Saturday, January 30, 2010

Spurred On To Greater Spiritual Accomplishments

Some readers may recall that "Far Side" cartoon in which a cowpoke is seen leaving an outhouse trailing toilet paper which has become snagged on one of his spurs. As an aside, I hope Mr. Larson periodically feels some malaise for prematurely abandoning his many thousands of admirers to the mediocrity of epigones. Shame! Anyway, how true it is that the toilet paper of subtle false beliefs are uncannily picked up by those out-of-sight spurs of material sense which skulk in consciousness, thereafter to be found tagging malevolently and tenaciously along.

Scientists cannot say, however, that they haven't been alerted to the problem by Mrs. Eddy. "Christian Scientists cannot watch too sedulously, or bar their doors too closely, or pray to God too fervently, for deliverance from the claims of evil. Thus doing, Scientists will silence evil suggestions, uncover their methods, and stop their hidden influence upon the lives of mortals." (Mis 114: 21-26)

It may take three days for fish and visitors to smell, but animal magnetism should offend instantly and be put summarily out or off. Mrs. Eddy doesn't say one extracts error from mortal mind with frugal dabs and dollops of Love, but "flood-tides of Love". Christian Science isn't fussy finger food, the metaphysical equivalent of dainty watercress sandwiches with the crust cut off. The student who sincerely seeks and desires Christian Science would do well to make daily a dagwood of truths from the Bible and writings of Mrs. Eddy and ingest every nourishing morsel of it he can. Thus materialistic thought rowels will be blunted or removed, the toilet paper left in the outhouse where it belongs, and the student's spiritual strength and vitality increased.

Note: For good or ill the primary intent of this blog is to convey content, thoughts, the wondrous musings and insights of its indefatigable scribbler. As has been said here before, poetry is a hard medium in which to convey information and expository tidbits. If a poet concentrates overmuch on content it is easy for him to end up with a "poem" that is merely prose broken up and arranged to look like poetry, thereby failing to become, as Marianne Moore desired, an imaginary garden with real toads in it ("Poetry"). I'm not shutting the door to more poetry as time and inspiration permit, but it is important that a cobbler stick to his last, however pedestrian the resulting shoes.

Monday, January 25, 2010

At Play in the Devil's Quicksandbox

It is just like the devil to set out all those tasty mushrooms while nefariously mixing in some deadly varieties to afflict the possessor of an untrained or unwary eye--and perhaps his loved ones as well. Cruden's Bible Concordance has an informative discussion of "devil" (in maddeningly minuscule type in my copy), which includes this sentence: "The most subtle of these spirits [antecedent unclear] contrived a temptation , which might be most taking and dangerous to man in his excited and happy state: He attempts him with art, by propounding the lure of knowledge and pleasure, to inveigle the spiritual and sensitive appetites at once." "Attempts", which seems like a misprint for tempts, probably is used in a sense I found in The Student's Dictionary: "Attempt; to attack' to make an effort upon".

The excellent commentator on Hebrews in the "One-Volume Commentary on the Bible" has this to say about verses 3: 12-16: "The essence of sin is idolatry, the refusal to worship the true God. This is also the deceitfulness of sin. As long as we avoid the more dramatic sins and crimes we consider ourselves sound. But the subtlety of sin is that it puts something--sometimes something good--in the place of God. Man's 'original' sin is to put his own preferences before the will of God, and as a result all the structures of his life are distorted and misshapen."

This from Phaedrus (Book IV, Fable 10): "Jupiter [read mortal mind, the devil] has loaded us with a couple of wallets: the one, filled with our own vices, he has placed at our backs; the other, heavy with those of others, he has hung before." And some words of our Leader from "Science and Health" which accompany the margin heading of "Diabolism ['The actions of the devil.'] destroyed": "An apostle says that the Son of God [Christ] came to 'destroy the works of the devil.' We should follow our divine Exemplar, and seek the destruction of all evil works, error and disease included. We cannot escape the penalty due for sin. The Scriptures say, that if we deny Christ, 'he also will deny us.'" (p. 5: 29-2)

The insinuating attractions of the serpent's persistent, hornswoggling come-ons snare daily many whose porters of thought have, like the foolish virgins, grown logy and neglectful. Fear may work best when, to change metaphors, the bait has been unwittingly or gullibly taken and the hook formly set. Satan has his own version of big game sport fishing.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Tasted, Swallowed, or Chewed and Digested?

