Absolute Science and Hospitality
December 15, 2005
To-day the watchful shepherd shouts his welcome over the new cradle of an old truth.
"Back slapping and fake smiles go only so far."
"They're better than indifference and glowers."
"I guess, but I've been trying out branch churches for a couple of months and it looks like I've found my home. It's based on a spiritual feeling and nothing else. The people aren't gushy — they're pleasant — you know, polite."
"Someone, somewhere is holding that church and its services in the highest realization of Science."
"I don't go to church. The services and meetings are so boring they put me to sleep."
"I still get something out of it. For one thing I push the envelope on testimonies — speaking in a normal, non-holy voice about regular events in my life from the standpoint of Science. As you'd expect, there's Gay content from time to time."
"And they welcome you?"
"I haven't been asked to sit down — or not come back. But people almost never say thanks."
"Such hospitality."
"Tell me — do you see people really digging into the service?"
"How would I know? I do see people nodding off on Sunday. Probably most of them go there as an obligation. Even if they sleep, they feel protected for the week."
"It's a kind of sheep dip."
"I've put together my own experience of church. Sunday at one church, Wednesday at another and then Thursdays here."
"One from column A, one from column B..."
"My church is now one on one sharing with friends and acquaintances about God — although I seldom use that term or the words Christian Science. I talk from the standpoint of Science however — and try to live it. And it's a two-way street — we all teach and we all learn."
"What's going on with the Christian Science Board of Directors?"
"The San Francisco meeting was a bigger fiasco than the one in New York. Apparently the Board planted its own bland question about homosexuality to head off more trenchant inquiries. One of their members then took off in a homophobic rant."
"What about the question Emergence members came up with?"
"It wasn't asked after the official tantrum, but later a non-Gay man got up to comment on the sacredness of Gay unions..."
"And...?"
"The ranter again lavished the crowd with a stream of consciousness until a still lucid Board member checked the faces in the audience and managed to flick his off switch."
"Didn't other Board members counteract the sinful display?"
"No. They cowered before the blast."
"Well, there you have The Mother Church!"
"Not really. Maybe that crew is proving its inutility and misunderstanding of Science, but the structure of Truth and Love goes on, to be lived by anyone, anywhere."
"Even by the Boston belief in church and by this group right here."
"I just want to ask, are we having pitiful patience with the Board's fears and helping them move on? The Board's touring sessions allow them to vent their distress and we should be Scientists about it — entertaining angels unawares. Look here: 'The very circumstance, which your suffering sense deems wrathful and afflictive, Love can make an angel entertained unawares. Then thought gently whispers: "Come hither! Arise from your false consciousness into the true sense of Love, and behold the Lamb's wife, — Love wedded to its own spiritual idea."Then cometh the marriage feast, for this revelation will destroy forever the physical plagues imposed by material sense' (Science and Health 574: 27-6)."
"I was thinking about the word host, which is related to hospitality. Am I a gracious host to all? Do I welcome the sinful homophobe into my heart?"
"What was it Mrs. Eddy said about shutting the door on error?"
"On error, not on man. Each of us, as man, is sinless. But as mortals, we're drenched in duality and therefore the potential for error. The trick, as I see it, is to welcome everyone in as nondual, sinless, and make radiant room for us all midst the glories of one endless day."
"You know the word 'host' is also used for someone with a disease."
"Right. But if my divine immune system — in other words my identity as man — is operational, it'll knock out sin and disease in myself and others."
"No 'ifs' about it. Your — our — divine identity is operational in reality. If it seems less than fully engaged in belief, we still have something to build on."
"I just thought about that old statement that God doesn't take us half way. He'll move us beyond belief in something to build on."
"To absolute conclusions and at-one-ment. Think what that would mean not only to us but those we come in contact with."
"And the world..."
"You know absolute Science is perfect hospitality."
"I received a testimony from one of our Internet friends describing her recovery from a romantic situation that went sour. Let me first summarize. She'd allowed herself to get quite taken with a man who suddenly revealed he was dating someone else. She was floored but had the sense to seek the help of a practitioner."
"I want the name of that practitioner. I thought they were above such things."
"She didn't name the practitioner in her email but we could probably get it. Let me read a couple of sentences. ' Even with the spiritual help I wanted to feel the real human feelings — like jealousy, envy, disappointment. All the raw, primal feelings!' "
"Of course that's very unscientific!"
