Tag Archives: Mary Baker Eddy

Happy Solstice!

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“We are sometimes led to believe that darkness is as real as light; but Science affirms darkness to be only a mortal sense of the absence of light, at the coming of which darkness loses the appearance of reality.”

–  Mary Baker Eddy

solstice

“Eternal Truth is changing the universe. As mortals drop off their mental swaddling-clothes, thought expands into expression. ‘Let there be light,’ is the perpetual demand of Truth and Love, changing chaos into order and discord into the music of the spheres.”
– Mary Baker Eddy

We Are Family

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I had an experience a few years ago that has stayed with me. I was at a local Starbucks – drinking cocoa and working on some stuff at one of the little tables there when a pair of young policemen came in and sat at the table next to mine. I – being who I am – couldn’t help but listen into their conversation. I expected them to talk about their work – busts they’d made, “bad guys” they’d caught. But they began to talk about their wives – meeting and courtship and marriage. Then one of them told an hilarious story about a trip he’d taken to Alaska – I started chuckling at this point and they both looked over at me. I explained that I was really enjoying their conversation – they grinned at me and carried on. I realized as I listened to these guys that I’d been carrying around some prejudices about law enforcement types – and that these fine fellows didn’t fit the stereotypes I’d maybe built up for police officers. It was eye-opening for me.

I was really blest as I was growing-up to be raised by parents who took a very dim view of prejudice. There weren’t many African-Americans in my community when I was a child,. but I do remember one time when Mom and my brothers and I were walking through a Sears store at the local mall, and a young black family with small children walked by. A white man standing near us turned to my mom and said, “Those people should stay in their own place.” My mom – I am proud to say – was trembling with anger at his words. She told the white man in no uncertain terms that that little family had as much right to be there as anyone else and that we were all God’s children.

I think I’ve shared before the story of a trip I took down to Los Angeles with my dad back in 1975 – only a few years after the Watts race riots. Dad had decided to return to his old neighborhood and check out the home he’d grown up in, and soon we found ourselves driving through an area of LA that was very similar to Watts. I noticed this. Dad did not. And even if he had noticed, he wouldn’t have noticed – if you know what I mean. Dad is one of those people who doesn’t take much note of differences in skin color. He pulled up next to his childhood home, and without hesitation walked up to the door and knocked. A black woman opened the door to us and seemed a little surprised to find these white people standing on her stoop. Dad explained that he’d like to check out his childhood home, and Ruby opened the door wide to us, and let us in. Dad glanced around the home and then walked out the back door and into the yard he’d played in as a young boy. I remember him looking around the yard, commenting on the avocado tree growing there, and mentioning how much bigger the yard had seemed when he was growing up. Then he came back inside the house, shook Ruby’s hand, and thanked her for letting us in. On the way out of the neighborhood we stopped at a gas station to get gas, and the black attendant there seemed as surprised to see us as Ruby had been. After he’d filled up our gas tank for us he thanked us for coming, and said, “Come back again!”

When I think about those policemen at the Starbucks and Ruby and the gas station attendant in Los Angeles, it occurs to me that there’s not really all that much difference between them. Ruby’s home was full of pictures of her children – it was obvious her family was important to her – and the policemen’s stories were full of anecdotes about the people in their lives whom they loved. Ruby and the policemen and the gas station attendant had all been friendly and kind to me. All of them had a sense of humor and knew how to laugh.

Humanity walks on a common ground.  I think almost all of us have people we love and care about in our lives. We all laugh. We all grieve. I think most of us want to do right by each other.

It might be helpful to humanity to remember our common ground – to see that whether we’re black or white or red or yellow we are all the children of Love. It might be useful to try to see each other as loving parents might see their offspring – to see each other through the eyes of God, Love, Life.

With one Father, even God, the whole family of man would be brethren; and with one Mind and that God, or good, the brotherhood of man would consist of Love and Truth, and have unity of Principle and spiritual power which constitute divine Science.
– Mary Baker Eddy

 

Mary Baker Eddy Had Chutzpah

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        Millions of unprejudiced minds – simple seekers forTruth, weary wanderers, athirst in the desert – are waiting and watching for rest and drink. Give them a cup of cold water in Christ’s name, and never fear the consequences.
– Mary Baker Eddy, from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures

I’ve started reading Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy again. This is probably the fourth time I’ve read this book. I get something different out of it each time I read it – I come upon lines that, for whatever reason, I never noticed before and that leap out at me and grab my attention. It’s like going on a treasure hunt.

