Lycopersicon esculentum var. cerasiforme

I have come to the conclusion that cherry tomatoes are not actually meant to be eaten. They are, I now believe, a makeweight garnish, like parsley, which offers the bonus of a workout for those who try to eat them. Even if one accepts the old wives' tale that they can be eaten, an assertion which could provide grist for a spirited discussion during the workout, impaling one on a fork is a test requiring paranormal dexterity, concentration, and persistence. Anyone who has tried to spear one lolling brazenly on an oil slick of salad dressing can probably attest to the exasperating intricacy of the procedure.

By now, you are probably checking to see if you somehow found "The Broken Egg: Gourmet Notes" instead of "The Broken Net". The inspiring message I am leading up to (at length) is that for me there are quite a number of cherry tomato statements in the writings of Mary Baker Eddy and the words of Christ Jesus that seem to defy my penetrating--understanding and demonstrating--them spiritually to any more than a superficial degree. No cherry tomato, bless its tasteless little heart, ever resisted more frustratingly. [Just joshing. If you are a member of the Ancient and Honorable Cherry Tomato Society, please withhold your brickbats.]

We may think or hope all the tines on our mental forks are sharp and spiritually discerning enough to skewer any metaphysical Lycopersicon esculentum var. cerasiforme set before us, but the qualities needed for an increased spiritual sense of the Word are many and ever in need of honing. More effective prayer, an ear more attuned to angel and still small voices, greater humility and purity , much less self and self-justification, more effective watching, untiring effort, sedulous study of the Bible and writings of Mary Baker Eddy, endless patience, increased love expressed in thought and action, to name a few. The list is formidable, but these qualities and actions are some of what it takes to be worthy of the name Christian Scientist. I hope there are no cries for cherry tomatoes instead.

Note: Kentucky windage is, I think, an informal term for the intuitive correction in aim a rifleman makes to account for the deflecting action of a crosswind on a bullet. If it isn't, that is what I meant.

Fore!

There is something to be said for being a golfer on the rigorous course of human experience who is always playing from thicket-like rough, the lone fairway pit bunker, the drop zone near the pond, the deep green-side sand trap, or the long grass on the short side of a green which runs away sharply (Two solid chips and two firm putts should do it.). Just what cheerful and uplifting little something might that be? That this seeming duffer slicing and hooking his plus-foured way down the links of life is getting invaluable experience meeting and crossing clubs with some of the worst that mortal mind can insinuate or arrogate into man's path. Overcoming each obstacle, sometimes repeatedly until the lesson it offers is mastered, toughens one mentally and forces him to grow spiritually (or abjectly succumb).

Decades of humdrum elbowing, shoving, and toe treading might not accomplish as much as a few years of dragging one's bag of understanding, however limited at the outset, around a diabolical (mental) course. This is not to justify or endorse, however, a grim Sisyphean existence which is all push, stumble, and skinned knees up a steep incline and without even an occasional level spot to chock momentarily the vicious lie of life in matter while one catches his breath. Before the crown is won there will be countless false beliefs to meet and defeat and meet and defeat again, so the more resolute and vigorous today's consecrated effort, the more rewarding tomorrow's experience will surely be. Till at last the blessing of Mrs. Eddy's promise is won and the "course" is finished with joy.

"Missed It By That Much!"

Mrs. Eddy ascribes to the serpent many firsts. Unfortunately, we haven't yet witnessed the lasts of those firsts. Some serpents need to be decisively handled, taken by the tail. Others have a disarming gift of gab, the mesmerizing and deceiving power of a used (pre-owned) car salesman or a snake oil huckster. If we are not constantly alert and watchful, even the gentlest mesmeric crosswind can deflect our work and intentions by just that much, and even a near miss is a miss. Clinging to God with all our might will enable us to avoid error's subtle deflections with the necessary yaw or Kentucky windage to keep us on course.

"Things are seldom what they seem,/Skim milk masquerades as cream;/Highlows pass as patent leathers;/Jackdaws strut in peacock's feathers." (G&S, "HMS Pinafore") A hopeful, faltering, or wishful effort will not generally suffice, since as the poet says, "Faint heart never won fair lady!" (G&S, "Iolanthe") Ivory Soap's 99 &44/100ths % pure is still not the perfectly pure which may be necessary for our spiritual progress and healing. "Bad language or abuse,/I never, never use,/. . . Though 'Bother it' I may/occasionally say,/I never use a big, big D--/What never?/No, never!/What, never?/Hardly ever!" (G&S, "HMS Pinafore")

I need to remind myself often that the song of Christian Science is "Work--work--work--watch and pray." Scrupulous attention to spiritual detail, which is required of those who have "named the name of Christ", should leave no time for a bit of "harmless" canoodling with the serpent, a dalliance which can only result in being inveigled by its seductive whisperings.

