Few, perhaps, expected an annus mirabilis in 2008, but how many anticipated what has become an annus horribilis, if there is such a term? No doubt many feel like insignificant bits of flotsam or jetsam desperately trying to stay afloat on an ocean of troubles. Yet, if one has Christian Science and clings to it faithfully he cannot fail to overcome the errors that beset him. The motto of Paris will then describe his dedicated efforts: fluctuat nec mergitur--it is tossed by the waves but does not sink.
New Year's resolutions and fruit cakes are often the targets of cynics, humorists, and realists.
The best laid schemes o' mice and men
Gang aft a-gley;
An' lea'e us nought but grief and pain,
For promis'd joy.
(Robert Burns, from "To a Mouse")
Mrs. Eddy and Christ Jesus have already laid before us all the resolutions we need. Without too much head-scratching, four from the Church Manual could be suggested.
o Article VIII, Sect 1: "A Rule for Motives and Acts"
o Article VIII, Sect 4: "Daily Prayer"
o Article VIII, Sect 6: "Alertess to Duty"
o Article XXX, Sect 7, "Healing Better than Teaching"
It is not enough to do better, think more about, or tackle one by one as time permits, which of course it never will. Eternity wouldn't be sufficient for that approach to progress. There is a good current ad slogan--for athletic shoes maybe--that might be followed: "Just do it". Endless talk (the mincing of ideas into a useless goo) won't do it, for it is far too easy to find oneself in the ludicrous contortion of having his lips outrun his legs. The too-thorough, solitary mastication of truths, moving them methodically from stomach to stomach, but never getting around to producing any milk, is also a futile enterprise.
A thoughtful look at the definition of year in the Christian Science textbook can help one individualize his goals for the coming hours, days, weeks, and years. Newness of thought is an ongoing need, but now is a good time to solidify and begin acting on good intentions, those noble velleities one proudly displays like curios on a mental shelf. To act, to do, enables one to rise above fragile human hopes to the realization of his desires in spite of the depraved tableau material conditions frequently present.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
In Dulci Jubilo
The opening pages of "Christian Science Practice" in Science and Health are suffused with the lambent dawning of Love on the lie of material existence. Mary Magdalene's contrite and wordless response to Christ Jesus' radiant embodiment of Love needed only the spiritual authority of his confirmation of her redemption. "Thy sins are forgiven." And "Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace." The spiritual sense--the only real comprehension--of Love's presence and power cannot be explained, and hence imprisoned, in words.
Mary Magdalene's was a truer homage to Christ Jesus and divine Love than a merely human rejoicing in the nativity of a child laid in a manger. Neither the Christ nor Love was ever born, and no temporal celebration can ever hope to indemnify one's failure to make his life a testimony to the glory of either.
The written word and inspiring example are necessary rungs on the ladder reaching to heaven, but there is no substitute for that ineffable sense of Love's presence in the heart and its hourly manifestation in our lives. "As mortals drop off their mental swaddling-clothes, thought expands into expression." (S&H 255: 1-3) What could better celebrate the birth of Jesus than the nascence or renascence of Christ within us, unfettered by word or the sick and sinful confines of human thinking?
This is also a good time of year to revisit Mary Baker Eddy's Christ and Christmas. Nothing else in her oeuvre is like this Christianly Scientific plum pudding of word and picture.
Mary Magdalene's was a truer homage to Christ Jesus and divine Love than a merely human rejoicing in the nativity of a child laid in a manger. Neither the Christ nor Love was ever born, and no temporal celebration can ever hope to indemnify one's failure to make his life a testimony to the glory of either.
The written word and inspiring example are necessary rungs on the ladder reaching to heaven, but there is no substitute for that ineffable sense of Love's presence in the heart and its hourly manifestation in our lives. "As mortals drop off their mental swaddling-clothes, thought expands into expression." (S&H 255: 1-3) What could better celebrate the birth of Jesus than the nascence or renascence of Christ within us, unfettered by word or the sick and sinful confines of human thinking?
This is also a good time of year to revisit Mary Baker Eddy's Christ and Christmas. Nothing else in her oeuvre is like this Christianly Scientific plum pudding of word and picture.
Friday, December 19, 2008
A Fresh Bone To Gnaw On?