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.
Francis Bacon, from "Of Studies"

A reader inquired about the source of an MBE quote I used in a recent entry. It was from the so-called Blue Book, a collection of notes taken by a Divinity class student of Mrs. Eddy, some of her watches, letters, etc. It is available from The Bookmark. Quite possibly many (most?) Primary class teachers have proscribed this and like publications with a skull and crossbones, and if so their teaching should be respected. With these types of materials great care and wisdom should be employed in their use. Certainly avoid anything passed around clandestinely in a plain paper wrapper or samizdat-like documents.

Christian Scientists have all they need in the Bible and published writings of Mary Baker Eddy. The Bible lessons and periodicals also provide useful fodder for spiritual growth, though since circa 1980, or maybe post-Phinney (periodicals) and Fanning (Monitor), these have, for many, sadly wandered like little lost sheep. Often good articles from the past are much more helpful and inspiring, and I notice groups of them are being reprinted for sale by the Church. Save your money and instead go to a Reading Room, find the bound volumes, and make exciting discoveries of your own.

The Bookmark also has class papers of Samuel Greenwood, Martha Wilcox, and Dr. John Tutt, as well as some of others I am not familiar with. Many of these papers are splendid, though they may also be on many teachers' list of verboten temptations. The Bookmark also has useful, safe, and convenient collections of articles and/or lectures of stalwarts like Paul Stark Seeley, Dr. Tutt, and Milton Simon. Class-taught students should also have their own association papers, and they may be sufficient. None of this reading matter is a substitute, of course, for the Bible and published writings of Mrs. Eddy, but the best from past years can often beautifully illumine a student's study and prayer. Certainly not all official publications are worth one's while either, e.g., that decidedly homely maiden by Bliss Knapp, "The Destiny of the Mother Church", whose plain face only endeared itself to the Mother Church, contrary to denials, because of a lollapalooza of a dowry. Those who fail to read Destiny or Gill, to pick another favored child, will not be spiritually hamstrung by the omission.

Anything by Greenwood, Wilcox, Seeley, Simon, Gwalter, or Tutt, to name but a few, whether authorized or strictly forbidden, is guaranteed to be far more spiritually uplifting than yet another blitheringly sodden makeweight interview. "Who has time to read all these other wonderful materials when the Bible and writings of Mrs. Eddy are far from being fully digested, understood, and demonstrated?" one might reasonably ask. Another questioner might just as reasonably ask "Who has time to fritter away on a blog when better healing work would be far more beneficial to humanity?" Well, someday I might have a satisfactory answer to those questions--if they need one.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Mankind's Endearing Heffalumps

I loved to choose and see my path; but now
Lead Thou me on.
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will
John Henry Newman (hymn #169)
I understand this was one of Mrs. Eddy's favorite hymns, and with John Dykes' glorious music ("Lux Benigna") it is a barnburner. We may get it "our way" at Burger King or McDonald's, but in the Kingdom of Heaven we either get it God's way or we go hungry. On page 10 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy quotes James 4: 3: "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts."