This time what is jumping out at me is the sheer audacity – the unabashed chutzpah – of the book’s author. She doesn’t beat around the bush. She doesn’t try to sugar-coat what she believes to be Truth. She doesn’t write what she believes will make her popular. She doesn’t try to appease anyone else’s ego or try to make her book more palatable to the cynical or worldly. There is a kind of innocent, almost child-like, honesty in her words. I like her. She writes, “The author has not compromised conscience to suit  the general drift of thought, but has bluntly and honestly given the text of Truth.” And she ain’t kidding.

She first published Science and Health in 1875 – almost 140 years ago – and when you think about what the world was like in 1875 – what most religious folks believed at that time, what most scientists believed, what the common thought was regarding spiritual healing – I cannot help but admire the courage it must have taken to publish a book that pretty much went against most peoples’ most cherished beliefs. Her thoughts were progressive then, and they are still progressive today. She writes about atomic power, space travel, evolution, and what today might be classified as ideas found in quantum physics. She went against the common religious beliefs of her day with her thoughts on eternal damnation, heaven, an anthropomorphic god, the story of Adam and Eve, and atonement.

Regarding an anthropomorphic god, Eddy wrote: “The word anthropomorphic, in such a phrase as ‘an anthropomorphic God,’ is derived from two Greek words, signifying man and form, and may be defined as a mortally mental attempt to reduce Deity to corporeality. The life-giving quality of Mind is Spirit, not matter. The ideal man corresponds to creation, to intelligence, and to Truth. The ideal woman corresponds to Life and to Love. In divine Science, we have not as much authority for considering God masculine, as we have for considering Him feminine, for Love imparts the clearest idea of Deity.” (Holy shamoley! Can you imagine how well THAT passage must have flown in a society in which  women didn’t even have the right to vote, yet!)

Regarding heaven and the idea of God sending her children to a place of eternal damnation, Eddy wrote: “Heaven is not a locality, but a divine state of Mind…” and “It would be contrary to our highest ideas of God to suppose Him capable of first arranging law and causation so as to bring about certain evil results, and then punishing the helpless victims of His volition for doing what they could not avoid doing. Good is not, cannot be, the author of experimental sins.” (Even today you’ll find people in “civilized” countries who believe that God sends his own creation to a place of eternal, torturous “time-out” – can you imagine how Eddy’s ideas about heaven and hell must have been received by the general population 140 years ago?!)

Eddy several times referred to the story of Adam and Eve as an “allegory,” she wrote, for example: “In the Scriptural allegory of the material creation, Adam or error, which represents the erroneous theory of life and intelligence in matter, had the naming of all that was material.” (In 1875 the story of creation and Adam and Eve was interpreted as a literal happening by most Christians. Her thoughts about the book of Genesis might have been considered heresy by some. Actually, her interpretation of Genesis might still be considered heresy by some.)

And regarding the atonement and the belief that Jesus died for our sins, Eddy wrote: “ATONEMENT is the exemplification of man’s unity with God, whereby man reflects divine Truth, Life, and Love. Jesus of Nazareth taught and demonstrated man’s oneness with the Father, and for this we owe him endless homage. His mission was both individual and collective. He did life’s work aright not only in justice to himself, but in mercy to mortals,- to show them how to do theirs, but not to do it for them nor to relieve them of a single responsibility.”

Yeah. I am not at all surprised that there were – and still are – people who got all ruffled and riled up by her views. The close-minded, the arrogant, pompous, stodgy and self-righteous, were alive then, just as they are today. They can be found in every group (ahem, even, I am embarrassed to say, amongst those who call themselves “Christian Scientists”). But I don’t think Eddy was at all worried about what those people thought of her. She wrote her book for the other ones – the open-minded, the humble and the honest.

