Sunday, August 30, 2009

Gumshoe Sentinels?

Here I am once again a touch chastened. There may have been some ready, fire, aim in my assertion in the previous entry that we need to relentlessly ferret out error in out thinking. Well, of course we need to find error and get rid of it, but an excellent Journal article by L. Ivimy Gwalter, "What It Means To Be A Christian Scientist" (June 1970), makes some useful and perhaps corrective (for me) and refining points. The article focuses in part on the need for watching and shows that Mrs. Eddy very often couples prayer with watching as one way to meet and overcome error, false belief. One needs to go no farther than page one, paragraph one, of Science and Health for a QED of Mrs. Gwalter's observation.

On the other hand, no where that I can recall does Mrs. Eddy admonish us to unite as a band of Chestnut Hill Irregulars, don our Holmesian deerstalkers, and set out (mentally, of course) to find a demon's spoor and drive a wooden stake in its evil heart when it is located (to mash together a couple of metaphors). As Pogo famously stated: "We has met the enemy, and it is us." If we watch our thinking faithfully, aggressive mental suggestion will show up soon enough (by definition), like the Blob. There are doubtless days for many of us when we may be up to our necks in mortal mind's malignant and nefarious blob of suggestions. Mrs. Eddy wastes no time in Science and Health telling us what we can do to take these serpents by the tail, snake by snake, and start our own collection of sturdy staffs upon which we can lean in the future.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Consecrated Canoeing Contra Carnal Cataracts

Like most life-long Christian Scientists I have probably read the parable of the sower (Matt 13 and Luke 8) hundreds of times. No doubt, I have usually taken a bit of smug solace in the thought that though I might not be a blue-ribbon producer I had at least achieved the status of marginally "good ground". I am thus sheepishly indebted to Emma Shipman (a student of Mrs. Eddy) who pointed out in one of her (too few) excellent articles that it is unlikely we are wholly one or even two of the four mental states in the parable, but rather may partake (liberally?) of all to varying degrees. This humblingly inspired thought somehow never suggested itself to me, though it was, I fear, blindingly obvious to everyone else. Now I can, I hope, take legitimate comfort in a fruitful garden here and there while vigilantly ferreting out those numerous, inobtrusive wayside, stony, and brambly places and then doing something Christianly Scientific about them.

Ms Shipman discussed in the same article the parable of the tares (also Matt 13), and it has become clear to me, at least, that the enemy who sowed those tares isn't running amok out there in the neighborhood, in my sinful neighbor's back yard for example, but in the only there there is, ones own thinking, ones own consciousness, and harvest time for tares may be for some of us as frequent as bedtime for Bonzo, i.e., daily. It is all too easy to view Jesus' parables as inspiring, but somewhat abstract, metaphysical lessons, when in fact they are instructions for daily behavior and thus need to be acted upon, not merely cogitated.

It might not be amiss for us to think of ourselves as paddling our little mental canoes a short distance upstream from mortal mind's Niagara Falls. The waters around us may appear to be smooth and calm, but the unsensed current of aggressive mental suggestion is strong, and if we don't paddle vigorously against it we could be swept over the falls. We would then learn the very hard lesson that the challenges of canoeing above the falls are preferable to the challenges of having capsized because we went over it. As the proberb says, a stitch in time saves nine.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Sticking To A Hedgehog's One Big Thing

An impressive passel of almosts, of good thoughts and intentions, is not like a drawer full of green stamps [Doesn't that take you back?] which can be pasted into the books and eventually exchanged for a complete demonstration. Thought must germinate (spiritually) like a seed and emerge from the darkness and gloom of materiality into the light of Truth. The mesmerism of mortal mind would see to it one only puts down roots into matter, but never grows up and out of it into the light of spirituality.

Samuel Greenwood pointed out in one of his Association papers (1943) that we live in far more hectic and distracting times than those who lived in the centuries covered by the Bible (Note he wrote that over 65 years ago.), and this has deprived many of time desperately needed for silent communion with God. "Our life is frittered away by detail. . . . Simplify, simplify." (Thoreau, Walden) There is that philosophical distinction (first made by Isaiah Berlin, I think) between the hedgehog and the fox. The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows that one big thing. We need to be hedgehogs who know that one big thing: God through Christian Science. What's good for a fox may not be so for man.

Mrs. Eddy advises and cautions us to emerge gently from matter into Spirit, but emerge does not mean ooze glacially. Like Woody Allen's shark in "Annie Hall" we need constant motion (progress), but not unwise haste. Material man is not a chrysalis state in which one pupates, to emerge one auspicious day as God's perfect spiritual idea. Matter will no doubt seem as ugly, threatening, and fearful as it needs to to deep one in its thrall--if he lets it. We must, therefore, demonstrate daily, to some extent, that one big thing, the omnipotent power of Christian Science and divine Love, which are able to "unclasp the hold and . . . destroy disease, sin, and death." (S&H 412: 13-15)

Sunday, August 16, 2009

In Glock We Trust or In God We Trust?

