Light
December 21, 2000
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
Our meeting started late and at a detriment because of the non-attendance of the member who requested the topic. However, there was a good side to this: the rest of us were forced to move things along and reach out for inspiration.
Discussion turned first to the physical sciences relating to light. We were intrigued by its many unusual properties — as wave or particle (depending on whether it's observed or not); how black holes appear to negate it; and why the speed of light, once considered a limit, is being undercut by the growing realization of the possibility of instantaneous travel. One member commented on the huge industrial prospects of light — e. g., it's being shot through glass fibers in communications.
The psychology relating to light was next. Most of us said we felt happier, more "up", when the sun was shining brightly; although one member recalls that he preferred cloudy, dark days as a child. Maybe this related to depressive conditions in his home, but equally it might have been that it gave him something to struggle against in setting his own mood of basic inner joy. We all seemed to prefer soft lights, dimness and candles when it comes to romance and intimacy.
A member mentioned Carl Jung's observations of African natives awaiting the dawn with glee. He noted also that baboons were sitting on a ridge patiently waiting for the sun to rise and then realized that even in his sophisticated European soul there was a craving for the light. He interpreted the phenomena as a desire for consciousness.
As we got into a discussion of consciousness we quickly saw that there are two very distinct levels to be considered: 1) A discriminating apprehension of things; basically dualistic. It is this level that Jung and most other observers are normally referring to and is analogous to the tree of the knowledge of the good and evil in the Garden of Eden. Light and shadow are both included here. 2) A non dualistic apprehension of the universe. It is what the Christ or divine Mind brings to mortals and certainly the level Mary Baker Eddy refers to in the healing practice. It includes no shadow.
The interplay of these two levels of consciousness is where most of us reside in our everyday lives. Even those unacquainted with the absolutes of a system like Christian Science are still living them out — unconsciously, to be sure — via human concepts, for every concept has at its base the absolute Truth.
One member brought to our attention a passage in Science and Health which pulls all of this together very nicely. It's Mrs. Eddy's comments on the last three verses of Genesis III. See pages 536:30 through 538: 22. The symbols of sun, earth, tree of life, tree of knowledge, serpent, garden, cherubims, and sword are marshaled in a way that foretells the Christ Jesus story and mankind's struggle for the New Jerusalem.
By this point in the meeting we had exhausted the symbolic values of light and solicited some healing experiences of consciousness expanded. Here's what came up.
1) A member recalled an instantaneous healing of the flu years ago. He was scheduled to perform in an orchestra at a Christmas pageant, but could barely drag himself to the phone to call his Sunday School teacher for help. The teacher told him to go to the theater, knowing as he did that he was "walking in the footsteps of God." He agreed and as he put down the phone noticed he was drenched in sweat; the fever had broken and he was completely well. No recuperation was necessary and he played more beautifully than ever.
2) Two members discussing their paltry sex-romantic lives had this exchange. Said one, "You're complete." Replied the other, "All the more reason to have some good romance and sex. Try not eating or excreting for a week, because you're complete." A few days later, this member found he was turned on by pictures of some tough-looking prisoners in a magazine. He realized he was often attracted to people in crime. Surely here was a severe impediment to real intimacy. He thought of our topic and reached out to God for some light. He expected a psychological insight perhaps and was quite surprised to find himself drawn into a healing masturbatory fantasy which had him too as a prisoner, lovingly helping all the guys in the cell block relieve pressure, thereby heading off an incipient riot. After his work was done, the fantasy of fully reciprocal love-making with his main man ensued. As he returned to his regular life he carried with him a greatly healed view of his sexuality. He is of course reluctant to describe this healing at a branch church, but felt our meeting and web site are good places to let out the news.
3) A member was trying to buy some copies of a rather rare book to give as Christmas presents. He tried the bookstore chains to no avail, but still had a clear feeling it could be found. He just left it with God. As he walked by an independent bookstore he was moved to enter. Their computer revealed no such book in the store but the proprietor reached for an ancient tattered catalogue and within moments had sent our friend to a shelf where four copies of the book were sitting. He had wanted four copies, so it was a perfect match.
These healing examples of light, or divine intelligence, brought to an area were exactly what we needed to break any tendency to reify, intellectualize and frankly sentimentalize it to the point that it has no practical relevance to our lives. For us it's about consciousness expanded.
For next week, we initially thought of Resolutions as a topic for the New Year — but settled on Motivation as being a little less ego-based — a little more Ego-impelled.
with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.
The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.
I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
Genesis i. 5. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
All questions as to the divine creation being both spiritual and material are answered in this passage, for though solar beams are not yet included in the record of creation, still there is light. This light is not from the sun nor from volcanic flames, but it is the revelation of Truth and of spiritual ideas. This also shows that there is no place where God's light is not seen, since Truth, Life, and Love fill immensity and are ever-present. Was not this a revelation instead of a creation?
Science reveals only one Mind, and this one shining by its own light and governing the universe, including man, in perfect harmony.
Whatever is governed by God, is never for an instant deprived of the light and might of intelligence and Life.
We are sometimes led to believe that darkness is as real as light; but Science affirms darkness to be only a mortal sense of the absence of light, at the coming of which darkness loses the appearance of reality. So sin and sorrow, disease and death, are the suppositional absence of Life, God, and flee as phantoms of error before truth and love.
The manifestation of God through mortals is as light passing through the window-pane. The light and the glass never mingle, but as matter, the glass is less opaque than the walls. The mortal mind through which Truth appears most vividly is that one which has lost much materiality—much error—in order to become a better transparency for Truth. Then, like a cloud melting into thin vapor, it no longer hides the sun.
Go to the bedside of pain, and there you can demonstrate the triumph of good that has pleasure in infirmities; because it illustrates through the flesh the divine power of Spirit, and reaches the basis of all supposed miracles; whereby the sweet harmonies of Christian Science are found to correct the discords of sense, and to lift man's being into the sunlight of Soul.
There is not sufficient spiritual power in the human thought to heal the sick or the sinful. Through the divine energies alone one must either get out of himself and into God so far that his consciousness is the reflection of the divine, or he must, through argument and the human consciousness of both evil and good, overcome evil.
God's law reaches and destroys evil by virtue of the allness of God.
He need not know the evil He destroys, any more than the legislator need know the criminal who is punished by the law enacted. God's law is in three words, "I am All;" and this perfect law is ever present to rebuke any claim of another law. God pities our woes with the love of a Father for His child, — not by becoming human, and knowing sin, or naught, but by removing our knowledge of what is not. He could not destroy our woes totally if He possessed any knowledge of them. His sympathy is divine, not human. It is Truth's knowledge of its own infinitude which forbids the genuine existence of even a claim to error. This knowledge is light wherein there is no darkness, — not light holding darkness within itself. The consciousness of light is like the eternal law of God, revealing Him and nothing else.
O Light, in Thy light we can see
That man is ever one with Thee.
In love our lives Thou dost enfold,
And now our waiting hopes behold
That man is God's own child.