        In the spirit of Christ’s charity, as one who “hopeth all things, endureth all things,” and is joyful to bear consolation to the sorrowing and healing to the sick, she commits these pages to honest seekers for Truth.
– Mary Baker Eddy, from the preface to Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures

Religious Leaders Join Forces to Eliminate Slavery

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   Discerning the rights of man, we cannot fail to foresee the doom of all oppression. Slavery is not the legitimate state of man. God made man free. Paul said, “I was free born.” All men should be free. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
– Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures

This is very cool –

“For the first time in history, major Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox Christian authorities, along with leaders of the Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish and Muslim religions, met to sign a shared commitment against modern slavery, which is considered a crime against humanity.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/02/pope-francis-and-other-re_n_6256640.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000051

So… did you expect to wake up and see this story sauntering through social media this week? Because I have to admit that I did not. It appeared without any fanfare or drumroll – there was no media build-up and there were no hints that this was in the works. But, holy shamoley, this is HUGE, isn’t it? If you go to the URL above, you’ll see in front of you a picture that shows these people all standing side-by-side, united in their efforts to get rid of slavery:
– Pope Francis
– Her Holiness Mata Amritanandamayi (Amma)
– Venerable Bhikkhuni Thich Nu Chan Khong (representing Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh)
– The Most Ven. Datuk K Sri Dhammaratana, Chief High Priest of Malaysia
– Rabbi Dr. Abraham Skorka
– Rabbi Dr. David Rosen
– Dr. Abbas Abdalla Abbas Soliman, Undersecretary of State of Al Azhar Alsharif (representing Mohamed Ahmed El-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar)
– Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi al-Modarresi
– Sheikh Naziyah Razzaq Jaafar, Special advisor of Grand Ayatollah (representing Grand -Ayatollah Sheikh Basheer Hussain al Najafi
– Sheikh Omar Abboud
– Most Revd and Right Hon Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury
– His Eminence Metropolitan Emmanuel of France (representing His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew).

It’s like a Who’s Who of the World’s Religious Leaders.

And wouldn’t it be great if this was just the beginning of a movement towards world peace? Wouldn’t it be great if all the world’s religious – and non-religious, for that matter – leaders and their flocks joined together to end slavery, poverty, homelessness, hunger, environmental disasters – and the greatest of all injustices – war? I never expected to see this story on Facebook this week, but now that I have – now that I’ve seen what’s possible between our world’s religious leaders – I’m thinking why stop there?

Truth brings the elements of liberty. On its banner  is the Soul-inspired motto, “Slavery is abolished.” The power of God brings deliverance to the captive. No power can withstand divine Love.”
– Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures

 

So, like, when did being bitchy become a good thing?

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“Rudeness is merely the expression of fear. People fear they won’t get what they want. The most dreadful and unattractive person only needs to be loved, and they will open up like a flower.” – M. Gustave in The Grand Budapest Hotel

So, like, when did being bitchy become a good thing – a thing to be proud of? I posed that question to a young friend the other day. I’d seen someone wearing one of those “Proud to be a Bitch” tee-shirts or something, and I found myself wondering about it – wondering when rudeness became something to brag about. My young friend gave me an answer that I thought was kind of profound. My friend said that young people get their cues about what it means to be an adult from older people – they hear older people cussing and swearing, see “grown-ups” driving aggressively, observe their frustration with work, and their impatience with life – and, because they want to look like “grown-ups”, too, they copy what they see and hear. The only difference, my young friend said, was that young people don’t have the life experience and history, yet, to go along with their cussing, frustration, and impatience – they haven’t really “earned” the right, yet, to swear and be bitchy.

My friend’s thoughts about bitchiness sent me all kinds of directions. I had to wonder, for instance, what kind of example I’d been for young folks. How many youngsters had learned how to be rude and impatient and frustrated by watching me? Now THERE was a humbling thought. Ahem. I quickly moved on from that one to other ones…

What is it that makes us, as human beings, proud of our anger – proud to have “told someone off”? I decided that was all about ego, really – wanting to prove we are somehow better, braver, stronger than other people. And THEN I thought about that and came to the conclusion that a) in my own experience, yelling at other people has never seemed to convince them I was right, or changed their ideas about stuff, and b) it doesn’t take a whole lot of courage, really, to spout off one’s opinions and beliefs, and cuss and swear and be rude.

