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Members’ Vault: A Sculpture, an Audio Book, and a Poem Tell Their Stories
June 1, 2009
June's Vault offerings examine a portrait bust of Mary Baker Eddy created in 1889; how Christian Science helped John H. Wyndham survive a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp (told in a two-hour audio book); and a revealing poem by the pioneer Christian Scientist John Randall Dunn, whose portrait was added to the Longyear collection last month.
Unlikely as it may seem, in 1889 - a year that was busy with events - Mary Baker Eddy agreed to take the time to sit for an artist while she fashioned a sculpture of her. The resulting clay likeness was then chiseled by Italian stonecutters into marble portrait busts, one of which is owned by Longyear Museum.
Whether surviving three months in solitary confinement in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, overcoming post-war financial troubles, or being healed of a disease pronounced incurable, John H. Wyndham's powerful story illustrates what the practice of Christian Science meant in his life.
John Randall Dunn was not only a Christian Science lecturer, editor of the Christian Science periodicals, and First Reader in The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston. He was also a poet. Accompanying the news article (see May 25 article) about the oil painting given to Longyear Museum last month, is a poem that illustrates something of the spiritual poise and love for which Mr. Dunn was known.
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