Keeping our human endeavors in alignment with their divine wellsprings seemed to be the key issue for us all during our second week working on Right Activity. Of course, each had a different method of seeking this alignment, but once achieved the insights and healings flowed.

Here's a summary of some insights shared at the meeting:

• Right activity will often force itself upon us — even against our will. Think of Paul on the road to Damascus. Mrs. Eddy's writings are full of reassurances in the face of such inharmonious situations, which in reality are the birth of a new way of seeing and functioning. One member particularly likes this from Science and Health: "The manifestations of evil, which counterfeit divine justice, are called in the Scriptures, "The anger of the Lord." In reality, they show the self-destruction of error or matter and point to matter's opposite, the strength and permanency of Spirit," (p. 293:24). On the other hand, seeming harmony in the human belief of things, not anchored in Spirit, will often hit a snag — thus inviting us to go up higher.
• While God's grace is ever-present in reality to save us from error, it must be accessed. The "daily duties" from the Manual of The Mother Church (see Readings) are intended to keep our thought free of hatred and fear so that we can feel the presence of God on an ongoing basis. When we need an extra boost, a couple of our members like the simple, clear cut method set out in Science and Health, p. 15:14-18. Mrs. Eddy recommends going within, denying sin or duality and resting in the understanding of God's allness. We also endorsed the idea that all — every person, place and thing — has to be included in this work, otherwise a troublesome dualism, requiring eventual resolution, will have been set in motion.
• One member heard a couple of limiting prognostications in the arena of the physical sciences during the week. One was that science is progressing so fast that the human brain will be unable to keep up with it. The other was that in a few years we will have miniaturized semiconductor chips to the limit — the sheer smallness of the chips will make insulation impossible. Thank God for Christian Science! He was quickly able to see that infinite divine Mind will bring forth whatever discoveries and inventions will ameliorate these situations. The so-called physical sciences, like medicine and theology, are nothing more than human belief systems, constantly being disrupted as the Truth of being becomes clearer to human perception. Students of Christian Science can help make the needed adjustments and transitions harmonious, by resting in the ultimate reality even as the half-way mechanisms unfold.

Here are the healings reported:

• A member, while exercising at his gym, was quite taken with a non-Gay man, who seemed available for some flirting, perhaps more. When this man went to the showers, our member thought of following him into the dressing room, to at least get a good look at his body. Suddenly he saw how silly this would be — he would be using the man's body as a kind of pornographic image. He exercised restraint. A few days later he again was attracted to someone under similar circumstances and found himself offering helpful advice which was totally ignored! He was stunned, but realized that his earlier restraint had not healed anything but represented no more than a behavioral nicety. He went to work with Science; he immediately saw that he was treating these attractive men as dualistic entities — beautiful yes, but unavailable. He himself was adrift in dualism — desire and fear battling for ascendancy. The key was the way Mrs. Eddy evaluates desire as prayer. He was able to translate the whole thing into its non-dual Reality and live it to some extent, to his great relief. The model for this healing is stated well in Science and Health, p. 328: 6-13.
• A member was informed that new windows would be installed in her building a few days later. She uses rooms in her apartment for storage and could see no way for the workmen to get to the windows to do their work. She prayed for a harmonious adjustment and worked with the line "Love's work and Love must fit," (The Christian Science Hymnal, no. 51:2). A friend was suddenly available to give her an extra hand in rearranging things and the workmen were able to change all the windows, save one which was truly marooned. She went to the foreman not knowing what to say, but before she could talk he advised her that he had run out of windows, and would be back in two months to complete the job — giving her plenty of time to clear the needed space.
• Another member saw a third of the value of one of his investments whisked away one morning based on an earnings forecast. He reassured himself with the phrase "Loss is gain," (The Christian Science Hymnal, no. 207:3) and quickly worked to lose a material sense of himself, his supply and the company and live them all as the divine reality they are. The next day he took the article in the paper and reversed the "causes" such as, "The merger isn't going well," and, "There's a legacy of funny accounting and bad karma," and, "The CEO is under treatment for brain cancer." There is only one Cause and effect — God and His reflection, man and the universe. As the week wore on the stock stabilized and other sources of supply opened up to ameliorate the problem. Others at the meeting recounted how they had seen sources of supply open seemingly miraculously by sticking with the Truth that demand cannot outstrip supply and that there is a constant flow of good from God to man.

Members undertook the following work during the week and at the meeting:

• Discussing Christian Science treatment, two members devoted some attention to the continuing AIDS problem. They put away the childish things of blame, guilt and shame on the basis that they were but the stock in trade of mortal mind, non-existent in reality. They went on to see the facts of Science: substance and action are entirely divine. Life and Love are God — and man is His reflection, 100 percent.
• One member, troubled by the news from Iran, Northern Ireland, and China and Taiwan tried to handle all the beliefs, to his great frustration. Then he remembered what a practitioner had said once — select the synonym that most nearly meets the need in the circumstance and stick with that. He saw all these as arguments about "principle", so it was easy for him to relax into the presence of divine Principle alone directing the affairs of man. Now when he hears news stories about these areas, he just zeroes in on the facts of Principle. He was able to do this with the squabbles in Congress over the health plan — accessing the synonym Life in this case.
• The predicted cataclysms in various protestant sects this summer as their conferences deal with the position of Gay people in their midst can be seen in the light of the absolute understanding of Church (see Science and Health, p. 583: 12-13). As we know, trouble is always brewing on this subject in all religions — which sadly have made themselves into defenders of the out of date. But students of Science don't need to cooperate with such malpractice. We can aid in the movement of religion towards its destiny, the oneness of the allness.

For next week, we decided to look at Change. Some of our members fear it and we all seemed unclear how to evaluate it in Science.