Our second meeting on this subject caught fire with the reading of two poems by Mary Baker Eddy. Perhaps even more here than in her prose writings she integrates the human and divine, finding romance in religion.

While it is true in Science that the one Ego or God loving Himself is the only relationship, no one appearing as a human gets to this realization without much work and surrender. Romantic love seems an almost perfect vehicle for the trip from sense to Soul, with one caveat: it must be undertaken consciously and with humility.

With intimacy on his mind, one member paid attention to a couple of conversations he participated in during the period. One involved five people, three of whom were in long term relationships (their lovers were not present) and two — himself included — who were not. The two singles, who had tended to idealize romantic relationships as the answer to all problems, were amazed at the level of suffering experienced by the loving couples as they accommodated, negotiated and yes, grew. One gave credit to a small living space; there was no other room to run to — the lovers had to deal on the spot with what came up.

The other conversation featured three Gay men discussing sex and love. One said he could bond romantically with only men but did have strong heterosexual drives. Since dissociated sex does not speak to his soul, he must await the right man to forge an emotional, feeling bond with before sex can come forward. Another could have sex only with men but bond romantically with women. The third could bond with and have sex with both men and women, but since his orientation is mainly towards men, engaging with a woman would not represent the highest human activity in the circumstances. After all this information had emerged the three looked at each other in wonder and laughed at the idea of words like "homosexual" or "Gay" as indicating anything very precise.

One member felt "intimate other" is an oxymoron since intimate means innermost and other refers to "out there". Another member felt that it is exactly this seeming paradox which fuels the work necessary to get at the joy contained within. He said that our outer-other is hardly that at all, so covered is he with our projections of our own unconscious, unacknowledged, inaccessible mental contents. He is, as first seen, nothing more than our own un-faced, painful and glorious stuff, walking. But there is an immense opportunity here; if we keep our wits about us we can see the projections, reel them in and retire them — thereby expanding our appreciation of ourselves and in the process freeing the other to be truly other — someone we did not hallucinate or invent.

Our member cautioned that the erosion and reeling in of projections is tough work and requires a firm foundation in Science before undertaken. Those familiar with the 12-Steps know this: one must have a solid 3rd Step, surrender to God, before the 4th, an inventory of offending traits is launched. The process is explained in Science and Health pp.184: 8-15 and 462: 20-1.

A member recalled a series of painful romances he was drawn into a few years back. They took him to the emotional cleaners but he saw how much of them was projection and managed to stay fairly conscious. He came away with considerable insight into the feeling tone of his childhood as well as specific incidents of incest and abuse together with abandonment by parents and a sense of being overwhelmed by others. He had no real help in Science at the time: he and his practitioner were basically "casting spells" to get the fleeing partners back into the corral. But he feels he can still work on the material: this time through divine Mind reading ("...a revelation of divine purpose through spiritual understanding..." Science and Health, p. 83: 26-27). At-one-ment with God is the only reality of the abuse noted. Being "hardwired by childhood" to certain sad outcomes is a mortal belief about being 100% divine idea predestined to all good. Astrology, genes, other so-called causes all must yield to the one Cause as effect. Indeed, one's whole history — whether conscious or unconscious, pleasing or unpleasing — must be redeemed by Science and romantic passion fires the human beliefs to the agonizing point where they must be transubstantiated into divine substance. There's no going back "to positions outgrown."

But, worried one member, is there anything relational left once we've cleared the deck? No one in our group claims to have gone forward to the hierosgamos or sacred marriage mentioned by the experts including Christ Jesus and Mrs. Eddy. Apparently it would involve only those who see each other as truly individual, unburdened by projections; those who have the strength to bear a real other, unmanaged by agendas from someone else's childhood or whatever. Such a true other could open unimagined windows of heaven for his mate as could his mate for him. This vision surely resonates with the reality in Science that we are each infinite, eternal divine idea including all others — we are mutually receptive of one another in God.

Some of us were feeling a bit down after such absolute carryings on, but one member rallied to remind us that the sacred marriage is already fully in place and even accessible — if in glimpses — as we go within and just let it be.

We want to look at Pets next week. Many of us have had wonderful relationships with pets over the years and some of us still do. Are they lesser ideas? We thought not but figured we'd better do some study and thinking on this before disagreeing with Mrs. Eddy.