"At-one-ment comes up in a lot of religions, not just Christian Science."

"I think mostly in the New Age ones, or those from the East. The concept of atonement comes up more often in our traditional Western systems. It has to do with the belief that Jesus died for our sins."

"I wouldn't say Christian Science disagrees completely with that, we just go much further, seeing Jesus' crucifixion as part of his evolving discovery of eternal Life. Here's what Mrs. Eddy says: 'Atonement is the exemplification of man's unity with God, whereby man reflects divine Truth, Life, and Love.' (Science and Health, pg. 18:1-3) That's from the chapter 'Atonement and Eucharist'."

"I've never really understood what a eucharist is."

"It's the practice of consuming bread and wine in memory of Jesus. Some religions feel once those elements are consecrated, they're actually the flesh and blood of Christ Jesus."

"We observe formal communion twice a year in Christian Science churches by dropping to our knees and silently communing with Spirit."

"I think the aim of atonement in Science is to discover the preexistent at-one-ment."

"Hey, that's good. I like it. We're on shaky ground humanly — no matter how grand the dualistic presentation — until we stand firmly on spiritual reality. Faith alone isn't enough, nor is conviction. We can have faith in the worst things, and be convinced of every silliness. Mrs. Eddy calls sickness solid conviction. Here's the quote: ' Sickness is neither imaginary nor unreal,—that is, to the frightened, false sense of the patient. Sickness is more than fancy; it is solid conviction.'" (Science and Health, pg. 460:14-16)

"And look, she goes on to say, 'It is therefore to be dealt with through right apprehension of the truth of being.' In other words we need to be at-one with divine reality in order to break the grip of dualism which brings sickness and other negative states."

"I try to do it through flood-tides of Love."

"If I could be a devil's advocate — what do you mean by Love? I've seen lots of suffering and abuse inflicted in the name of Love."

"And haven't we all. But if I could interrupt and give a demonstration which may give us a clue about Love in Science. It was years ago. I knew a flamboyant Gay man who was very loving but quite effeminate; people laughed behind his back. He came down with what his lover said was a recurrent medical problem, but the outlook this time was grim. The lover knew I was studying Christian Science and asked if I would pray for him, which I did. It came to me right away to knock out homophobia — internal and external. I saw the work as a kind of karate chop, roughly banning this sin from consciousness. I was then able to see his divinity and two days later he was up and well again."

"That's impersonal Love which Mrs. Eddy says will heal anything."

"I had such an interesting unfoldment of thought in Section V of the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on Soul this week. Jesus heals a man with palsy by forgiving his sins and even says we can all do this. (See Readings from Matthew). That mirrors what he says elsewhere about forgiving others their debts or trespasses if we want the same consideration from God. Mrs. Eddy says, 'Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals.'" (Science and Health, pg. 476:32-2)

"What you're saying is an absolutely essential part of the practice of Science. We must not hold on to people's sins, our own included. Do we think our suffering and scowls or perhaps a jail or an execution will heal a situation? And if we're not interested in healing, what then are we pursuing? Revenge?"

"If we could see the people of Najaf and Sadr City as without baggage of recrimination or sin..."

"Or those in Sudan-Darfur and Israel-Palestine. Or Gay-Non gay people..."

"Just stripped of any history of evil, of other causes and effects than the One 'altogether lovely."

"I used to fear at-one-ment with God because I was projecting onto Him images of my abusive parents. But as I've grown in understanding I've found it a wonderful practice to go within often during the day to commune with God. I end each day with a meditation focusing on the divinity of everyone I've come in physical or mental contact with during the day."

"Here's something that came up for me this week. For many years I've blamed my father for screwing up my love life through what shrinks have called incestuous teasing. We slept together in the spooning position. This week I suddenly felt a great deal of gratitude for the security this gave me. I'd often awaken with his arms drawn tightly around me. Considering that the other member of the parental dyad was manic-depressive, with the emotional repertoire of Godzilla, our nightly assignations were perhaps life-saving."