It is worth noting, maybe, that the Greek word for lust in James 4: 1 & 3 is hedone (pleasure), the root of our word hedonism, not the gnarlier word for lust, which is used elsewhere in the New Testament, epithumia (desire, over desire). Still, our petty lusts will not entitle us to a "get out of jail free" card while the really serious lusters are squeezed mercilessly to the last farthing of suffering. As I have quoted before:
The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us.
Shakespeare, King Lear, Act V, Sc 3

In Winnie-the-Pooh Pooh and Piglet set out to trap the nonexistent heffalump. To them it is very real, though they've never seen one. Mankind's infatuation with the heffalumps of matter and assorted fleshly nougats, which he thinks he knows through the five senses, is just as ridiculous but much less charming. Temporary material needs are one thing. A "harmless" sampling of forbidden goodies is another. Of course one boilermaker won't sentence you instantly to the torments of Dante's Inferno any more than the leap, per se, from a 50-story building will kill you. Floors 49 through 2 should be a painless breeze. It's the eventual and inevitable stop at the street that makes the leap something worth avoiding. For one given to sophistries and self-justification there may be a pecking order of lusts and no-noes, but a tiny concession to matter is still a concession and a smidgen of agony is as painful as a slathering.

If we truly desire to be worthy of the name Christian Scientist, our song must become and forever be, if it isn't already, "Nearer, my God, to Thee,/Nearer to Thee" (hymn #192). Those fond or wistful backward glances at the heffalumps of false attraction may be pleasant to mortal eyes, but they will, if indulged, rapaciously devour the Christliness within us.

Note: I appreciate the recommendation to submit the now not-so-recent Christmas poem to the Journal. However, there is the little matter of "submitted by". "Christian" wouldn't do, and neither would the logical alternative. Plus, the thought of having it picked over and scrubbed by editors is also not appealing, though it is highly unlikely it would ever get that far into the maw of the system. Thank you, nevertheless, for the kind thought.

Note 2: I apologize for the long delay between the previous entry and this one, assuming anyone remains to notice, that is. There have been a number of unwelcome distractions and annoyances to deal with, too much of Martha and not enough of Mary. It may not be the last time.

Friday, January 1, 2010

A New Year's Resolution (2010)

For many well-intentioned and perhaps guilt-nagged souls the musty tradition of new year's resolutions is, I suspect, little more than the opportunity to have a self-satisfying workout with the Styrofoam weights of good intentions and the relief of knowing that sweat and strain will not need to mar, like fire ants at a Fourth of July picnic, the experience. What should be done should be done today, if possible, not delayed to some distant and convenient future day when it can easily be trifled with, forgotten, or left to molder in the bottom of a "honey-do" basket. We may think we live in more benign times than the unconcealed depravity and cruelty of the early Christian era, but seething beneath the whitewashed surface of our seemingly more civilized centuries are insidious and malignant evils which will, if not corrected or destroyed, engulf mankind.

The great red dragon has, we are told, seven heads and ten horns, so we are not looking at some readily defined Goliath, but something more akin to a mental army of hugger-mugger plug-uglies intent on more than busting a few kneecaps. One manifestation of these evils is an age of narcolepsy, insomnia, or a seemingly inoffensive refuge in the teddy bear of sleep. Mrs. Eddy once wrote in one of her "watches": "Watch that M.A.M. does not dull your thought to the clear Word of God. I gave so much to your class--my last class--and so little has been done with it! Why? Because sleep overcomes the thought. Students must be watchers against the 'thief that cometh in the night'.

To which it seems wise to add the admonition Jesus repeated: "Physician, heal thyself." If one is not already committed to being his own physician, it is one new year's resolution he can wisely make--if kept. An understanding and demonstration of Christian Science cannot be postponed forever, so why do so for another year or lustrum or decade? Someone once pointed out in an old Sentinel, I think, that turning reflexively to a C.S. practitioner for help and then returning after healing or alleviation of the problem to business as usual is using Christian Science as a material medicine. Christ Jesus required his followers to "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils", not habitually to seek out the aid of those faithful workers who do it.

Note: A reader gave the definition of mithridatism in a comment to that entry. Since I wasn't intending its meaning exactly, I modified it with malignant. We certainly do not wish to become immune to mortal mind's pernicious effects. My intent was to caution against the very real danger of becoming immune to the deleterious effects of an increasing, imperceptible acceptance of the so-called laws and claims of mortal mind, which then assume aggressive legitimacy in the arrogated plumage of one's false beliefs.