Would St. Paul be the beloved Christian soldier that he is if he had gone out to confront the pagan world in the name of Christ Jesus attended by a cohort of burly, heavily-armed retainers? Would Christ Jesus not have been wise to pack a little heat as protection against poisonous snakes, wild animals, or brigands? Aren't these just the innocent and "prudent" little lies that get the unwary to keep some pills handy, "just in case", or have a "judicious" contingency plan with a local MD or pharmacist? "If I let the guy with the scythe mow me down like a sheaf of wheat I'm no good to Christian Science, my family, my church, or myself, am I?"

What has one gained, though, when he is "alive" but cravenly faithless to God, rather than dead to the lie of life in matter and faithful and obedient to Christ? There is never enough security in matter, medical procedures, or drugs. The need keeps growing for more and more powerful tools and medicines, and yet the juggernaut of affliction and disease rolls on, undeterred and with ever more aggressive mien. I think of that ridiculous arsenal in "Men in Black", from derringer-sized to ludicrously large, all to little avail as I recall. [Yes, I am ashamed to admit I watched this movie.]

Medical practice can say, for example, that as a result of their enlightened ministrations people live longer than ever. If a rest home packed with vegetating nonagenarians is proof of medical progress, tant pis. W.W. Jacob's excellent short story "The Monkey's Paw" makes a related point very memorably. There are Gog and Magog, and there is God. One can't frolic in both their sand boxes, nor can he hedge a bet with one from the standpoint of the other. There are no degrees of purity or virtue.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

The Enchanting Enchantment of the Apothecary

Probably hundreds of millions of the world's people have in their homes a small nook containing an image or images of deities or beings they worship or pray to. One would like to think that in more "advanced" countries there had been enlightened progress beyond this more material form of worship, but has not traditional idolatry often been merely exchanged for more up-to-date and more inimical ones? In the U.S., and doubtless elsewhere, one sees frequently on the news someone sitting blissfully before a vast array of pill-bottles with an expression of awe befitting an epiphany and with an attitude of reverence he may never have felt for even his loving Father-Mother God.

The ongoing health-care debate in the U.S. has highlighted the extent to which health care and drugs are aggressively asserting a pervasive, all-consuming influence on the lives of most Americans. Medical treatment and drugs (legal and illegal) have become a thoroughly mesmeric miasma permeating the mental atmosphere of all. Unless vigorously exposed and sedulously resisted by loyal Christian Scientists, this evil influence can and will endanger anyone. It is even undermining the alreadly precarious financial stability of the U.S.

In Revelation, St. John mentions sorcerers and sorcery. The Greek word translated as sorcerer in the KJV is pharmakeus or pharmakos, and the word translated as sorcery is pharmakeia. Pharmakeus means an enchanter with drugs (Dummelow says, on what basis I cannot determine, literally "poisoner") and pharmakeia enchantment with drugs. The English cognates of these Greek words should be obvious, and St. John's prophecy and warning should be a command for alacritous metaphysical action for any true Christian Scientist. This is certainly one insidious and malignant assault on man's health and well-being that cannot simply be ignored or given pause until a more convenient time.

Monday, August 10, 2009

A Modest Disclosure

Among the opinions abroad is the assertion that my failure to reveal myself fully is pusillanimous. There are very good reasons for my not doing so, but even if I am a cowardly lion I alone will bear the shame. I don't charge visitors to the blog, and no one is being dragooned into reading my thoughts. I am saying what I feel needs to be said the way I wish to say it. If my method or content is objectionable, injured parties are free to take their offended sensibilities elsewhere or even engage in a spirited, substantive defense of their invested positions.

Cambridge concurs in my need to be circumspect, and I still have strong suspicions that some friendly-seeming Sanballats, Tobiahs, and Geshems would very much like to blandish Christian into a powwow in one of the villages in the plain of Ono. Phil Davis' (Manager, Committees on Publication) quiet shot across the bow in the March Journal is one little reminder that the official Keepers of the Flame do not appreciate being second-guessed. It may also be worth repeating for more recent readers of this blog that the author is not "Christian" as in exemplary paradigm for mankind, but "Christian" as in the leading character in John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress.

To give what little biographical information can be wisely disclosed will probably prove more disappointing than saying nothing. These crumbs will seem like the pulling back of the curtain which concealed (in the movie) the Wizard of Oz. To give dates and places would only whet the appetite of some diligent triangulator. I was, as some suspected, an English major in college (BA, MA, plus a bit), but never taught it except as a graduate instructor of Freshman English. Served in the Army for 3+ years, then for over 20 years in training and education with the Federal Government. Most of my love of literature, music, and the arts was cultivated and deepened after college. I am class taught, a member of the MC, was a Reader, and have served as a Sunday School teacher, board member, and usher. Aren't you glad you asked?