Spontaneity: Spiritual Variations on the Letter

"'And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?/ Come to my arms my beamish boy!/ O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'/ He chortled in his joy." (Lewis Carroll, "Jabberwocky") It is our divine right and duty to defeat each day, each hour if necessary, some aspect of mortal mind and be joyfully welcomed anew, like the prodigal son, into the loving arms of our Father-Mother God. I certainly can't imagine God chortling over anything or exchanging knee-slappers over spinach dip and chips, but His presence and love are always here to be felt sans chortle.

No day should pass without our gaining a fresh and spontaneous unfolding, however simple, of some aspect of God and His reflection, man. If the chewing gum of our inspiration has lost its flavor on the bedpost over night (as that silly song suggests) or over many years, we may need to claim more understandingly our oneness with the one Mind and pray and fast our way into greener pastures. I have commented before on the limitless possibilities for variations on a theme in music. The best variations are blessed with inspiration and spontaneity. No two of us understand and express God in exactly the same way. Unlimited individuality, and hence infinite variety, is the only way infinite Mind could be expressed, and the ability to do so is ours as expressions of divine Mind.

We must constantly demand of ourselves newness, freshness, and abundant fructification, which will assure that error is being overcome step by step, here a little and there a little, with Truth. Thinking of this activity in musical terms might help us deverbalize prayer and open our hearts more spontaneously to feeling the power of the Word, as Mrs. Eddy expected. It seems to me that the more "musical" our thinking becomes the less intellectual or literal it will be and the nearer we will come to enriching our affections with pure Christ, Truth, which cannot fail to save and heal.

Note: I regret giving the impression in my Terminator "review" that there would be a sequel. That statement was merely a feint at verisimilitude. No follow-up is simmering on a back burner, so that earlier entry will probably be a one-off.

Trimming the Recalcitrant Wick

It is something of a mystery, but also a matter of some self-reproach and embarrassment, that I, like perchance a few others, continue to blink open my eyes each morning to the hideous Medusa of mortal mind and with an almost familial toleration of its destructive and malevolent nature. It wants me dead, and yet I proceed matin after matin to eat contentedly a bowl of cereal in its corrosive presence. Of course I work and pray to overcome false belief and to be a better Christian Scientist, but there doubtless remains the subtle attraction to think too much "of many things:/Of shoes--and ships--and sealing wax--/Of cabbages--and kings--/And why the sea is boiling hot--/And whether pigs have wings." (Lewis Carroll, "Alice Through the Looking Glass")

Just because I'm not goldbricking--at least I hope not--doesn't mean I can venture out to meet the Adversary with a butter knife in one hand and in the other one of those pistols that has a flag which drops down saying "Bang!" when the trigger is pulled. Notebooks full of comforting, well-thumbed quotations and truths which have become little more than bromides won't do. A deeper--far deeper--spiritual sense of the word is needed, desperately needed. Not frantic page turning, but more watchful, prayerful, patient, and humble awareness of God's omnipresence and omnipotence. More of the spiritual pectin of grace would doubtless help Truth, Life, and Love to "jell" in consciousness. Too many undigested truths can race around in restless and unimproved thought, elbowing and tripping each other like so many Stooges in a metaphysical roller derby.

In some of us--well, speaking for myself--there inhabits, in spite of wonderful intentions, a bit too much of grand Oblomov (the hero of a novel of that name by Goncharov), of well-intentioned indolence. No, of course I don't set out to strike a convivial pose with the devil, but Mrs. Eddy's warnings about animal magnetism and aggressive mental suggestion must be resolutely locked and loaded in consciousness. Mrs. Eddy wrote in "Miscellany" (241: 6-9) about the need for being alert to mortal mind's attempts to undermine advancement where class instruction is concerned. It seems to me her admonition could just as easily apply to any Christlike endeavor we are inspired to undertake.