It is my belief that it takes a lot more chutzpah to love – it takes a lot more courage to trust in  each other’s good will and humanity, than it does to scream obscenities at each other. In fact, when I think about it – the times when I’ve been the rudest are the times when I’ve been the most scared that I wasn’t going to “get my share” or I was going to be left out somehow, or forgotten or over-looked or harmed in some way.

And something in that last paragraph just made me think of a time when I found myself trying to break up a fight in a parking lot – one guy sitting on top of another punching his face bloody, banging his head into the concrete, and a ring of other guys around them – I found myself in the middle of the circle trying to yank the one guy off the other one, screaming, “Stop it! You’re going to kill him! Stop it!” Instinct (and, in retrospect, a kind of foolishness) had put me in the middle of that circle – there’d been no thought given to what I was doing, and so I can’t claim any special kind of courage there. But – and here’s the part that still gives me a kind of awe when I think about it – after security guards had hauled away the brawlers I stepped back and found that another woman – the parent of one of my former students – had stepped into the circle with me. I remember saying to her, in a kind of wonder, “You’re here, too!” And she said, “I wasn’t going to let you stand here all alone.” She HAD thought about what she was doing – she HAD made a conscious choice to put herself in harm’s way for another human being. She hadn’t screamed. She hadn’t yelled. She’d just stood there beside me. Now THAT was courage. Oh gosh. I’m tearing up right now as I think about it.

“There is too much animal courage in society and not sufficient moral courage.” – Mary Baker Eddy

“In a gentle way, you can shake the world.” – Gandhi
“Anger is the enemy of non-violence and pride is a monster that swallows it up.” – Gandhi
“A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.” – Gandhi 

yelling

Note to Self: Turn off the News and Wake Up

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Last night as the family sat around the television watching the evening news, our son Xander suddenly stood up – like he’d just awakened from a dream or something – and, shaking his head to clear it, said, “What the hell just happened there? We went from, like, 20 reports of death and mayhem to winning a prom date with Seth Rogen…”

We all started cracking up, but after we’d stopped laughing, I started thinking about what Xander had said, and it gave me pause.

Lately it’s felt to me like… well, like our society is under some kind of mass hypnotic spell or something – like there’s this sort of slow-boiling rage and fear continually swirling around us now. I’ve felt it in myself when I’m trying to negotiate traffic to get to work on time – this impatience with the drivers around me who aren’t doing what I think they should be doing to allow me to progress in a timely fashion. And I’ve seen this rage and fear played out on the television, too – ads about painful and debilitating diseases that pharmaceutical companies run to try to sell their drugs (which, the ads admit with a soothing-voiced narrator, sometimes bring on worse side effects than the original disease) – political campaigns based solely on the negative traits of the opponent, shootings in our local schools, quarantines of people who aren’t actually sick but happened to have traveled from the wrong continent, horrific accidents involving drunk drivers and texters. And it’s occurred to me that my society is being mass hypnotized – being controlled through fear by folks who want to sell their drugs and their politics. It really stinks.

I’m thinking that maybe it’s time to wake up.

In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy writes: “Lulled by stupefying illusions, the world is asleep in the cradle of infancy, dreaming away the hours.” And “The press,” Eddy writes,  “unwittingly sends forth many sorrows and diseases among the human family. It does this by giving names to diseases and by printing long descriptions which mirror images of disease distinctly in thought. A new name for an ailment affects people like a  Parisian name for a novel garment. Every one hastens to get it.”

I’m thinking it’s time the world wakes up from its “stupefying illusions”, turns off the television, unplugs itself from the nonsense on the internet, too, and takes a stand. In the words of Ma in Grapes of Wrath: “I ain’t never gonna be scared no more. I was though, for a while it looked as though we was beat, good and beat. Looked like we didn’t have nobody in the whole wide world but enemies. Like nobody was friendly no more. Made me feel kind of bad, and scared too. Like we was lost and nobody cared… But we keep a-comin’. We’re the people that live. They can’t wipe us out. They can’t lick us. And we’ll go on forever, Pa… ’cause… we’re the people.”