At times of need, many Christian Scientists turn to the chapter "Christian Science Practice" in Science and Health faster than a hungry dog to a favorite buried bone, and for good reasons. How many of us, however, return to the same few well-chosen pages for support? There will come a time--and probably sooner than we might wish--when we need to begin chewing on all of it, the whole chapter, and not just those comfy pages we like best.
For some, the trial may smack too much of boiled mustard greens to be engaging, but people have been healed by gaining a more inspired grasp of it. It is saturated with important and, some might add, subtle points. Mrs. Eddy presents a "mental case", as mental as a case of insanity, which it is at bottom. A temptation could be to view the trial as just an example of how a physical problem--in this instance "liver complaint"--is met and the physical body returned to its normal functioning. Yes, on one level it is that, but since disease can only exist in some false belief of one's personal sense, he needs to begin understanding that matter, nothingness, can never be well or ill and therefore never really healed of anything. We possess a body, but it is not a physical something.
Another aspect of the trial worth noting is that it is the healing of a "Mortal Man" who felt ill in the course of doing good for a friend. Could this imply that a condition for healing or continued healing is to be always doing good for one's fellow man? Mrs. Eddy certainly chose the scenario and every detail of the trial carefully. This query may have a partial answer in the statement and two questions in the chapter "Prayer" (S&H 9: 5-11). Does it not appear that the only way for us to consistently express and demonstrate our God-given health and harmony is first to see and love our neighbor as His flawless reflection?
The above is by no means an attempt to present a definitive statement, or even more than a well-meant first thought, on the trial, but nothing in Science and Health should go unpondered and certainly not the trial. One would not exhaust its message with fifty prayerful readings. It, like all of our textbook, is a wellspring of inspiration, and we need all of it in order to attain and continue in harmony and health.
For some, the trial may smack too much of boiled mustard greens to be engaging, but people have been healed by gaining a more inspired grasp of it. It is saturated with important and, some might add, subtle points. Mrs. Eddy presents a "mental case", as mental as a case of insanity, which it is at bottom. A temptation could be to view the trial as just an example of how a physical problem--in this instance "liver complaint"--is met and the physical body returned to its normal functioning. Yes, on one level it is that, but since disease can only exist in some false belief of one's personal sense, he needs to begin understanding that matter, nothingness, can never be well or ill and therefore never really healed of anything. We possess a body, but it is not a physical something.
Another aspect of the trial worth noting is that it is the healing of a "Mortal Man" who felt ill in the course of doing good for a friend. Could this imply that a condition for healing or continued healing is to be always doing good for one's fellow man? Mrs. Eddy certainly chose the scenario and every detail of the trial carefully. This query may have a partial answer in the statement and two questions in the chapter "Prayer" (S&H 9: 5-11). Does it not appear that the only way for us to consistently express and demonstrate our God-given health and harmony is first to see and love our neighbor as His flawless reflection?
The above is by no means an attempt to present a definitive statement, or even more than a well-meant first thought, on the trial, but nothing in Science and Health should go unpondered and certainly not the trial. One would not exhaust its message with fifty prayerful readings. It, like all of our textbook, is a wellspring of inspiration, and we need all of it in order to attain and continue in harmony and health.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Some Thoughts on Prayer
Each of us has always existed in the eternal now as God's perfect and harmonious idea. The extent to which this is not being realized and expressed is the extent to which sin and aggressive mental suggestion occupy thought. Through prayer the righteous overcome sin and its attendant demons of fear, disease, and death.
Christ Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy admonish us to enter our (mental) closets, close the door, and pray to our Father in secret. The door, we are told, shuts out sin: sinful sense, the physical senses, the erring senses, the material senses (S&H 15: 4, 7, 10, 16). Those false senses, facets of personal sense, blind us to everpresent God. The door must be shut, not just pulled to, since being even slightly ajar will allow sin and false belief, which can never perceive God, to enter. Then prayer becomes a wrangle with error instead of a communion with God, and tussling with error can have the effect of making its claims appear more real and formidable. In that event what was intended to be standing in God's healing and uplifting presence devolves into a kind of mad hatter's tea party.
It is more important that our prayer be a knowing of Truth than a denial of error. We also cannot permit sin to enter the closet with us to be purged there from our thinking, like Clark Kents entering a handy restroom to emerge as spiritual supermen. Nor is the closet a portal, like the storied magic wardrobe, through which one passes into some enchanted kingdom.
