A Note That Burgeoned

As I scribbled on diligently with what started as, if not a baby, an adolescent note I thought of Woody Allen and the instant pudding, or instant whatever it was, in "Sleeper", though I resisted the temptation to subdue it with a broom. Feel free to pass on by, welcome visitor, if you are now chary of the prospect.

Some housekeeping matters. There have been a couple of recent requests--Supporter (Southwest) and Anonymous (I think)--for some personal healings. I feel it wise at present to keep this blog as impersonal as possible and not draw what would possibly be undesirable attention to me. I also do not wish to chance that anything in this blog would be post- or pre-validated or invalidated by some perception regarding or reaction to a healing. Additionally, I need to avoid any inadvertent disclosures which could jeopardize anonymity and loose from their kennels the salivating bloodhounds. Read instead the testimonies in the Sentinels and Journals of the 30's, 40's, and 50's. Some are staggering, humbling evidence of what God and even a limited understanding of Christian Science can do. This verbiage may seem a lot like an unconvincing song and dance response, but at present I feel it best to stick to my chosen last.

The use in a comment to a previous entry of the word "demonstration" for "healing" deserves a comment of its own. By a timely coincidence I recently read a first-rate article in the June 1945 Journal by Emma Easton Newman, CSD, "To Demonstrate 'This Living Vine'". She writes: "However, some of the testifiers [at Wednesday evening meetings], not yet versed in the true and spiritual meaning of demonstration, speak of physical improvement, or an increase in salary, or the obtaining of a house, or some other human objective, as a demonstration. . . . If we ask ourselves, Am I demonstrating the 'living Vine', the Christ? we shall use the word 'demonstration' less frequently, but more accurately. It is impossible to assert the nonexistence of matter and material projects and recognize that the mortal, the material, the carnal mind is a dream, utterly unreal, and then expct to demonstrate or prove anything in this dream. We demonstrate our at-one-ment with God through claiming and utilizing the Mind of Christ." Further on she continues: "He [the student of Christian Science] needs to be shown that his necessity is to demonstrate his oneness with the Father, to demonstrate divine Principle, Life, and Love, to demonstrate life in Christ. He sometimes thinks of the healing that is the fruitage of demonstration as being the demonstration itself, whereas the higher meaning of demonstration is the fuller realization of the Christ, Truth." My trusty Student's Reference Dictionary gives, in part, this definition of demonstrate: "To show and prove to be certain; to prove beyond the possibility of doubt". This exerpt from Mrs. Newman's excellent article, which needs to be read in full, does not do it justice.

I have hemmed and hawed before on requests for poetry. For me, poetry is not motivated by a desire or need to put an arrow in a bull's eye, i.e., to make a point. It comes more from spontaneous inspiration (though that might be a self-flattering word to use) and can eat up scads of valuable time. Additionally, I think I detect that many kind readers of this blog are not irresistibly drawn to the sunlight dappled glades and dells of poesy. This isn't a "No and don't bring up the subject again", but rather to say that as time and the sputtering fires of the muse permit, we'll see.

Finally, I noticed after my last entry that I was not alone with limpets, not Georgia, on my mind.