Right ON, Ma Joad!

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No More Lessons to Learn from War

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world peace duh right

photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell

Saw the movie Fury last night. Really powerful film. Great acting. Beyond gritty. If ever a war movie was an anti-war movie, this one is it.

I woke up this morning with scenes from the movie playing through my head – scenes of death and destruction, blood and cruelty, courage and war-honor. And, as I processed it all, two trains of thought emerged from the smoke.

One of the trains took me to a place of compassion and empathy for the soldiers in every time and every nation who have felt voluntarily compelled, or been drafted, to take up weapons and kill their fellow human beings. It occurred to me that if I had been a soldier watching that movie I might feel a kind of relief in the knowledge that I wasn’t alone – that the “reality” of war is a shared burden of responsibility, memories, and pain by all who’ve lived it.

The other train of thought took me to this place: There are no more lessons to be learned from war. Mankind has been fighting wars for thousands of years, and I’m thinking we’ve learned everything we needed to learn from that course, and it’s time for us to be done with it now. It is time, my friends, to graduate and move on to more productive and constructive Life-courses.

Some may say that the cycle of War is never-ending and unstoppable, but I do not agree. Cycles DO stop. There’s no law that says cycles have to go on for eternity. I believe there IS a natural law, though – a law of God (Love, Truth, Life) – that pushes mankind towards progress. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (the textbook for Christian Science) Mary Baker Eddy writes: “Every day makes its demands upon us for higher proofs rather than professions of Christian power. These proofs consist solely in the destruction of sin, sickness, and death by the power of Spirit, as Jesus destroyed them. This is an element of progress, and progress is the law of God, whose law demands of us only what we can certainly fulfil.”

We’re surrounded by signs of progress, aren’t we? For all that we are bombarded with news of bigotry, sexism, racism, carelessness, greed, thievery, and murder – there is good going on all around us, signs of a mental stirring, or what Mary Baker Eddy would call a “chemicalization of thought” that is moving mankind towards decency. When we hear about slavery, racism, sexism, and bigotry – most of us in the United States no longer find these things acceptable – huge progress from just 150 years ago when slavery was still a part of our world, or just 94 years ago (in my dad’s lifetime!) when women didn’t have the right to vote or run for public office. This is progress, my friends, progress!

And I believe that progress will bring an end to the cycle of War, too. I believe that our world will find peace.

“What I term chemicalization is the upheaval produced when immortal Truth is destroying erroneous mortal belief. Mental chemicalization brings sin and sickness to the surface, forcing impurities to pass away, as is the case with a fermenting fluid… The muddy river-bed must be stirred in order to purify the stream. In moral chemicalization, when the symptoms of evil, illusion, are aggravated, we may think in our ignorance that the Lord hath wrought an evil; but we ought to know that God’s law uncovers so-called sin and its effects, only that Truth may annihilate all sense of evil and all power to sin.” – Mary Baker Eddy

 

 

 

Tony Kushner: “…With Key to the Scriptures”

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“Oh God, I’m going to now read this Christian Science text… and it’s going to be heavy sledding… and I was stunned to read this absolutely magnificent kind of prose… Mary Baker Eddy was a wonderful writer… she writes gorgeously… and I kind of fell in love with it… I didn’t become a Christian Scientist, but I found it tremendously moving.” – Tony Kushner, talking about the title to his new play, The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures.  http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201405151000

If you were to venture onto Amazon and scroll through the reviews for Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, the textbook for Christian Science, you would see a lot of reviews from people who really loved this book, or really hated it, but very few reviews from people who walked away from this  book with an “eh-so-so” feeling about it. (There are 51 five star reviews, 14 one star reviews, and only 4 people who gave the book two to four stars.  http://www.amazon.com/Science-Health-Scriptures-Authorized-Trade/dp/0879520388/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0X6VT8G4FVS730E7129P)

I think one of the reviewers, Tobin Sparfield, explains this disparity really well in his review: “It should be addressed here… that many reviews are about the Christian Science Church rather than the book itself. Some individuals have had negative experiences with the Church/religion, and while their experiences are certainly valid, I am not about to defend the shortcomings of a human institution in this space. I do feel the need, however, to distinguish between a religion and its book.”

