Warm New Bunny Slippers Every Day

One clever way of catching some monkeys is to put a favorite food in a tethered hollow gourd with an opening just large enough to admit an empty paw. The monkey reaches in and grasps the food, which enlarges its paw and prevents it from passing back through the opening. Some monkeys will keep their grip on the food even though it results in their remaining a prisoner of the gourd and being captured. We may think how stupid such monkeys must be to fall for such a trick, but does this not have a sardonic parallel in mankind's seemingly irresistible and often fatal attraction to the material and physical and to medicine and doctoring?

Christian Scientists may not be acting any wiser than the monkey, however, when they intone texts from the Bible or the writings of Mary Baker Eddy as if they were incantations with some glorious inherent power. When the Word does enter our heart and help and heal it is because some spiritual sense of those words has, however briefly, spoken to us and touched us, not some latent force present in syllable and grammar. "Felt ye the power of the Word?" (MBE, "Communion Hymn") Words and sentences, if not consciously imbued with Spirit, are but human mutterings which can't affect the floating of a mote in the sunlit air.

Many of us may need to release some hidebound concepts of God we have lovingly and diligently accumulated over the years, else like the monkey we may become prisoners of them. It may be necessary for us to see God in glorious newness each day. Every Sunday these words from I John 3 are read in Christian Science churches: ". . . we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." Not as a comfy down-at-the-heels pair of slippers we need to get rid of but can't bear to part with. J. B. Phillips has this inspired rendering of the passage: "We only know that, if reality were to break through, we should reflect his likeness, for we should see him as he really is!"

As we do this we are fulfilling our duty to God to express our eternal oneness with Him as children of Light.

Giving Thanks for Spiritual Blessings

For a Christian Scientist to fail to put God, Christ Jesus, Mary Baker Eddy, and Christian Science at the top of his list of those things for which he is most grateful is either a careless mistake or a serious shortcoming. If God is not always first in our thoughts, He will not be first in our lives, and we will fail to obtain the continuing blessings which can only come by putting Him first. If we haven't yet learned that lesson we haven't yet learned much about Christian Science or Christianity.

To reap God's blessings--health, security, protection, harmony, abundant supply--we must to a degree demonstrate an understanding of our oneness with Him, and that is an eternal activity, not a one-time sprint to the door of consciousness to answer Christ's knock. The gold in our character is only revealed as the dross is purged, but gold is not purified by gentle warmth, but by the furnace fire of testing.

We take a great risk if we give casual lip service to our gratitude and loyalty to God while our real thoughts are elsewhere. Woe to him who says "I'm doing the best I can" when what he really means is "I'm doing for God all my very busy schedule, pleasurable activities, and real desires will permit". Let him who thinks this is a justifiable excuse picture himself saying it tete-a-tete to Christ Jesus.

We should desire above all else to make ourselves vessels unto honor, as that chosen vessel Paul expressed it in II Timothy 2. Recall what Jesus told Peter: "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat" (Luke 22: 31). If so loyal a Disciple as Peter could not escape such words, can we?

Obedience to God is not attained by enthusiastic or compulsive jabber or by a plethora of superficial busyness. When we do even a little of what Love is (See Mis 250: 14-29) we will reap a bountiful harvest of blessings for which we can be truly grateful.

Note: In reference to the previous entry, apparently Jesus' response to Peter's second answer was actually "Shepherd my sheep" instead of the "Feed my sheep" of the KJV. It is perhaps a meaningless difference, though some have seen a useful message in the correct translation.

Love That is Not Shadowboxing

He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast;

He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small:
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.

These lines, which come near the end of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's marvelous poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", undoubtedly state a major theme of the poem and a theme well worth pursuing in our lives.

It is imperative, however, that our sense of love rises above Peter's at that luminous morning meal on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias when the risen Jesus asks Peter if he loves (agape) him. Peter's more limited view of love answers "Yes, Lord, you know I love (philos) you". Responding to Jesus' exact repetition of the question, Peter replies the same. When Jesus questions Peter the hauntingly significant third time, he uses Peter's own word for love (philos), "Are you really my friend?", and almost certainly Coleridge's. The point is not simply a pedantic one, for if our sense of love never rises above that of brotherly love, we will not be attaining that sense of divine Love (agape) which is so essential.

