Mortals ascribe motivation to all sorts of things but Science cuts through these to the center of being, finding one cause and effect. We discerned this point early in our meeting and were then able to relax and enjoy cracking open some of the material concepts that so easily obsess us to find their non-dualistic golden nuggets.

Paul said, "Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong"(II Corinthians 12:10). All attending had problems, gripes and lacks together with triumphs and personal attachments awaiting clarification of divine motivation and translation into the underlying facts.

Here are some of the more controversial and thus potent areas discussed.

One member had just received and shared with us a letter from The Mother Church responding to his inquiry as to whether the Board would now make public its change of heart regarding the treatment of Gay members and employees. (We received word of this change in July but continue to get reports of bigotry in the movement.) The Board said it would make no public statement and we were disappointed, of course. This led to a discussion of what the origins of our agitation are and how to handle the situation, with references to past and possible future militancy.

One member said a psychologist he once dated felt his problem with The Mother Church was an obvious recapitulation of much earlier problems with securing his independence from parental figures. He took this as true and went to work in Christian Science to free up his true source and condition, his actual real being as God alone. He is now free of the former feelings of suffocation and persecution motivated by a faulty assessment of what is going on and seems able to handle Mother Church problems as he would any other.

As for militancy, old-time workers recounted some of the moving and hilarious encounters with church officials over the decades on the subject of affectional-orientation. Surely both we and those we dealt with benefited from the struggle for clarity. Overall is the prayerful seeking which will not return unto any of us void. One member reached out for a "higher octave of militancy"but could not state fully what that might be. He did venture that it would have to encompass a structure of Truth, Love and Principle of which a mortal emitter of opinions is but a counterfeit. Can we find and live this church?

Lingering homophobia turned up in the thought of some members and needed loving attention. How easily we let "group think"influence us, as Mrs. Eddy said it would without constant vigilance. "Do we accept the absolute equivalency of homosexuality and heterosexuality?"asked one member. Two members said homosexuality is less, one said more. The problem of course was that we were looking at the situation through mortal eyes, failing to integrate any divine energies into the equation. One member woke up enough to assert that being Gay, like being non-Gay, is not some half-baked life style kind of thing but a deeply felt, sacred mission. For Gay people there is always the countervailing call of situational heterosexualism — i.e., "passing"— because of the current unpopularity of our orientation, but like Jonah in the readings, if we indulge that we'll just have to retrace our steps and finally do God's bidding.

Others felt we must be careful here not to deal with what are essentially human concepts as fixed facts, but must constantly surrender them to the one Ego, that it — i.e., God — might mold and lift them higher. No one seriously thought the result of such surrendering would be a change of orientation, but who can say? "Let's not engage in petty cross fire between material beliefs,"one member recommended.

A member reported the healing of a severe cold based on being able to feel his own feelings regarding social obligations accumulating at the holidays. What did he feel really represented his way of relating and what was driven by his manic mother's voice bidding him "get out there"and so on? The key was upgrading his mother concept to its divine counterpart and living out from this beneficent source.

Another member reported a breakthrough regarding the Mormon belief about families being reunited in Heaven and going forward together forever. In Science we're all the family of man living in Heaven or unity now and forever. Thus a rather gnarled orthodox belief has hidden within it a very healing message for the harmony of mankind. Think of all the material drives and motivations like this one just waiting for Christian Scientists to wrest substance from their thorny exteriors.

The member who experienced the visceral prison fantasy last week (see [#topic=20001221#], 12-21-00) had a follow-up dream this week which showed his mother and sister caring for a small reptile he owned and wanted to keep in the house. In other words, the feminine aspect of God redeems his sexual needs and integrates them into his consciousness.

One of the statements in the latest letter from The Mother Church includes this phrase "...chastity clearly is the standard of Christian Science...."To the initial dropped-jaw amazement of some, we chose Chastity as our subject for the week. It's time to get clear just what the spiritual import of this human concept is.