As members arrived at the room assigned for our meeting we found a woman who was looking for any group which could help her find a new apartment in the currently tight real estate market. She decided to stay and our first few minutes were spent giving her some Christian Science basics, including some readings from the Preface of Science and Health.

We then turned to our topic, Celebration, which was established last week to embrace the events of Gay Pride week then unfolding.

After readings on the subject, our chairperson quoted — and perhaps enhanced — a statement made during the week by a member who was unable to attend: "I celebrate Christian Science, which I see as the second coming of Christ and the only reasonable basis for existence. I also celebrate the great progress being made by Gay people in general societal integration and our consequent ability to concentrate on the deeper, more interesting and spiritual aspects of being Gay."

A couple of members then deconstructed the Gay Pride March in terms of Greek mythology. One quoted extensively from an article in the June 25, 2000 issue of The New York Times. Its author, Adam Nagourney, describes the origin of the March in protest politics of the early 1970's and the crucial role played by Craig Rodwell, a Christian Scientist who also helped found our predecessor group Gay People in Christian Science. Under Craig's aegis, the March was all about Gay people as normal, good people and the human rights and fair treatment that should flow from this view. In short, returning to our Greek theme, the god Apollo.

Nagourney goes on to show how control of the event passed to bar owners and other commercial interests in the 1980's. Semi-nudity, loud music and other excesses now predominated with more sober groups plodding in between. (The new bosses also re-routed the Parade, as it was now designated, to terminate in the Village, where bars and all manner of enticements awaited the revelers). The god Dionysus summarizes the drives underlying the wild abandon displayed here.

Translating these mythological observations into Christian Science, our members read first from Science and Health: "In the figurative transmission from the divine thought to the human, diligence, promptness, and perseverance are likened to 'the cattle upon a thousand hills.' They carry the baggage of stern resolve, and keep pace with highest purpose" (p. 514:14-18). This is Apollo.

Next they read from page 23 of Mrs. Eddy's autobiography about her healing from a fall on the ice, thought to be fatal (see Retrospection and Introspection for the full account). It includes lines like "...the moment arrived of the heart's bridal..."; " ...lo, the bridegroom came!"; " My heart knew its Redeemer". In other words, some pretty over-the-top stuff, or Dionysus.

Our members were able to show that Christian Science, like the Gay rights movement, is not just an orderly unfoldment of the law of perfection but includes much that would seem excessive and outlandish as it reaches beyond static material belief into the realm of the real.

A member pointed out that celebration is a human concept. Mortals celebrate some breakthrough, some hint of perfection: perhaps a healing or coming to the flesh of a solution unimaginable to dull mortality but feasible once mortal mind is shot through with enlightenment. Celebration is one of those concepts, like desire or miracles, which point to the Science of the situation but are dangerously dualistic if not advanced to Christ understanding — i.e., actually being Christ and not a mortal seeking or celebrating something.

The reading from Matthew provoked a discussion of celebration and gift giving. The woman's ointment could have been sold and the proceeds distributed to the poor. Jesus in the previous chapter had extolled the merits of giving, yet here he just accepts the woman's honoring of him. He remarks that the poor will still be there, gift or no gift. Indeed the member who read this story felt poverty consciousness — i.e., mortal mind — was better addressed by the Science implied in the woman's action than in any gifts to the so called poor, for she looks beyond matter to the Christ.

Our chairperson wanted to tell us of a remark made by one of our members who telephones in each week. As they were discussing the structure of Christian Science versus its more far out understandings — there's that Apollo/Dionysus business again — he said, "The Manual [of The Mother Church] is the lead walls within which the nuclear reactions of Christian Science can occur."

We then turned to some current events.

1) There was much celebration of the human genome this week. We drew on Mrs. Eddy's understanding of human events as hints of the existence of a divine idea (see Miscellaneous Writings, p. 60: 28-3). This huge breakthrough points to divine Genetics — all origins and destinies in non-dualistic perfection.

2) The Supreme Court's decision to permit exclusion of Gay people from the Boy Scouts. We felt this result might well be more educative than having troops escort a Gay kid or scout master to meetings. If the organization fails to adjust to realities it'll face many difficulties as thinking people and law bound institutions pull support away. Someday we'll look upon their shrunken gatherings as we do the Daughters of the American Revolution, after they committed suicide by keeping Marion Anderson from singing. The Science of the situation is clearer than any of these human musings: as we live the one Mind, we experience all as operating harmoniously.

3) Charlie Rose hosted a discussion on PBS of the New York Times series of articles on race relations in America. There was much pain, even in the relations of the people editing and writing the series. One woman finally gave us a grain of hope by stating that she thought we should celebrate racial differences — our different ways of seeing, our different values. There was no need to crush out the differences, but a great need to be curious about how others see things and to find one's own truths in the same way. This is fine as far as it goes, but we wanted to go deeper. And to include all forms of difference — including sexual orientation. If we can calmly evaluate each other's way of seeing — whatever the form — and find within that the universals we all subscribe to, we'll be a lot closer to brotherhood and harmonious living. For instance, a Gay person confronted with the belief that only a man and a woman can have a sexual relationship might not react negatively but be sure he has located and is living his male-female in accordance with Science.

At the end of the meeting we spent some time discussing housing from a spiritual standpoint and this branched into investments, which we decided would be our topic for next week.