One might reasonably equate the three avatars of love --eros, philos, and agape--with the three degrees of mortal mind Mrs. Eddy defines on pp. 115-116 of Science and Health. Obviously the second degree isn't bad or undesirable per se, it simply isn't good and pure enough to lift our thinking to a fuller and more complete understanding, reality, which must take place if we are to demonstrate our oneness with divine Love, our spiritual perfection as God's idea and reflection.

Only a flaneur or naive Micawber passively waiting for something good to turn up could ever think the attainment of a spiritual sense of Love is going to come without many Jacob-like wrestlings or wilderness sessions with the devil like that Christ Jesus experienced in Matthew 4.

God is All and created all. His creation is Love expressed as an eternally present fact. To understand this, even in small measure, requires that we develop a greater spiritual sense, to the degree of embodiment, of Mrs. Eddy's inspired Revelation of Truth, Life, and Love.

Unfailing Supply for Fishers of Men

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery." (Dickens, David Copperfield) Wilkins Micawber's frequent bouts of misery were usually the result of his chronically impecunious and feckless nature, but in these troubled times financial worry and anxiety can come calling on almost anyone, even to the prudent and frugal.

Christian Science provides the only real and permanent answer to what supply and substance really are, though Martha Wilcox feels this is frequently a Brazil-nut concept to crack spiritually. To most of us (Americans at any rate) sawbucks, fins, and c-notes are supply and the provider of substantial things. At some point, all of us will need to master the truth of supply on the basis that Christ Jesus mastered it when he fed the thousands with almost nothing materially, but with unlimited wealth and supply in spiritual understanding of God. He effortlessly embodied omnipotent and omnipresent Truth as a fact.

Until we get it the way Christ Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy clearly got it we will be subject to the terrible demons of temptation to believe in lack and loss. Many of the association addresses mentioned in the previous entry have strong and liberating statements on supply. Greenwood has an entire association paper devoted to the subject.

Milton Simon, one of the best contributors to the periodicals over many years, also has many fine articles on supply and finances, frequently from the business point of view. He can't be over-recommended. Two compilations of his articles (17 and 19) should still be available from The Bookmark. Two feasts.

Finally, a can't-be-over-recommended book: From the Methodist Pulpit Into Christian Science and How I Demonstrated the Abundance of Substance and Supply, by Reverend Severin E. Simonsen (1928). It should also still be available from The Bookmark. A lasting Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings.

Caveat Emptor, It's a One-Off

For many of us primary class instruction with a loyal, inspired and inspiring, pure, and uncompromising teacher has proved to be a blessing for which we can never be too grateful. Some sadder but wiser students now rue their experience, especially since it can't be returned at customer service for another try. Certainly, if a pig in a poke was chosen on the basis of propinquity, popularity, and prestige, that wasn't a strategy for long-term satisfaction.


Many years ago there was an embarrassment of riches for the prosective student to choose from. Now it is probably closer to just an embarrassment from which to select a poke. Personal ambition to become a teacher, fawning support of the Mother Church menu du jour, and a willingness to agree to any unsavory pre-condition has undoubtedly degraded the roster of this most important of callings.


It is easy to wish class instruction was not a one-off privilege, but Mrs Eddy's wisdom must trump any quibbles. The teacher has responsibilities to his pupils long after the class, so if more than one teacher was in the picture there could easily be a mental conflict on the student's part, especially if the least favored teacher's thought proved more dominant.

Maybe one can sweeten somewhat any regrets by reading some wonderful association papers by Samuel Greenwood, Martha Wilcox, and Dr. John Tutt. Those of Bicknell Young might also be added. Many of their association papers can be obtained from The Bookmark, (800)220-7767 or www.thebookmark.com. For some, such materials are, of course, proscribed by their teachers, which is understandable.

Mr. Young's "Primary Class of 1936" is also available, but should be approached with caution, if at all, since it is somewhat of its time. It is not a realistic alternative to good class instruction, which is provided for, after all, by Mrs. Eddy, though this questionable quarter-loaf might still prove more nourishing than a stale and moldy full one.

Doughty Doughboys, Not Docile Doormats

Man can no more escape or be ejected from church than he can from heaven. Both proceed from omnipresent God. If error seems to occupy or dominate The Mother Church and many branch churches, we must learn that in reality it is not there now, nor has it ever been. The truth of the situation must be so thoroughly understood that we become much less impressed with and conscious of anything but omnipotent God and His perfect creation, including church.