"Of course. She continues: 'I didn't want to bury those feelings under a thick mud slide of pep talk. So I felt them and slowly drifted towards Science. Then a terrible inner voice came up "Well, you've done it again. Another dead end affair."Real beat up stuff. I thought "Uh-uh! I'm not going into that tailspin!"And with that, what I can only call the voice of God thundered through me "How dare you use My Mind, My Life in such a wasteful way!?"' "
"Whose mind?"
"She's saying it's God's Mind — how dare she use His Mind to beat herself up with? God continues, 'I am all. I'm your Mind, your Love.' Now she says 'And that was that! The suffering just disappeared.' "
"Wow!"
"Next!"
"Well, when there is a next, it'll be a step up from that."
"The end of suffering is greatly to be desired — and I imagine we've all been in some situation like hers — if not in love, then maybe at work or with friendships. Let's see if we can marshal the vivid, right-now, sense of Deity she encountered to help out with this country's current obsessions with torture, immigration, homophobia — things like that with a distinctly inhospitable edge."
"You wouldn't want to have terrorists overrun the country?"
"No indeed. I'd propose hosting absolute good overrunning it — and encompassing all true being. Notice she did not cave in to her former boyfriend; he was long gone, and she had the wisdom to surrender to God's presence."
"With immigration, it occurs to me we could see everyone in their right place — in other words as infinite eternal idea of the Mind that's God — and leave it at that."
"We need a two week topic."
"Here we go..."
"I probably won't be here for two weeks.'
"I was going to suggest the areas you're interested in around family issues and expectations."
"Let's hold up on those until I'm back."
"How about just taking the Lesson and working with it?"
"Next week it's Christian Science. That'll be read in churches on Christmas."
"Perfect. Christian Science is the Christ Jesus of today."
"I got up the other night at church and gave my 30 second definition of Christian Science — 'God is all. God is Spirit. God is good.' "
"That's only ten seconds."
"Well okay — but the reader had just read very similar statements from Science and Health on page 113 and I wanted to show how simple and straightforward Christian Science is."
"Looks like we're agreed. It's Christian Science for two weeks."
And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.
And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee. So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks: and he called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink. And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her, and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand. And she said, As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die. And Elijah said unto her, Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth. And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days. And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah. And it came to pass after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick; and his sickness was so sore, that there was no breath left in him. And she said unto Elijah, What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son? And he said unto her, Give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into a loft, where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed. And he cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord my God, hast thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son? And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come into him again. And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived. And Elijah took the child, and brought him down out of the chamber into the house, and delivered him unto his mother: and Elijah said, See, thy son liveth. And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth.
Mortals who on the shores of time learn Christian Science, and live what they learn, take rapid transit to heaven, — the hinge on which have turned all revolutions, natural, civil, or religious, the former being servant to the latter, — from flux to permanence, from foul to pure, from torpid to serene, from extremes to intermediate. Above the waves of Jordan, dashing against the receding shore, is heard the Father and Mother's welcome, saying forever to the baptized of Spirit: "This is my beloved Son." What but divine Science can interpret man's eternal existence, God's allness, and the scientific indestructibility of the universe?
In reply to all invitations from Chicago to share the hospitality of their beautiful homes at any time during the great wonder of the world, the World's Fair, I say, Do not expect me. I have no desire to see or to hear what is to be offered upon this approaching occasion.
I have a world of wisdom and Love to contemplate, that concerns me, and you, infinitely beyond all earthly expositions or exhibitions. In return for your kindness, I earnestly invite you to its contemplation with me, and to preparation to behold it.
Divine Love hath opened the gate Beautiful to us, where we may see God and live, see good in good, — God all, one, — one Mind and that divine; where we may love our neighbor as ourselves, and bless our enemies.
Divine Love will also rebuke and destroy disease, and destroy the belief of life in matter. It will waken the dreamer — the sinner, dreaming of pleasure in sin; the sick, dreaming of suffering matter; the slothful, satisfied to sleep and dream. Divine Love is our only physician, and never loses a case. It binds up the broken-hearted; heals the poor body, whose whole head is sick and whose whole heart is faint; comforts such as mourn, wipes away the unavailing, tired tear, brings back the wanderer to the Father's house in which are many mansions, many welcomes, many pardons for the penitent.
Pilgrim on earth, thy home is heaven; stranger, thou art the guest of God.
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.
CHURCH. The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle.
The Church is that institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race, rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas and the demonstration of divine Science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick.