Women of History: Earline Shoemake

Earline Shoemake (1936–2009) was a Christian Science practitioner, teacher, and lecturer. From humble beginnings an earnest search for a practical faith led her to life as a healer. As a Black American woman living in a time of evolving racial attitudes, she confronted hardship, limitation, and prejudice through reliance on God, building on her accomplishments in service to others.

Shoemake found inspiration in learning about Mary Baker Eddy’s life and derived great strength from Christian Science. Both shared the experience of living as part of a marginalized group—Shoemake as a Black woman during the civil rights era and Eddy as a spiritual leader and businesswoman in the nineteenth century. Shoemake’s early years in a small Louisiana town were vastly different from Eddy’s life in New England. At the same time, it is noteworthy that they shared the intense demands of economic difficulty, unsuccessful marriage, and single motherhood, as well as the newfound power of reliance on a deepening, dynamic faith for comfort and guidance.

Having grown up in Houma, Louisiana, prior to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Shoemake experienced racism in poignant ways. She went to a segregated school and had to drink from separate water fountains. In a March 2009 interview in The Christian Science Journal, she recounted this experience:

My mother was a domestic, and the boss’s daughter would invite me over to play with her and her cousin. One day stands out to me, when I was about ten years old. We’d been playing and having a great old time, and my friend’s mother called us for lunch. My two white friends were invited inside, but lunch was set up for me alone on the porch, with the door closed…. it wasn’t till I found Christian Science as an adult that my whole thought about race changed, because this view opened up the idea of omnipotent, divine Love….¹

After studying at Dillard University, a historically Black school in New Orleans, Shoemake moved to Los Angeles, ready for a fresh start in a new environment. There she worked in the fashion industry and as a model, graduating from the John Robert Powers School of Modeling. She found her Christian Science faith at a desperate moment—and in an unexpected way, as she later recalled:

One day while alone at home, sick of the ups and downs and uncertainty of everything, I began to cry. I literally cried out, “If there is a God somewhere, please hear me! I will do anything to find You. Just let me know if You exist! Please!” After this outburst, I felt a great sense of peace. The following day in a neighborhood coin laundry, my eyes fell on a little magazine stamped “Take me with you.” I did.²

That magazine was the Christian Science Sentinel, which she devoured, believing that her prayer had been answered. “I had never heard about a God like they were talking about, girl!” she later reminisced in an interview with Journal editor Joan Taylor.³

At the time Shoemake was in a troubled marriage and drinking heavily. She was also smoking three packs of cigarettes a day. She had four young children. That day, after she had cried out in prayer to find God, a broken washing machine left her with a pile of dirty diapers. And the required trip to the laundromat marked the beginning of her lifelong devotion to studying, practicing, and widely sharing Christian Science healing. Reading Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, Shoemake lost the desire for cigarettes and alcohol. Eventually she got a divorce. While taking this step allowed her new freedom in some unexpected ways, it also placed her in a situation of extreme financial difficulty, as a single mother of four.⁴

For Shoemake, Christian Science proved a great support in caring for her four young children—Sabra, Isahn, Lian, and Shouna. In 1974 she began advertising in the Journal as a Christian Science practitioner and maintained that healing practice until the time of her passing. In the Christian Science magazines she shared ideas and experiences, both through articles and audio recordings, often mentioning her children.

In a 1998 Sentinel Radio program “Trusting God to meet our needs,” she talked about successfully driving from her home in San Diego to Los Angeles (over 100 miles) on a gas tank that she believed to be empty, urging her children to sing in gratitude to God all the way. She also spoke of the encouragement her 12-year-old daughter provided when she was unsure how to pay the utility bills.

Facing the possibility of having her gas turned off due to non-payment, she went out into the yard and cried. On returning to the house, she found a note her daughter had written and taped to the door: “Think about this: ‘I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness’ (Psalms 84:10).” Next to that Bible verse, her daughter had written, “I am grateful that my every action is within Him, and no thing will the Lord withhold from them that walk uprightly.”⁵ Below the message her daughter had drawn an arrow pointing to the word gas. “That to me was riches!” Shoemake exclaimed. Although a man had already arrived from the gas company, he left and did not return—even though she was unable to pay the bill for a few weeks.

After that experience Shoemake found professional and spiritual fulfillment in her work as a practitioner, and the family had what they needed. She was never in that situation of severe lack again.⁶

She also shared how studying and practicing Christian Science later helped her reconcile her earlier experiences with racism as a young girl:

… Over the years, even though I shed my prejudices enough that I could say, “Some of my best friends are white” (or Jewish, or Asian, or whatever), I realized that I felt I was still divided from people of other races. I knew that I had to go further because as long as I felt this division from others, I wasn’t completely healed of prejudice.

 

Then I found Christian Science, and I found the missing link. I made the connection. In the Bible it says, “Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?” (Mal. 2:10), and in Galatians: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (3:28). Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy opened up these Scriptures to me. For example, it told me this: “It should be thoroughly understood that all men have one Mind, one God and Father, one Life, Truth, and Love. Mankind will become perfect in proportion as this fact becomes apparent, war will cease and the true brotherhood of man will be established” (p. 467). Discovering what God is—the one Parent of all of us—opened up an entirely new view of everyone else. This view transcended race, class, color, creed, national origin, culture, descent, blood ties….⁷

In 1991 Shoemake was appointed to the Christian Science Board of Lectureship, continuing to give public talks in that role over the next 17 years. Those talks directly addressed issues of racism. In the aftermath of the violent protests in Los Angeles, following the 1991 shooting of a Black man named Rodney King by a police officer, she gave lectures in the Southern California area and across the United States, addressing issues of racial tension and conflict. She also recorded a 1995 video lecture, “Love is a be…Love is a do.” It was shared with a broad audience on many television stations throughout the United States.

Shoemake became a teacher of Christian Science in 1994. In addition to her work as a Christian Science practitioner, teacher, and lecturer, she was an active volunteer in the community, including with a local prison ministry. She once described her experience of supporting community members in a time of tragedy:

The day following the tragedy of a high-school shooting near my home in southern California, many from the community and beyond gathered at a community church that had graciously opened its doors as a crisis center. Those gathered were from all backgrounds, all ages, colors, and creeds. There were students who had witnessed the tragedy, as well as other students, parents, teachers, counselors, ministers, and volunteers. All were there for one reason. Love. They had come to comfort and/or to be comforted. As a practicing spiritual healer, I came to comfort.

 

Words cannot describe the love I felt as I entered that lobby. Each of us at one time or another was hugging someone. Many, I’m sure, didn’t know anyone there. It didn’t matter. The reason we were there was much bigger than familiarity—it was Love.…⁸

Over the years, many who read Shoemake’s articles and heard her speak would comment on how they appreciated her refreshingly approachable, gritty-yet-humorous tone. One healing experience she shared involved a need, revealed to her in prayer, for more humility on her part. The way she described that realization does a good job of characterizing her upbeat, no-nonsense approach to practicing Christian Science:

The first thing that comes to mind when I think of humility is that it takes a whole lot of it to realize you’re the child of God. What do we have to give up to have this humility? Honey, we have to give it all up!⁹

Earline Shoemake’s humble beginnings and earnest search for God led to a life of devoted service as a healer. Her uniquely honest, heartfelt communication continues to inspire and impact those who read her articles and hear her voice in recordings. Her work endures—along with the example she set through significant contributions to the Christian Science movement.