The Media
March 20, 2003
Acquaintance with the Science of being enables us to commune more largely with the divine Mind, to foresee and foretell events which concern the universal welfare, to be divinely inspired,--yea, to reach the range of fetterless Mind.
There was light attendance at the meeting, so we were able to soften our usual formalities a bit.
This was certainly the week to look at the media from a spiritual standpoint. The die for war was cast after moderating influences failed, and peace demonstrations burgeoned world-wide. As the polls indicated growing support in the US for invasion, alternate views in the media were eliminated. For instance, the Donahue show was canceled on MSNBC while the French and Russian responses to Colin Powell's pro-war speech were blacked out on network TV, except for NBC.
We didn't feel there was a government plot but rather a convergence of advertising requirements (who would sponsor the time for anti-war segments?) and the tendency of mortal mind to seek safety in supporting whatever a laser beam president of the American hyper-power wants.
This is treacherous territory for the Christian Scientist trying to work metaphysically on the issue. As one member put it, "I've got to get the media perception of what Bush is doing out of my thought before I can pray about the situation."
This led another to suggest we try to get what Bush and Hussein are driving at with their actions. Some thought it was safety for themselves and their people. A couple thought there was also a sense of mission: for Hussein, to be the savior of the Arabs; for Bush, to control "rogue states." Ego inflation to be sure, but we felt it could be regularized by prayerful acknowledgement of one Ego, God blessing and harmonizing all.
One member said, "Whether the media is partisan or even yellow, a Christian Scientist should be able to get at the underlying issues that need healing." Not as easy as it sounds, said others.
To help cut through the politics, advertising and propaganda releases, one member thought we could look at the media as basically spiritualist mediums, transmitting not from dead to live mortals, but from and to various states and stages of consciousness. "Yes, and it's all language for the one Mind communicating with itself," added another.
This allowed us to see Christ as the medium conveying divine realities from God to man. "Can we keep this vision alive as we look the so called news square in the eye?"
Here are a couple of healing thoughts that came up.
1) Media is a word for the means by which we access the reality of being.
2) War is an acute outburst of human will. This can be stripped of its dualism and translated up to the divine will, bearing peace, well being, etc.
Two healings were reported.
1) Years ago a member was approached by a man whose sexual fantasies ran mainly to chewing on his sexual partner's socks. Our member found himself unable to express enthusiasm for actualizing the fantasy but did see an opportunity to bring Christ into the picture. Apparently the word for sock in Spanish is "media". It's a logical term, since the sock is worn between the foot and the shoe. It's in the middle, just as Christ is between God and man. This brought him a vivid realization that the man was seeking Christ in the fantasy — and he told him so. Our member was able to extricate himself. He has since seen the man and feels the fantasy is still intact. Understandably he is reluctant to inquire as to any changes it may have undergone.
2) This week a member heard a piano accompanist he felt would be just right for him in his quest to sing the blues. When he called the man's house, his wife answered and their interaction quickly degenerated as the woman asked pointed questions our member was disinclined to answer. When the pianist finally got on the line, he was quite cold and said our member had upset his wife. They'd be unable to work together. That night our member prayed about the situation, working particularly to trounce resentment. It came to him that the wife was only trying to protect her husband from a telemarketer. He called again the next day. This time he asked for forgiveness, saying he had no defense for his actions the day before. The ill feelings were quickly healed and the two musicians will soon start working together.
One of the points raised in the meeting was that the media are but enhancements of our own senses. So we thought we'd look at The Senses for next week.
And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God?
the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.
If Spirit pervades all space, it needs no material method for the transmission of messages. Spirit needs no wires nor electricity in order to be omnipresent.
Spirit is not materially tangible. How then can it communicate with man through electric, material effects? How can the majesty and omnipotence of Spirit be lost? God is not in the medley where matter cares for matter, where spiritism makes many gods, and hypnotism and electricity are claimed to be the agents of God's government.
The press 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. A minutely described disease costs many a man his earthly days of comfort. What a price for human knowledge! But the price does not exceed the original cost. God said of the tree of knowledge, which bears the fruit of sin, disease, and death, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."
It is ignorance and false belief, based on a material sense of things, which hide spiritual beauty and goodness. Understanding this, Paul said: "Neither death, nor life, . . . nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God."
Divine Science alone can compass the heights and depths of being and reveal the infinite.
In divine revelation, material and corporeal selfhood disappear, and the spiritual idea is understood.
The grand verities of Science will sift the chaff from the wheat, until it is clear to human comprehension that man was, and is, God's perfect likeness, that reflects all whereby we can know God. In Him we live, move, and have being. Man's origin and existence being in Him, man is the ultimatum of perfection, and by no means the medium of imperfection.
It is the pulpit and press, clerical robes and the prohibiting of free speech, that cradles and covers the sins of the world,—all unmitigated systems of crime; and it requires the enlightenment of these worthies, through civil and religious reform, to blot out all inhuman codes. It was the Southern pulpit and press that influenced the people to wrench from man both human and divine rights, in order to subserve the interests of wealth, religious caste, civil and political power. And the pulpit had to be purged of that sin by human gore,—when the love of Christ would have washed it divinely away in Christian Science!