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Letting Go Entirely Of The Adam Dream

Even if the false claims of matter and mortal mind are daily becoming less real because of greater spiritual understanding and demonstration, one may still retain an inhibiting, Antaeus-like adherence to terra firma. Mrs. Eddy makes it clear one should emerge gently from matter into Spirit, but her "gently" doesn't mean ones indulgence sine die of a little more hair of the dog that bit him. Matter, the subjective state of mortal mind, is not like Longfellow's little girl "Who had a little curl/Right in the middle of her forehead;/And when she was good she was very, very good,/But when she was bad she was horrid." Whether pacific or truculent, matter and mortal mind have to go, to be resolved into their scientific nothingness.

Even Christian Scientists are undoubtedly going to be "in" the body for an indefinite time, but that doesn't condemn them to being "of" it as well. [I would like to use italics here and there, but the blog word processing won't cooperate] All Scientists should strive to entertain that "white-winged angel throng/of thoughts" to the exclusion of all other thoughts. The least concession to material thinking deprives them of the seal of God on their foreheads and invites the locusts of Revelation. Progress may be sometimes painful and sometimes painless, but it must be achieved, and delay only increases our indebtedness to God and prolongs the penalty for lollygagging.

Note: My concerns with the full-text Bible lessons were explained in some of the earliest entries to this blog, so there is no point in rehashing them. As a former Reader, I wish I had been able to read from a full-text lesson on Sundays. No more Sunday afternoons largely given over to erasing blue chalk markings, taking out markers, putting markers back in for the new lesson, and re-marking. Yes, there are still Scriptural Selections, Benedictions, and Wednesday readings, but not having the Sunday lesson to mark would have saved hundreds of hours over three years. In short, using the full-text lessons would be perhaps more of a boon to Readers than readers. And what real difference would it make if both Readers on Sunday read from the full-text? What if a husband and wife Reader team left home and drove 50 miles to church only to realize they had forgotten their books and had to read from the full-text lessons? Would that be some kind of blasphemy or an invalid service? Suppose one certain Reader always read with inspiration from the full-text lessons and another dully bumbled his way along Sunday after Sunday obediently using the books. Is the latter still more correct? Except, of course, as readers of this blog know, Mrs. Eddy states clearly that "Readers shall not read from copies or manuscripts, but from the books." (Manual, Article III, Sect. 4) Doesn't this really mean that it is just as necessary for students of the Bible lessons to use the books as it is for Readers?

Saturday, August 1, 2009

"A little learning is a dangerous thing" Pope

"I've grown accustomed to your face" the song says, and unfortunately too many Christian Scientists have grown accustomed to the face of full-text Bible lessons, audio Bible lessons, and even video presentations thereof. Some may need to make temporary use of audio lessons, but to use them as a permanent study sippy-cup is to remain a student in diapers. The cowbird of convenience has laid its egg in many mental nests, and upon hatching, the chick has rudely ejected the Bible and writings of Mary Baker Eddy. These modern "aids", or whatever they are, are a bit like the old movie illusion where persons are seen "riding" in a car, train, stagecoach, bus, etc., but they only appear to be moving because just the background they are superimposed against moves, giving the false impression of progress. This trick is ok in movies, but a very bad MO, so to speak, for the study of Christian Science. Thus the dying of the Light undoubtedly goes on in many well-meaning minds.

Mrs. Eddy demanded the study and pondering of the Bible and her writings. In answer to the question "How can I progress most rapidly in the understanding of Christian Science?" she answers (in part) "Study thoroughly the letter and imbibe the spirit." (S&H 495: 25-28) There is really no easy-does-it option for the would-be dabbler and plodder in Science who is content to back up fellow wanderers in the slow lane. The two Ben Jonson epigrams which Mrs. Eddy provides as epigraphs to Prose Works leave no doubt what she expected. A cannon-ball or two and leisurely float on an air mattress are not a vigorous work-out in the pool any more than listening every day to the Bible lesson on tape or CD is study. Does anyone doubt that (with the exception of a temporary need) Mrs. Eddy would have metaphysically applied one of her dainty shoes to the backside of these expedients had they arisen under her watch?

Reading, even methodical, somnambulistic daily reading, of the Bible and writings of MBE is not study per se. The dictionary bit can be annoying, but the Student's Dictionary has this definition (in part) for study: to fix the mind closely upon a subject; to dwell upon in thought; to apply the mind to books; to endeavor diligently. And (in part) for ponder: to weigh in the mind; to view with deliberation; to examine. So presumably if a Christian Scientist is not doing those things he isn't being obedient to the behests of Christ Jesus and Mrs. Eddy. Their enjoinders are shoes our minds must become accustomed to no matter how ill they may seem to fit today.