The Veil is in the news today because of the shrouding of women among conservative, so-called Wahabi, Muslims. We discovered that the veil was not much used in biblical times, other than in the two instances brought out in our readings: Moses veiled his face when talking to the people, but unveiled it when talking to God; and a veil guarded the Holy of Holies in the temple from entrance by anyone other than the high priest on the day of atonement. Christ Jesus swept aside both veils and made the presence of God accessible to all mankind. Christian Science went on to cut through the remaining veil of matter or dualism and demonstrate the oneness of God and man.

It was not difficult for us to see what is being attempted by veiling Muslim women: there are enough traces of sexism left in our own society to extrapolate from. It's about covering up male sexual shame projected on women; and the exploitation of women in strictly circumscribed roles. Conservative Christians have embarked on a similar campaign but Christian Science teaches individual sexual responsibility and the equality of men and women. Yes, many modern Christian sects promote responsibility and equality, but it seemed to us that Christian Science can go beyond mere assertion, basing its approach on the infallible facts of being. Each of us is God's experience of Himself as male-female.

Some of our members were interested in the relatively recent emergence of various ethnic and other minority identifications from behind a screen of being "just Americans". This movement has perhaps been blunted by the present national crisis, but ethnicity and sexual orientation, for example, are still celebrated rather than suppressed, and represent an aspect of the emergence of the divine-human selfhood implied in the Christ Jesus symbolism and made plain in Christian Science.

There was some discussion of two recent magazine articles about Abraham, pointing to the common ancestry of Jews and Arabs, and thus their brotherhood. One member quoted this from Science and Health, "mortals, or the 'children of men' in material sense, are discordant and ofttimes false brethren"(p. 444: 29-30). But he added the following statement by Jesus as showing the way to establish harmony: "Before Abraham (mortality) was, I (God being man) am."(John 8: 58)

The unveiling of Osama bin Laden's dinner conversation, taped in Jalalabad, came up. We were horrified at its self-congratulatory, Allah-invoking, cold blooded tone interspersed with humor. One member mentioned its similarity to a news conference which followed the running of the tape featuring the U.S. defense secretary and his fan club, joking and jousting as they talked of killing multitudes of Muslim troops.

Well, that was a bit much to take, but our Jungian in residence quickly intervened to suggest we follow Jesus in casting out the motes in our own eyes etc. before judging anyone. Might we each usefully inquire into our own "reptilian brain"capable of all evil? Fine, but how then to heal that? All we could come up with initially is to work on humane-ness, empathy and love. Then the more absolute route presented itself: it's to live all divinely as the I that is Us.

Most of our discussion took the veil as an imposition to be swept aside, but Mrs. Eddy does give us a positive reference. See the readings, Miscellaneous Writings, p. 352: 28-2, where she writes of the different approaches to healing sin and sickness.

One member related to the veil's implication of "interior, otherworldly, right brain, feminine functioning". He quoted a Buddhist saying that one should be as a "broken incense pot in an abandoned temple". He also referred to two statements from the Christian Science Textbook, "Christians rejoice in secret beauty and bounty, hidden from the world, but known to God"(Science and Health, p. 15:25); and the Bethlehem babe, "in cradled obscurity"(Ibid., p. vii: 5-6).

A couple of healings were reported:

1) The member who last week uncovered some early incest imagery and effects, pushed forward with his recovery. (See topic, [#topic=20011206#]). He thought then that traits like tenderness and caring were permanently obliterated by the incest, but found this week — through projection onto another person — that they were in fact innate and thus merely dormant, awaiting practice now. As he retires the projections back to himself, he is owning his feelings and being fitted for relationship. It's too bad he had all those years of pain, but he's joyous now to be having some true feelings for the first time.

2) A member and friend were caught in a horrendous traffic jam for half an hour when the friend asked how Christian Science would handle the situation. Our member was a bit embarrassed he hadn't thought to apply Science until then, but he explained some truths: that God is infinite and each one of us, as reflection, is too. Thus we're all of us already everywhere at the level of Spirit, which is the only level there is. They were where they were going before they started. It was kind of half hearted, and they both went back to grinding their teeth. A few minutes later the friend started playing with the satellite positioning device in the car and quickly found a way to extricate them from the impasse. A few complicated turns ensued — all supervised by the device — and they were free, moving normally on another road.

Near the end of the meeting there was a discussion about advertising for the group. A couple of members suggested we spend a week working and praying about it — thus the topic Attraction.