian Science, joins a familiar genre of the "coming-of-age" story with a surprising connection to the self-help movement of the 20th century.

Wilson has a fine story telling style--she keeps zooming in and out, from her personal story, to a macro view of history, achieving just the right tone to allow the reader some detachment as well as compassion for what she went through.

I first started reading Barbara Wilson's mystery fiction in the 1990s. Wilson changed her name to Barbara Sjoholm around the year 2000, and continued to write fascinating non-fiction and memoir. She is a reader I never get tire of.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was raised in Christian Science. I was recently thinking about sexuality, and how the sexuality of a girl raised in Christian Science must be deeply affected by that way of thought. I did a little digging on the internet and this book is what I found.
I am not sure she will talk directly about sexuality, but so far it's an interesting look at some of the religion's roots and how this author feels she was affected by the faith, good or bad.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lucidly written, unflinching. Historically and sociologically attentive, full of compelling characters drawn from life. A slow walk through memory, through madness and its precipitants, to a new understanding of survival. Really an amazing book--I highly recommend it.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love reading about the lives of others. Memoir is my favorite genre. This book, Blue Windows, is among the best I have read. I found this book by accident after reading a novel (History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund) in which a little boy died because his father did not seek medical help when he became ill; he was a Christian Scientist. This book was listed in the source notes for that novel. It is a history of the Christian Science church and a memoir of the author's disturbing life growing up in a dysfunctional CS family, overcoming emotional abuse, and the loss of her mother at a young age (breast cancer). This book was interesting to me because my mother-in-law, her sister, and their mother were all Christian Scientists. My husband was influenced by their beliefs as a child but rejected them as an adult.

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very intriguing book for anyone whose childhood was engrossed in religion of any kind. Barbara's religion was Christian Science but the principles are the same for any religion. This book illustrates Barbara's pain yful way to make sense of it all.

[MMF · Rating 3 out of 5]

An engaging memoir, although it is less about Christian Science than the title suggests, I think.

[Steven H · Rating 3 out of 5]

A WRITER RECALLS HER CHILDHOOD IN THIS RELIGION

Barbara Wilson "was the co-founder of two publishing companies, Seal Press and Women In Translation," and has written other books such as 'If You Had a Family: A Novel.'

The title of this 1997 book refers to her statement that Christian Science "was about choosing to see only beauty and happiness, no matter what, about choosing... to look at life through the rose windows, not the blue windows." (Pg. 7)

She recalls in the first chapter, "My mother developed cancer when I was nine and died when I was twelve... At the time she was actually sick and dying, cancer seemed the least of her problems. Far more obvious... was the mental breakdown that had driven her to make a suicide attempt, an attempt that disfigured her face... What was wrong with my mother was never talked about at all, and after she died, she was almost never referred to by anyone again." (Pg. 6)

She points out, "From the start Christian Science was attractive to women. Not only was the founder a woman and the theology of an androgynous god, but in a practical sense Christian Science offered employment as healers for women who had been barred by men from their traditional occupations as midwives and doctors. At the founding of the church, the ratio of women to men practitioners was five to one. In 1926, a study showed that while 55.7 percent of the membership of all churches was female, in Christian Science the percentage was 75 percent. In the 1950s, 87.7 percent of all Christian Science practitioners were women, and most recently a study showed a ratio of only one male practitioner for every eight women." (Pg. 55)

She observes, "I found... that the mind-cure movement that had contributed to the birth of Christian Science had also created younger siblings....[who] had founded a loosely organized school of mental healing and life philosophy called New Thought... Unlike Christian Scientists, however, New Thought adherents did not accept Mrs. Eddy's interpretation of the scriptures as the final revelation. Nor... did New Thought healers oppose medical science. They stressed optimism and material prosperity and believed that human suffering and illness could be corrected through mental processes." (Pg. 98-99)

She notes, "It would also be wrong to say that ... Christian Science does not have a place for M.A.M. [Malicious Animal magnetism]... For as Christian Science received more and more publicity, as the claims of the church to be based on its members' ability to heal themselves and to be healed grew, then something needed to be invented to explain why healing didn't always work. M.A.M. provided the answer. It gave practitioners a way of explaining their failure to heal, and individuals a reason to accept that failure." (Pg. 138)

She adds, "One of the main things that the teachers' course focuses on is how to handle the claims of malicious Animal Magnetism, which is thought to increase the higher one moves in Christian Science and the closer one gets to the Truth." (Pg. 167)

This is an interesting (if critical) perspective on Christian Science, that will interest many who are studying it.

[Roxanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first third of the book is beautifully written as the author describes her Christian Science childhood and Mary Baker Eddy. She skillfully weaves events from her life and her family into insights into the theology of Christian Science. The middle third describes her mother’s breakdown, again this is extremely well written and compelling. The final third, however, includes extensive details about her teenage years and beyond, losing the focus on Christian Science and spending multiple pages describing unremarkable life events.

[Cheryl Wilfong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent Writer

Well constructed. I trust the narrator. A child’s faith. The loss of her mother. The shame that is the shadow of Christian Science.

[Chans · Rating 4 out of 5]

7/10

[Deborah-Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating account.

[Haylee Peterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I learned that nobody likes the look of a victim, and that adults who have no compassion for themselves will show no mercy to a child.”

I have always been very interested in learning about people’s experiences in cults/problematic religions, which was what drew me into this book. however, i ended up seeing myself in the author in so many specific ways that i couldn’t believe. never have i read a more accurate description of what it’s like to have to live with a parent whom you hate day in and day out. it was so cathartic to hear about the author experiencing feelings that i had experienced when i was the same age. more topics that i could relate to were the subject of a mentally ill/sick mother, a struggle with believing in religion yet still finding familiar comfort in it, and sexuality.

“Now there was a real candidate for hell…It was a satisfying fantasy, the image of Bettye in flames, sobbing that she was sorry. I wished I could believe in it.”

CHILLS!!

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

My review is based on the first 100 pages of the book only, after which I gave up ... The book is more about Christian Science than a person's life. It's supposed to be a "memoire", right? I don't have anything against CS (my mother was raised as a CS and I attended CS Sunday school for a while in my teens, but it wasn't for me), but I expected more of a focus on the writer's life, less on CS as a religion. It just got boring ...

[Mariana · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good memoir of a childhood tinged with her mother's faith in Christian Science, her insanity and her early death from cancer.

[Dot · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gay woman's story of childhood rape by a relative, mental illness in the family, and growing up in the 1950's in the Midwest in a Christian Science family. Confused and sad.