Complete Healing
September 16, 1999
Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any.
Hurricane Floyd closed the Lesbian and Gay Center and kept away the members who had requested the topic for the week, but a few of us met at our usual after-meeting coffee shop.
We started where we left off last week with the question, "Was Jesus completely healed when he resurrected?" An internet friend responded, "He was already healed before the whole thing happened." He cited the following from the Textbook as authority: " 'This is life eternal,' says Jesus, is, not shall be; and then he defines everlasting life as a present knowledge of his Father and of himself, the knowledge of Love, Truth, and Life," (Science and Health, p. 410:4-7) and "The great spiritual fact must be brought out that man is, not shall be, perfect and immortal," (p. 428:22-23).
The reality underlying these statements is what promoted Jesus' resurrection and ascension. One member quoted this from Miscellany: "Christian Science is absolute; it is neither behind the point of perfection nor advancing towards it; it is at this point and must be practised therefrom," (p. 242:5-7). This does not negate the unfoldment in time of the healing — in fact the "look" of Jesus' progress is but human language for the fact that he and we have never left Heaven (see John 3: 13). It is the rich interplay of absolute and relative that constitute the Christ Jesus story which is the foundation of Christian Science. "Our Master reappeared to his students, to their apprehension he rose from the grave, on the third day of his ascending thought, and so presented to them the certain sense of eternal Life," (Science and Health, p. 509: 4-8).
All those at the table had experienced degrees of healing and it was heartening to see Jesus' demonstration from this standpoint. One member reviewed Jesus' work with the blind man and a correlative passage from Science and Health, page 149: 12-16, both included in our Readings, above.
We then shared "partial healings" we had experienced.
1) A member has recovered well from a broken knee — he has full range of motion and good strength, but still experiences stiffness, particularly on damp days. There is still work to do without letting it become an exercise driven by mortal mind's notion of when the full recovery should manifest.
2) A member met a delightful new friend, took down the name and telephone number on an expired lottery ticket and inadvertently threw it away — leaving the member quite sad but with the awareness that life is not to be viewed as a gamble. Again work yet to do but with a clear direction indicated.
3) A practitioner worked for a member who had a large growth. Eventually it was removed by a surgeon who said it was almost certainly cancerous. It proved to be benign but the practitioner was unable to see this result as a Christian Science demonstration and refunded the patient's money. The healing has been permanent, thanks in large part to the patient's refusal to see it as less than a spiritual healing.
4) A member had a sprained ankle and broken arm but was able through scientific prayer to get around and cope with daily duties. The broken arm was valued as a provoker of conversation and as a visible "badge of pain" — pain of an emotional kind that was not yet accessible. As the pain has come to the surface in recent times, our member has found other ways of venting and healing and therefor less need for such symbolic representations of the emotions.
5) A member recalled a blind friend whom he introduced to Christian Science. The friend was elated with what he was learning and experiencing but eventually left Science after our member and others in the church harassed him with loving reminders of his exemption from blindness, with which he actually had no problem.
We then went on to the role of patience and gratitude in healing.
James says, "...let patience have her perfect work..." (1:4). We felt there might be some confusion about what is being recommended. Patience in the sense of waiting for something to happen or someone to appear seems misplaced. Also, lapse of time could not be seen as a healing agent, except perhaps in belief. When we're seeing patience in these ways we're just drifting along on the mortal level, tossed this way and that. As an effective tool in healing it could be seen as a quiet attitude that brushes aside mortal beliefs and human calculations in order to get a clear view of the healing divine idea — "letting divine Love move upon the waters of mortal mind, and form the perfect concept," (Science and Health, p. 454: 22-24).
Gratitude was held out by some as an important ingredient in complete healing and in one's daily functioning in Science. This keeps them in constant contact with Divinity. One member said his practice of gratitude consists of daily attempts to boost those he meets as he goes about his business — a joke here, a compliment there, etc. Another member felt gratitude was well in its place, but that place is secondary. The key for him was to keep the divinity of all at the forefront of his thought. Yes, he'd have to say "thanks" a lot with that attitude — but such speaking was to be heard of men — it would be a social grace, not a clear statement of Science.
A few healing were reported.
1) A member came down with an intestinal flu. After standard treatments, it came to him to handle grief and belief in bodily vulnerability. As eternal divine idea, he had no cause for grief, sadness, regret. Cause is God, the source of joy. As infinite divine idea he includes all as right ideas — nothing can invade allness. He bounced back quickly, with a clearer view of his divine being.
2) A member found a friend in a very depressed state over having been assaulted. He reached out to God for the right thing to say. He asked his friend whether there was one good thing that happened during the attack. His friend looked a bit peeved, but quickly brightened into a smile as he described the funny scene when others came to his rescue, hammerlocked the offender and pummeled him a bit as the police arrived. This broke the mesmerism.
3) A member attended a Wednesday meeting where the readings and several of the testimonies were devoted to the threatening predictions about the hurricane, Floyd. At that time dire warnings were being issued and evacuations undertaken. The outcome was far less horrendous than seemed likely, based on strictly human seeing, at that time. Here are a few of the citations our members jotted down: Science and Health pp. 293: 24-31, 574: 19-24, and 296: 6-9. With regard to the last quote about suffering or Science, our member thought how "old tech" suffering is in view of the availability of Science.
Next week we'll have visitors who are engaged in helping The Mother Church come to fresher ways of interpreting its mission. In preparation for the meeting our topic will be The Mother Church.
And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.
And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought. And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking. After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly.
If you fail to succeed in any case, it is because you have not demonstrated the life of Christ, Truth, more in your own life,—because you have not obeyed the rule and proved the Principle of divine Science.
The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God,—a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love.
Practice not profession, understanding not belief, gain the ear and right hand of omnipotence and they assuredly call down infinite blessings.
A false sense of life, substance, and mind hides the divine possibilities, and conceals scientific demonstration.
Every function of the real man is governed by the divine Mind.
"This is life eternal," says Jesus,—is, not shall be; and then he defines everlasting life as a present knowledge of his Father and of himself,—the knowledge of Love, Truth, and Life.
The great spiritual fact must be brought out that man is, not shall be, perfect and immortal.
To say there is a false claim, called sickness, is to admit all there is of sickness; for it is nothing but a false claim. To be healed, one must lose sight of a false claim. If the claim be present to the thought, then disease becomes as tangible as any reality. To regard sickness as a false claim, is to abate the fear of it; but this does not destroy the so-called fact of the claim. In order to be whole, we must be insensible to every claim of error.
As with sickness, so is it with sin. To admit that sin has any claim whatever, just or unjust, is to admit a dangerous fact. Hence the fact must be denied; for if sin's claim be allowed in any degree, then sin destroys the ^at-one-ment^, or oneness with God,—a unity which sin recognizes as its most potent and deadly enemy.
Jesus came to earth; but the Christ (that is, the divine idea of the divine Principle which made heaven and earth) was never absent from the earth and heaven; hence the phraseology of Jesus, who spoke of the Christ as one who came down from heaven, yet as "the Son of man which is in heaven."