To do this means we have to be ever watchful and alert to every false belief and wrong-doing so that we do not become unwitting supporters of and accomplices in what must be unseen and thus destroyed. Error ignored or unwisely tolerated is error aided and abetted. We are experiencing the church we see, just as we are experiencing the picture of body we cling to.

We cannot allow ourselves to become disobedient Jonahs fleeing to some Tarshish in order to avoid obeying God's command to face the wickedness of Nineveh. Mrs. Eddy explains God's command to Moses to come back and grab the serpent by the tail as handling error and making it instead a staff upon which to lean. We must turn from what seems odious in the present church and establish in thought a more perfect depict, from which we never turn away.

If enough of us do this faithfully it will heal this aggressive and seemingly ineluctable falsity and reveal its nothingness, not merely its disappearance or fading away. Such prayer and increased understanding will also strengthen us as soldiers of Christ.

The Useful Allure of Cotton Candy

Some interest has suddenly blossomed in the Discussion Forum of the Church website (?). What about it? My own inclination, not surprisingly, is to be extremely cautious about such places. Like Spirituality.com, or whatever it is/was, they are, to some of us at any rate, little more than diversonary public relations sideshows. They give a bread-and-circuses impression that meaningful activity is taking place, all the while deviously serving to deflect attention from willful wrong-doing and a G-string-size resume of commendable accomplishments.

There is only one proof necessary to validate The Mother Church's sincerity in meeting the needs of its members: humble, pure, compassionate, Christian, unselfed, gracious, neighborly, loving, and longsuffering actions -- without a remittance slip attached. Aught else is vapid and ephemeral foam. Active web sites can still be at bottom glittering carousels of random thoughts going witlessly round and round and round.

A case in point for the Church's need to feed a few problem children to the lions in the circus is the MBE Library. Why, when for probably a decade or more the showpiece buildings of the Church Center have been underutilized and are now said to be vacant or rented out, do you build at no little cost a new building for the Library? To provide a nice, fresh place for more Gills, Dakins, and Milmines to paw over Mrs. Eddy's private, unpublished papers with their dirty hands? To feed the rapacious megalomania that demands a monument to one's pathetic vanity, paid for, in part, of course, with your loving contributions?

Article VIII, Section 6, of the Church Manual states that each of us has "his duty to God, to his Leader, and to mankind." Notice who is not included in that triumvirate. And Mrs. Eddy adds that by one's "works he shall be judged,--and justified or condemned." And, yes, that includes, a fortiori, moi, as Miss Piggy would say.

A Brief Apologia

One of the chief objectives of this blog is to demonstrate my friendship for the present Church of Christ, Scientist. Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health that she "has been most grateful for merited rebuke" (p. 8: 30-3). Where there has been a rebuke or criticism, these entries have always attempted to provide an explicit or implicit justification for it in the writings of Mrs. Eddy and the life and words of Christ Jesus.

For many of us, the recent past and current Administrations at The Mother Church have acted high-handed, as if they were above and exempt from any criticism or even the need to respond considerately and forthrightly to honest questions. Teachers have been defrocked for having the temerity to question actions of the Board. Is this loveless and vindictive organization the Church Mrs. Eddy gave to us? To say no one should dare to criticise or question the regal Board is to say that Luther had no right to protest the selling of indulgences since such actions were a challenge to the Pope and could lead to schisms. Yet Mrs. Eddy appears to have approved of his actions.

If one is aboard a ship and sees that it is headed for a coral reef, does he not have an urgent responsibility and a duty to bring this impending collision to the attention of the captain and officers of the ship? Perhaps they are already pre-sunk in crapulence or some other false indulgence and need to be awakened and alerted to their dereliction of duty and gross negligence. Some of us would rather risk God's rebuke than to be found ignoring, tolerating, or excusing wrong doing in Mrs. Eddy's great Cause. To fail to speak up would be pusillanimous treason against her and Christ Jesus.

Why not take the high road and pray one's way out of these things? If one feels he is able, let him do so. No one is standing in his way. But sometimes, like Luther, one needs to nail his theses to the church door, to do the highest right he sees at the time. Even Jesus didn't pray the money-changers out of the church.

One can question my motives, my wisdom, and even my sanity if he chooses, it is a game all can play, but any blame and censure due from God will fall on me alone. My love of God, Christ Jesus, Paul, Mary Baker Eddy, and Christian Science makes the risk worth it.

Pagan Proceedings

Though the previous entry appeared to make light of (apparent) recent lunacy at The Mother Church, it was surely blithe naivte that made it come as even a mild surprise to any of us. The signs have been there for a long time.