Why must we pray in secret? Secret is being used in the sense of unseen, private, removed from sight. "The Student's Reference Dictionary", explained in previous entries, also gives this inspired definition of secret: "Known to God only." Daily growth in grace will enable us to pray more effectually, but the specific steps each of us takes will of necessity be the result of individual spiritual unfoldment. Then we shall not just read, but know, that "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High [abides] under the shadow of the Almighty."
Christ Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy admonish us to enter our (mental) closets, close the door, and pray to our Father in secret. The door, we are told, shuts out sin: sinful sense, the physical senses, the erring senses, the material senses (S&H 15: 4, 7, 10, 16). Those false senses, facets of personal sense, blind us to everpresent God. The door must be shut, not just pulled to, since being even slightly ajar will allow sin and false belief, which can never perceive God, to enter. Then prayer becomes a wrangle with error instead of a communion with God, and tussling with error can have the effect of making its claims appear more real and formidable. In that event what was intended to be standing in God's healing and uplifting presence devolves into a kind of mad hatter's tea party.
It is more important that our prayer be a knowing of Truth than a denial of error. We also cannot permit sin to enter the closet with us to be purged there from our thinking, like Clark Kents entering a handy restroom to emerge as spiritual supermen. Nor is the closet a portal, like the storied magic wardrobe, through which one passes into some enchanted kingdom.
Why must we pray in secret? Secret is being used in the sense of unseen, private, removed from sight. "The Student's Reference Dictionary", explained in previous entries, also gives this inspired definition of secret: "Known to God only." Daily growth in grace will enable us to pray more effectually, but the specific steps each of us takes will of necessity be the result of individual spiritual unfoldment. Then we shall not just read, but know, that "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High [abides] under the shadow of the Almighty."
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Taming Talk's Tenacious Tintinabulation
One of several downsides to the lemming-like proliferation of the internet and cell phones is the generation of a tsunami of inane verbiage, which inundates sacred silence and leaves us with the muck and dismal din of spoken and written logorrhea. Many, of course, would flee the silence if they were exposed to it, but time for quiet, solitary prayer and thought is essential if we are to commune with God and grow in Christian Science.
Mankind seems to have acquired a desperate, insatiable desire to talk or listen to talk, no matter how mindless and useless. Babble and idle chitchat the world lived without for most of its history are now de rigeur. "If people would confine their talk to subjects that are profitable, that which St. John informs us took place once in heaven, would happen frequently on earth,--silence for the space of half an hour." (MBE, Mis. 339: 2-5) If we are ever going to hear that still, small voice which helps and heals, we must find sanctuary in hours of patient quietude, no matter how insistent the desire to hear someone or be heard.
A/the Mother Church web site has apparently encouraged participation in a lively, active discussion on "spiritual healing, spirituality, and Mary Baker Eddy" or something along those lines. To what end, one would like to know, and why are they so ashamed to talk about Christian Science healing if people must natter about something? " 'Beware the Jabberwock, my son!/The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!/ Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun/The frumious Bandersnatch!' " ("Jabberwocky", Lewis Carroll) There is obviously a danger of being hoist by one's own observations, but it is far better to listen to God than to me or anyone else.
"And o'er earth's troubled, angry sea/I see Christ walk,/And come to me, and tenderly,/Divinely talk." (MBE, "Christ My Refuge") If one is not secretly, silently, patiently watching for Christ's numinous coming to his yearning and expectant consciousness, it may be yet another potential blessing gone by unheeded, and we will be poorer in Spirit for it.
Note: If the information concerning the lively Mother Church website mulligan stew is correct that Christian Science or C. S. healing isn't a stated topic, perhaps the excitement in the interchange of words couild be juiced a bit by making participation a game of sorts by having a secret word, like the old Groucho Marx tv show "You Bet Your Life", where he announced at the outset to the audience what the secret word was. If the contestant used the word in the course of their conversation a bird (not a real one) would drop down on a string and the person would get a prize. The secret word on the MC website could be Christian Science, and the first 25 people having the temerity to mention Christian Science would get a prize, say a free one-year subscription to the "Sentinel". If someone only said Christian or Science, but not both together, he would get a consolation prize of a free two-year subscription to the "Sentinel".