A Brief Review of "Terminator VII: Bug Hunt"

In the ominous prelude we see Christian Scientists, and all mankind for that matter, slumbering restlessly, like Fasolt (in Wagner's Ring), with their hoard of ill-gotten materiality. Stupefied, deceived, and sedated by the bold and aggressive mental suggestions of Big Bug, too many had simply conceded the field of battle to a false personal sense of reality which had become acceptably familiar over the many years of false education, being unwilling and now unable to cling to the God they had lost sight of with their now blinded eyes. They knew they needed to wake up and rouse themselves, but could never get beyond an ashamed admission that they needed to wake up and rouse themselves. "Human hypotheses first assume the reality of sickness, sin, and death, and then assume the necessity of these evils because of their admitted actuality." (S&H 481: 19-22) Thus their willing suspension of disbelief continued and deepened.

The drama proper begins when from some unexplained source a fresh wind of Truth swirls across the land and breaks the miasma of Big Bug's animal magnetism. The mise en scene is best described by the opening sentence of Kafka's "The Metamorphosis": "As Gregor Saamsa [read each loyal Christian Scientist] awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect." What sporadic, lethargic, and indecisive confrontations with Big Bug had not accomplished the sight of those insect legs wiggling helplessly in the air had. Now many of these students of Christian Science were thoroughly awake and knew it was time to make a deadly serious, if delinquent, reacquaintance with the Terminator, the Exterminator of error, man's omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient Father-Mother God. The apathetic, cold-war co-existence with Big Bug and its personalized little bugs was over. Pages in the Bible and writings of Mary Baker Eddy long only politely and dreamily consulted were now examined and pondered with scrupulous, prayerful, and humble intensity. The stains of sweaty fingers and tears of remorse marked many of them. It was time to confront Big Bug head-on, but now, like Fasolt, he had been transformed into a dragon, in this case the great Red Dragon. The hideous and malignant nature of mortal mind was now fully apparent, and there could be no further putting off of its destruction. The tools of spiritual warfare must never again lie idle for a day.

The movie does not end with the final defeat of Big Bug. The battle of Armageddon continues and may be resolved in the next installment, "Health and Peace Restored".

Yielding to the Irresistible, Wading in Again

When I was younger (humanly) I used to avoid the trial in Science and Health (P. 430 ff.). Like Joe Friday on the old "Dragnet" I just wanted the facts, if I wanted anything, truths laid out like a string of bread crumbs which I could at least make a pretense of following. The trial required thought, and why didn't Mrs. Eddy just tell me in plain English what she wanted me to know? It is obvious now that she treated the subject in the way which would best educate the reader if he was of a mind to be educated and had the humility and patience to ponder the proceedings.



The trial takes up over 12 pages of S&H [the italics button is not working again], and it is certain Mrs. Eddy didn't spend even one sentence on something superfluous. No one will regret exchanging his low-cut shoes or sneakers for some serious high-top boots and wading into the trial, the further the better. In the previous entry I wondered about ruminating after feeling ill, but of course the moment we feel ill is the moment we can choose one of two courses. We can as, Mrs Eddy says, promptly and persistently oppose the suggestion of illness with Christian Science or we can ruminate and let the trial begin. Mortal Man may be the defendant, but the allegory quickly goes from "a man" to "the patient" to "the prisoner", which is his designation until the final page. Mrs. Eddy may have used Mortal Man as the title of the defendant in order to emphasize the need to depersonalize the claims of Personal Sense.

It is also a point of note that the prisoner became ill in the act of doing good. This seems to resonate with the test of all prayer in S&H (13: 5-16) and that equally compelling statement in Miscellaneous Writings (342: 5-9). Viewed in the light of these passages the trial adumbrates a sobering obligation for all Christian Scientists, but one which should be joyfully undertaken.

If we are sincere Christian Scientists, the Court of Spirit may be in session frequently, perhaps daily and hourly if we are confronting faithfully and courageously the legions of errors that beset all mortals. It is imperative that Christian Science be our counsel in these trials. If so, we can confidently expect a verdict of "not guilty". "So we beat on, boats against the current. . . ." (The Great Gatsby) The trial in S&H has much to offer and unfolds endlessly to our attempts to embrace it, even if it seems initially as unembraceable as, well, say "Fatty" Arbuckle's no doubt ample equator.

Note:
Perhaps the reason at least one reader didn't get the Zorro title is that it's dopey. Well meant, but dopey. A good candidate for the cash for clunkers program, along with some others, if that offer hadn't expired. However, I hope I am not alone in remembering this early tv program. Part of the introduction was Zorro's rapier swish, swish, swishing the three strokes of the letter Z. In the far more clean and morally unambiguous days of early television it and other similar programs nearly always presented a weekly catharsis of good over evil and right over wrong. I was hearkening back clumsily to that in the Zorro title, but this apologia doesn't make it any, ahem, zippier, I know. Ad astra per aspera.