It has been commented on by me before (not in this blog) that the summer solstice celebrations The Mother Church has sponsored for several years are nothing but a dangerous dabbling in paganism. The Church Center has become a Boston Stonehenge complete with astrological festivities, Jovian jollity (Holst), and the inevitable capitulation to virulent forms of "ancient and modern necromancy" and moral idiocy.

No, we haven't heard of any animal sacrifices or the brewing in a cauldron of "Eye of newt, and toe of frog,/Wool of bat, and tongue of dog" (Shakespeare, Macbeth), but what about the depraved sacrifice of our dear Leader and her lifelong, selfless, loving work on the satanic altar of the Gill biography? This sort of thing, especially in light of the previous entry, is no innocent tomfoolery, and as this serpent burgeons into the great red dragon, it will devour its foolish priests and priestesses. If you have seen Goya's horrific images of war, you should have some idea of the terrors that just might await those who get cozy with the Antichrist.

Some may say this is all "much ado about nothing", but there is no such thing as a harmless infatuation with paganism, astrology, or the occult. The recent past at the Church Center may be far more advanced than prologue.

One reader could not find the original Planet Waves material referenced and quoted from in the previous entry. It may have been removed, for obvious reasons. The full web source address of that story was probably (it got cut off it was so long): http://planetwaves.net/pagetwo/2008/10/31/christian-science-monitor-to-follow-planet-waves-business-model. This reader said the ghastly morass of stuff on this site made random searching difficult and one the witness to much unpleasant content. Also, another helpful commenter has said that an eriscope is a sex-related horoscope or something like that. Cheery news.

A probably unreliable rumor has it that the shadowy "Writings of MBE" is the code name of a project to send the Board of Directors to Uranus, the Magician (according, again, to Holst). Would that we could bid them a heartfelt bon voyage. In such plesant phantasms come respite from these depressing developments.

Note: Some readers have commented that their comments either didn't stick or weren't accepted. The site gets a little frisky now and then. No foul play is suspected. Keep trying, and thank you.

Earth to Mary Trammell, Do You Read Me?

Some, maybe all, readers of the previous entry probably thought the reference to "Plan 9 From Outer Space" silly and over the top (and no doubt it was), but this blog has been advised to check out an entry to another blog, Planet Waves (try http://planetwaves.net/). If you have Bernard Hermann's soundtrack to "The Day the Earth Stood Still" or some space music with the theremin in it, put it on. We are headed into space.

The Planet Waves web site published bits of conversation or electronic correspondence with Mary Trammell, Editor and Chief of the CSPS and a member (alas) of the Mother Church Board of Directors, and John Yemma, Editor of what is left of the Monitor. Says Ms Trammell: ". . . we've been following what we call 'The Planet Wave [business] model' for some time now, studying closely the positive, encouraging spin [pun intended ?] on their articles . . . We both look to the heavens for guidance. Also, off the record, you guys are awesome! I live for my weekly and monthly horoscopes. Did you read the Eriscope [?] for Libra this month? LOL!!!"

"The discussion/interview [with Mr. Yemma] takes place as they float rather gently in space, believing that recording the video 'closer to God' would allow their prayers to reach Him 'before anyone on Earth' . . . Spaciness is next to Godliness" Yemma concluded (much later than he should have). Net, please! Spaciness? The phrase he may have been groping for is spaced out.

My horoscope for today may say "Not all that is baloney is edible". Aha! This may explain a lot of unearthly goings-on in Back Bay. Woods, Harris, the present lot, and who knows how many others are or were Martians, though with the clarity of hindsight we can now see their disguises were always a planet or two off. That hanky panky with the Harvard Medical School was obviously just a ruse to get some help adjusting a few kinks in the Martian anatomy to Earth. Too bad it didn't seem to improve things all that much.

And the MBE Library? We thought it was just an embarrassing white elephant, while all along it was a carefully concealed Earth terminus for interplanetary travel and a hush-hush center for studies in astrological feng shui.

Maybe all this is a hoax of some kind, like Orson Welles' "The War of the Worlds" broadcast. Yes, yes, that must be it. Weird goings-on: the Phillies winning the World Series, Pluto demoted from the official list of planets, the Burger King guy with the grinning mask, Batman and Superman redux. Perspiration is now dripping from my fevered brow. There are ghostly shadows and strange rustlings just outside my window. They are here! Must sign off.