Mankind seems to have acquired a desperate, insatiable desire to talk or listen to talk, no matter how mindless and useless. Babble and idle chitchat the world lived without for most of its history are now de rigeur. "If people would confine their talk to subjects that are profitable, that which St. John informs us took place once in heaven, would happen frequently on earth,--silence for the space of half an hour." (MBE, Mis. 339: 2-5) If we are ever going to hear that still, small voice which helps and heals, we must find sanctuary in hours of patient quietude, no matter how insistent the desire to hear someone or be heard.
A/the Mother Church web site has apparently encouraged participation in a lively, active discussion on "spiritual healing, spirituality, and Mary Baker Eddy" or something along those lines. To what end, one would like to know, and why are they so ashamed to talk about Christian Science healing if people must natter about something? " 'Beware the Jabberwock, my son!/The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!/ Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun/The frumious Bandersnatch!' " ("Jabberwocky", Lewis Carroll) There is obviously a danger of being hoist by one's own observations, but it is far better to listen to God than to me or anyone else.
"And o'er earth's troubled, angry sea/I see Christ walk,/And come to me, and tenderly,/Divinely talk." (MBE, "Christ My Refuge") If one is not secretly, silently, patiently watching for Christ's numinous coming to his yearning and expectant consciousness, it may be yet another potential blessing gone by unheeded, and we will be poorer in Spirit for it.
Note: If the information concerning the lively Mother Church website mulligan stew is correct that Christian Science or C. S. healing isn't a stated topic, perhaps the excitement in the interchange of words couild be juiced a bit by making participation a game of sorts by having a secret word, like the old Groucho Marx tv show "You Bet Your Life", where he announced at the outset to the audience what the secret word was. If the contestant used the word in the course of their conversation a bird (not a real one) would drop down on a string and the person would get a prize. The secret word on the MC website could be Christian Science, and the first 25 people having the temerity to mention Christian Science would get a prize, say a free one-year subscription to the "Sentinel". If someone only said Christian or Science, but not both together, he would get a consolation prize of a free two-year subscription to the "Sentinel".
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Denying Evil Its Only Home and Sanctuary
The world today seems awash in a Pandora's box of afflictions. Nevertheless, every inharmony we experience, see, or just hear about--whether it is sin, disease, death, hatred, war, famine, loss, or poverty--exists entirely and exclusively in the only place it can--in the rag-and-bone shop of our own personal and mortal sense of existence. If God, good, is really omnipresent, then there is no hidey-hole for such inharmonies to lurk in, even if there were such a thing as a real inharmony.
Mrs. Eddy makes it a duty for each of us, daily, to rule out of himself all sin. The fact that uprooting sin is a daily duty, not an occasional task like putting a new roof on the house, shows the urgency with which we need to approach overcoming all evil, even the imps we fondly indulge. If you're momentarily at a loss for where to start or go next, try the six "lets" in Science and Health (248: 25-11). Lots of grist for the mill there, and the word let is not as passive as it may seem. The "Student's Reference Dictionary" referred to in previous entries defines let in part as: "Followed by the first person plural, let expresses exhortation or entreaty; as, rise, let us go."
We shouldn't unwisely try to outrun our ability to digest and assimilate new truths, which could lead to discouragement or frustration, but Mrs. Eddy tells us we are all capable of more than we do. So festina lente, if necessary, but now is as good a time as any, if we haven't started already, to shake a leg!
Mrs. Eddy makes it a duty for each of us, daily, to rule out of himself all sin. The fact that uprooting sin is a daily duty, not an occasional task like putting a new roof on the house, shows the urgency with which we need to approach overcoming all evil, even the imps we fondly indulge. If you're momentarily at a loss for where to start or go next, try the six "lets" in Science and Health (248: 25-11). Lots of grist for the mill there, and the word let is not as passive as it may seem. The "Student's Reference Dictionary" referred to in previous entries defines let in part as: "Followed by the first person plural, let expresses exhortation or entreaty; as, rise, let us go."
We shouldn't unwisely try to outrun our ability to digest and assimilate new truths, which could lead to discouragement or frustration, but Mrs. Eddy tells us we are all capable of more than we do. So festina lente, if necessary, but now is as good a time as any, if we haven't started already, to shake a leg!
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