Control
April 27, 2000
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah. There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early. The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah. Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth. He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire. Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
We started with one member's amplification of last week's discernment that one's bodily conditions represent his or her present understanding of God. He pointed out that body can be seen to include one's entire universe: "my Bosnia is only more remote in belief than my foot."Also, since man reflects God 100% — it's really His body and therefore perfect in every way.
Having digested to some extent this huge idea we were ready to tackle some of the forces we believe control our drives, actions and even appearances. Of course, mortal mind has an infinite array of such forces but we were particularly interested in genetics, memories and the passage of time. Christian Science takes an antagonistic stance against such factors but one member — drawing perhaps on what we'd just seen about body — said we could take these as "half way impertinent"attempts by mortal mind to deal with the overwhelming reality of being, always present and controlling all effects. In this view, genetics can be said to proclaim the one Cause; memories, the action of Mind; and time, Eternity. This approach to the work handles the beliefs by translation rather than repression. (For an extreme example of the latter, see last week's discussion of the new movie "American Psycho". Our topic was [#topic=20000420#].)
We had all had significant healings during the week and got right into them. Here are three.
1) One member awoke ill and prepared to call his boss when the phone rang — it was the boss, asking him to come in early because others would be out and the work load was already building. He rushed in and worked late into the evening to cope with the situation. It was only much later that he realized whatever the problem was, it had just faded out without specific work in Science, other than the most important work of all — to be at his post!
2) Another member had consulted a doctor about a mole on his forehead. The doctor took a biopsy; our member was shaken and went home to work in Science. The mole disappeared in a couple of days. The doctor called a few days later with bad news and surgery instructions, and even after being informed that the mole was gone persisted with his advice that the mole be removed surgically. The doctor seemed unable to grasp the rare comedy developing here, so our member said he'd think it over and hung up.
3) Another member was caught in a maelstrom of worry and recriminations over an approaching deadline for establishing professional management contracts covering property in order for it to qualify for tax exemptions. It seemed that if these contracts were not up and running by April 30th, the tax load would increase tenfold; so far not one of the many possible candidates to manage the property had even been contacted. Our member recommended we try for an extension and was pretty much dismissed as unrealistic. He found himself volunteering to call the relevant government officials in a last ditch attempt, although he's very much out of the loop on tax matters and lives 2000 from the property. He placed the call, got voice mail and left what can only be described as a confused and quite unprofessional message on the tax official's tape. He was embarrassed, but remembered the story of Parsifal, the fool who saved the kingdom. Later he prayed with Luke 12: 11-12, "And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates, and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say: For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say", and then realized how much blame and animosity hung over the situation. He saw all this as each one's contribution to healing the problem. Sure it looked pretty bad on the mortal belief level, but he would not leave it there. One Mind blesses all and is all. The next morning the official called and was most helpful. He explained the owners did not need to have the contracts in place to secure tax exemptions; in fact, all the properties were exempt and would so continue. He did recommend management contracts to enhance productivity of the property, but that was strictly up to the owners. After our member called the other owners to advise them of the good news, he was suddenly attacked by the most odious sin — the belief that he had done something, that the others were worthy of contempt, etc. He was able to catch this quickly because it made him feel so crazy. He was now able to see the whole episode as a breaking up and healing of some long standing cold feelings among the owners.
One member discussed with the others some work he's doing on a problem right now. We'll report more on this later but it led us to the quote included in our readings from page 540 of Science and Health. The marginal heading reads "Cleansing upheaval". We could see that what mortal mind designates problems are really perfection coming to view. Each one of us had grown tremendously by being forced to let go of mortal mind's notion of control in favor of divine control, always pressing forth to be in belief, as in fact, All.
There was a brief discussion of what's called neurotic control — i.e., when we try to control the thoughts and actions of ourselves and others from unclear motives and usually quite destructively. Several of us described how we tried to control lovers from a position of self righteous purity. Those who have been to Alanon will understand the syndrome. Our Jungian in residence felt each lover, caught in such a bind, needs to integrate his unconscious aspects showing up as the uncomfortable actions of the lover. So, the out of control one has pushed his rectitude into the shadow and projected it unto the pure one? Yes. And the righteous one has shrunk from his own messy baby stuff and lived it through association with the other? Yes. Apparently appreciating all this within one's self enables him not to get pulled into a dysfunctional affair and further to let the full human fade into the full divine.
Some of this thinking would certainly apply to the Boy Scout case recently argued before the Supreme Court. The attempt to stamp out homosexuality in the ranks is a classic example of dangerous repression. Think Berlin Wall. The student of Christian Science doesn't need to leave the case there however. We can see the situation as a "cleansing upheaval"as described above and celebrate right now Truth's annihilation of stereotypes and Love's promotion of wholeness and completeness.
The Elian case also came up. A member saw the latest events as healing. All the animosities between Big and Little Havana — control issues at base — are but language for the actuality of Love and the oneness of Mind really running the show. Increasingly the majority are seeing that relations must be normalized.
We will look at Equality for next week to support the Millennium March on Washington April 30th. The agenda for the March can be accessed at Planet Out.