Renewal I

December 31, 1998

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.

Isaiah

Man, the reflection of God, needs no renewal — he's already perfect; but mortals do need it, and to be effective renewal must be based in Science, not just human will. The topic came up last week in response to all the resolutions and hype around the new year.   Everyone — ourselves included — wants to be kinder, richer, better looking, closer to perfection but we quickly got to the question whether such desirable traits are the fruits of spiritual living or the means speeding us heavenward. The latter way of seeing them, it seems to us, would be idolatrous material means, which in the end would fail to deliver the goods.

As our members worked with the topic during the week significant insights and experiences arose. One reported feeling like he's in a rut with his business and relationships. Recent attempts at "forcing the issues" have backfired and confirmed to him that the solution is always spiritually based.

Another member saw how deep wounds from the past are stunting current relationships. In a "prayed up" state things flow beautifully, but reaching out for love and support without this preparation has resulted over and over in further wounds.

Another pointed out that we all seem to have areas where we demonstrate easily and others where healing comes slowly or not at all. He said it seems to depend on whether we've had a healing in an area, thereby reducing fear in future when something similar comes up. But better than this would be the realization that all healing is essentially the same. He gave us two wonderful healing testimonies in the health area and in finding a home but indicated he still finds it difficult to workout career and money problems. He recounted an experience of changing jobs after extensive prayerful listening. It seemed the right move at the time but he let himself get caught up in how it would look on his resume and various political calculations — from then on he had lots of problems and eventually had to leave.

One member saw movement in his social and romantic life as he accessed the energies of our subject. He had found the holidays this year much more meaningful and serene as he withdrew from pointless parties and relationships where he felt like a hostage. He did accept a few social engagements with people who honor what he brings to the table and he feels he's finally "getting" the function of relationships in his life — it's not about avoiding loneliness nor is it about feeding vampires. Rather, it's about two or three gathered in My name. As he worked with a practitioner to handle a sports injury he saw that he must not see people as vampires — that Love is the only I, Us. One day at the gym as he ogled some quite fetching gentlemen the statement by Bicknell Young came to him, "Behold My [i. e. God's] beautiful body." He was able to extend this to everyone there!

Here are a few items speaking to our topic that came to the attention of members during the week.

  • A testifier at a branch indicated how she'd re-evaluated the "Bermuda triangle of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year" — a previously dreary period sucking away her vitality She recalled how Jesus often thanked God for a healing not yet manifested — thus attesting to its preexistent reality. She could see Thanksgiving in this light. Christmas was now for her the dawning of the promise and New Year the demonstration.
  • Hearing a song by Lea DeLaria about all the pain around a visit by an openly gay person with her family during the holidays helped one member. As DeLaria looked at all the others there she realized everyone was in pain — it was an unavoidable part of any family get together — but they all endured it because they love each other.
  • A Catholic friend described the Christmas homily in his church. The priest asked the congregation to feel the vulnerability of the Jesus baby and to relate it to the darkness this time of year. He then asked them to just listen as he stopped talking for a few minutes, to reach out into the void. Surely this is the "place" whence change and renewal issue forth and is reminiscent of how Mrs. Eddy described the Wilderness in the Glossary of Science and Health, "Loneliness; doubt; darkness. Spontaneity of thought and idea; the vestibule in which a material sense of things disappears, and spiritual sense unfolds the great facts of existence." (pg. 597: 16-19)
Some of us had discussed before the meeting the idea of calling this session "Renewal I: Theory" and having next week styled "Renewal II: Practice". But we got so bogged down in resentments and gripes and even envy over why we couldn't demonstrate something or why so-in-so had more than we do, we decided we'd better devote a week to clearing away some of that before proceeding. So, Resentment it is for next week.

The Bible

Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.

Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy

Spiritual development germinates not from seed sown in the soil of material hopes, but when these decay, Love propagates anew the higher joys of Spirit, which have no taint of earth. Each successive stage of experience unfolds new views of divine goodness and love.

As a material, theoretical life-basis is found to be a misapprehension of existence, the spiritual and divine Principle of man dawns upon human thought, and leads it to "where the young child was," —even to the birth of a new-old idea, to the spiritual sense of being and of what Life includes. Thus the whole earth will be transformed by Truth on its pinions of light, chasing away the darkness of error.

Detach sense from the body, or matter, which is only a form of human belief, and you may learn the meaning of God, or good, and the nature of the immutable and immortal. Breaking away from the mutations of time and sense, you will neither lose the solid objects and ends of life nor your own identity. Fixing your gaze on the realities supernal, you will rise to the spiritual consciousness of being, even as the bird which has burst from the egg and preens its wings for a skyward flight.

The rays of infinite Truth, when gathered into the focus of ideas, bring light instantaneously, whereas a thousand years of human doctrines, hypotheses, and vague conjectures emit no such effulgence.

Under the supremacy of Spirit, it will be seen and acknowledged that matter must disappear.

In Revelation xxi. 1 we read:—

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

The Revelator had not yet passed the transitional stage in human experience called death, but he already saw a new heaven and a new earth. Through what sense came this vision to St. John? Not through the material visual organs for seeing, for optics are inadequate to take in so wonderful a scene.

The Revelator was on our plane of existence, while yet beholding what the eye cannot see,—that which is invisible to the uninspired thought. This testimony of Holy Writ sustains the fact in Science, that the heavens and earth to one human consciousness, that consciousness which God bestows, are spiritual, while to another, the unillumined human mind, the vision is material. This shows unmistakably that what the human mind terms matter and spirit indicates states and stages of consciousness.

Miscellaneous Writings, by Mary Baker Eddy

The easel of time presents pictures—once fragmentary and faint—now rejuvenated by the touch of God's right hand.

The new birth is not the work of a moment. It begins with moments, and goes on with years; moments of surrender to God, of childlike trust and joyful adoption of good; moments of self-abnegation, self-consecration, heaven-born hope, and spiritual love.

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