Although I might not be considered a very religious person, I am very grateful for what the study of Christian Science has brought into my life – the healings and my growing understanding of the Consciousness of Love. And I’m very grateful to Mary Baker Eddy, the author of Science and Health, for bringing us the textbook for Christian Science. Science and Health was published back in 1875, but it’s still timely today. Even in 1875 Eddy was talking about consciousness, the nothingness of matter, invention and discovery, evolution, and atomic power – topics that we see being discussed among those who study quantum physics and other physical sciences today. And the topics that are still being debated on religion discussion forums today are topics that she addressed and dealt with almost 150 years ago. God, she told us, was not an anthropomorphic being, but “God” was just another name for Love, Truth, Life, Spirit, Mind, Soul, Principle. Hell and heaven were not literal places, she told us, but states of mind. For her, the story of Adam and Eve was an allegory, not an actual event. She was progressive, far-thinking – a visionary.

The astronomer will no longer look up to the stars, – he will look out from them upon the universe; and the florist will find his flower before its seed. Thus matter will finally be proved nothing more than a mortal belief, wholly inadequate to affect a man  through its supposed organic action or supposed existence. Error will be no longer used in stating truth. The problem of nothingness, or “dust to dust,” will be solved, and mortal mind will be without form and void, for mortality will cease when man beholds himself God’s reflection, even as man sees his reflection in a glass. – Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures

 

 

“Radical reliance on Truth”

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 The tender word and Christian encouragement of an invalid, pitiful patience with his fears and the removal of them, are better than hecatombs of gushing theories, stereotyped borrowed speeches, and the doling of arguments, which are but so many parodies on legitimate Christian Science, aflame with divine Love. – Mary Baker Eddy

Recently a fellow Christian Scientist  made a comment on one of my blog posts that got me to thinking (which is always a good thing, right?) 🙂

Don wrote: “Mrs. Eddy pushes us to have ‘radical reliance’ on God–an impossible order if one wishes to be ‘fat and happy’ in matter, too. Consequently, some individuals find ourselves taking a ‘halting and halfway position’ in our religion and at that point begin accepting all sorts of logic that veers away from true Christian Science. Loving our fellowman who has opposing views doesn’t mean ‘getting in bed with him.’ …Medicine is a mind-science. Christian Science is Mind (God) Science. There is a dramatic and opposite difference between the two, and we must be careful to keep both feet solidly grounded in that ‘Science’ which does bless us and the world–in spite of how illogical it seems to the materialist or to those of us who want to ‘play nice’ with the world. It all boils down to our responsibility, and it can’t be shirked forever by any one of us. We must take a stand for Truth (God) if we wish to grow out of mortality using the same conviction as is recorded in Psalms ‘Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.” (Ps 20:7)’ “

Don’s post got me to thinking about just what “radical reliance on Truth” actually means. Is  “radical reliance on Truth”  simply a euphemism for “avoiding the use of traditional medical science”? Or does “radical reliance on Truth” mean something else entirely – something bigger, something more?

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Only through radical reliance on Truth can scientific healing power be realized. – Mary Baker Eddy

If we would open their prison doors for the sick, we must first learn to bind up the broken-hearted. If we would heal by the Spirit, we must not hide the talent of spiritual healing under the napkin of its form, nor bury the morale of Christian Science in the grave-clothes of its letter. – Mary Baker Eddy

I’m thinking that we need to be careful not to bury the talent of spiritual healing under the “napkin of its form.” Whatever means a person chooses to use for healing – whether it’s naturopathy, traditional medical science, Christian Science treatment, or something else – that’s the form, the means, the method. The morale, or essence, of spiritual healing is Love – Love is the power that heals and transforms us. The God I follow – Love, Truth, Life, Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit (synonyms Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, gave for “God”) – isn’t concerned with what kind of treatment we choose to use – Love is going to remain unchanging Love, and Truth is going to remain unchanging Truth, no matter what form or method we use for physical healing. Truth doesn’t have an opinion on which form of treatment is best for treating disease – because Truth doesn’t know anything about disease, to begin with. Truth knows only perfection. And Truth and Love are synonyms, so doesn’t “radical reliance on Truth” also mean “radical reliance on Love”?