"Bottom line, though, do you still feel that affected your sex life."

"Sure, but not necessarily negatively. It's a mixture of positive and negative. I discussed my breakthrough with a member of the group and was ready to let go completely of all negative feelings towards my father. He recommended I proceed carefully because after all we're dealing here with human imagery, which always includes both positive and negative elements. He said, 'Just keep them both — don't idealize either side of the human picture, but work to unveil the divine reality.' To my mind, that's Science."

"Let me tell you what's come up for me. The last few weeks I've been helping my parents fix up their house. A problem I used to have with my father came up again — probably because I've seen him a lot during this period. In a nutshell, when things go wrong in his life, he lashes out at me! After several episodes of this, I blew up and pointed out he'd been doing this kind of whining and blaming basically ever since I could remember and I wasn't going to take it anymore. I went overboard, accusing him a never loving me. I've had to pray deeply to uncover what I meant by that, and it seems to be my feeling that he's disappointed with me that I didn't turn out to be the hetero son of his fantasies. So there's work to do, not only on the house, but on my own ability to love myself and get a more real relationship with my father based on love and respect."

"I want to talk about that business of blowing up when things just go too far. It looks like your interaction with your father moved things to a new level of awareness. Jesus occasionally showed some anger, as did Mrs. Eddy. I understand Krishnamurti screamed at people in the street if he saw them breaking the golden rule."

"Well, it's a tricky thing. If you're a Jesus or Krishnamurti and can release anger impersonally to heal the other, fine. But I usually let things pile up and then blow in the most personal way possible — dragging out every fossilized gripe. It's not a treat or a treatment."

"I had quite a demonstration of abundance this week and even got to expend a bit of anger to good effect. I found a $10 bill on the floor where I work and decided to treat myself to a movie. After the senior discount I had enough left to buy some pretzels. The woman at the snack bar promised me the last few she had, but got busy and gave them to someone else. As I unleashed some anger over the situation, the manager — whom I've gotten to know and written letters in praise of — happened by. She intervened and had them deliver me a hot dog and coke at my seat in the theater — all free. The hearing aid for Collateral didn't work well, so I got to see The Manchurian Candidate also. All that for no expenditure of my own funds."

"How were the movies?"

"I recommend them both, but there is a lot of gore. I came away from Manchurian Candidate distrusting everyone in government — not just the Bushies but Kerry as well."

"That might have some metaphysical value. As we were saying earlier, we have to be careful about idealizing any human concept, as either totally good or totally evil. They're always a mix. and we need to see that before we let God, the only good, be all."

"What about Collateral?"

"I'd need to think about that one."

"Isn't Tom Cruise a paid assassin?"

"Yes."

"Well maybe the moral is: pretty face, but watch the trigger finger."

"It's certainly about the reptilian brain which humans revert to when our power or safety are threatened. How much collateral damage will we dismiss in the name of keeping ourselves safe?"

"Or more deeply, how much duality are we willing to let go of to find One — to be One?"

"I saw something awful on Court TV the other day. It was a murder trial of a preacher who'd led his flock into murdering an entire family attending his church in order to wipe out the evil in their midst. Some church members talked on camera and said they didn't quite know what came over them. It was like they were mesmerized."

"Look what happened to the nation as we went to war in Iraq. Even the Washington Post has admitted they were infected with war fever and failed to question the motives and claims of government officials."

"I wanted to talk about a root canal procedure I had this week. I had to take antibiotics for four days to reduce inflammation. Instead of just resting on material belief I decided to work concurrently in Science with the ideas of radical (meaning root) reliance and Baptism for purity. Man is the emanation of God and there is but one cause and effect. God's question to Moses helped: 'Who hath made man's mouth?' (Exodus 4:11) Everything turned out fine."

"Time is short. Do we have a request for next week's topic?"

"Have we ever looked at body image metaphysically?"

"I don't think so. But it's a big deal in popular thought . Shall we? I'll take those shaking heads as an affirmative — so we're on to Body Image."