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Material methods are temporary, and  are not adapted to elevate mankind. – Mary Baker Eddy

        If Christian Scientists ever fail to receive aid from other Scientists, – their brethren upon whom they may call, – God will still guide them into the right use of temporary and eternal means. Step by step will those who trust Him find that “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”  – Mary Baker Eddy

Christ, Truth, gives mortals temporary food and clothing until the material, transformed with the ideal, disappears, and man  is clothed and fed spiritually.- Mary Baker Eddy

        Emerge gently from matter into Spirit. Think not to thwart the spiritual ultimate of all things, but come naturally into Spirit through better health and morals and as the result of spiritual growth. – Mary Baker Eddy

When I choose to use Christian Science for healing I know my thought is going to be “elevated” by the experience, I know I’m going to gain a greater understanding of God and of who I am as her child, and I know I will be transformed – not merely healed physically – but transformed.

I choose to turn to Christian Science for healing because it’s simple, natural, uncomplicated – it’s always available to me no matter where I am, or who I’m with, or what scrape I’ve gotten myself into “this time”. I choose to use my understanding of Christian Science to bring me healing because it has been proven to work for me.

My motives for choosing Christian Science treatment for healing have nothing to do with a fear of what other Christian Scientists are going to think of me, or because I’m concerned God’s going to be angry at me, or because I’m worried about being ex-communicated, or because I’m opposed to something else, or because I’m scared of medical science, or feeling angry, self-righteous, or smug. My motive for turning to Christian Science for healing isn’t because I feel the need to take a “stand for Truth” – Truth doesn’t need me to take a stand for it – it’s not in some battle it might lose – Truth was Truth yesterday, and will remain Truth tomorrow – and nothing I do is going to change that. Truth doesn’t need me to side with it to continue to be Truth. 

I use Christian Science because it’s natural for me to do so – it’s natural for me to draw my thoughts close to Love, to wrap myself up in the power of Truth, to free my thoughts to dance in the celebration of LIfe. And it’s natural for me to experience healing by doing so.

And THAT is radical. man! 🙂

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Students are advised by the author to be charitable and kind, not only towards differing forms of religion  and medicine, but to those who hold these differing opinions. Let us be faithful in pointing the way through Christ, as we understand it, but let us also be careful always to “judge righteous judgment,” and never to condemn rashly. – Mary Baker Eddy

“Beauty is a thing of life…”

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“The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or how badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.” – Kurt Vonnegut

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Oldest son is home from university for spring break. As I’m upstairs, working on some photos I’ve taken this morning, I hear him downstairs, practicing snippets of songs on the piano. I go down the stairs half-way and sit on the steps around the corner – positioned so he can’t see me – and settle in to listen. Soon he gets up and moves around and sees me sitting there – I’m busted! He grins. “Will you play some more?” I ask. “Sure,” he says – he is a good sport, my son. He goes back to the piano and I make myself comfortable on the sofa, stretched-out horizontal, eyes closed – and listen to the perfect beauty of Pachelbel. After a minute or two I open my eyes and glance into the dining room – and there’s the youngest son, finishing up a project for an art class. Two images flash into my memory: The oldest son sitting at the piano as a toddler, a big grin on his face; The youngest son on his knees on a chair in front of the dining room table, a paint brush in his little two year-old hand, creating a watercolor.

***

Oldest son is three-fifths of the way through War and Peace. Something has just struck him – he’s been wondering why everyone is learning to play music in this book – and at first he’s thinking – why is it so important?  And then it hits him – oh… yeah… if you wanted to share music with your friends 200 years ago, you had to be able to play it yourself!

I am surrounded by expressions of Soul. I feel wealthy beyond description.

        Whatever inspires with wisdom, Truth, or Love – be it song, sermon, or Science – blesses the human family with crumbs of comfort from Christ’s table, feeding the hungry and giving living waters to the thirsty. – Mary Baker Eddy

Beauty is a thing of life, which dwells forever in the eternal Mind and reflects the charms of His goodness in expression, form, outline, and color. – Mary Baker Eddy