Members agreed right away that everyone has lots of judgments and our strategy should be to manage and understand but not suppress them. Judgments are a rich source of information about anyone holding them — ourselves certainly included. While the ultimate standpoint in Science must be righteous judgment — which is to say spiritual discernment — there is still much leeway for feeling our way productively through the morass thrown up by even the most judgmental thinking. A member brought to our attention the interaction of Jesus and Mary Magdalene as commented upon by Mary Baker Eddy in the opening pages of the chapter on "Christian Science Practice" in Science and Health. Is Mrs. Eddy perhaps alluding to her own recovery from sensualism — and potentially ours?

In the usual flow of events we're constantly picking and choosing based on judgments and there is little to be said except to be alert that we haven't reduced existence to just drifting along with a materially safe lifestyle. There are those moments however when we experience something which brings with it a really positive or negative judgment and we can know then that we've stumbled on a perhaps unconscious powerful divine idea demanding identity. Most people handle this kind of thing by, for instance, falling in love or buying something if it's positive or alternately lashing out or going to court if it's negative. The serious student of Christian Science would perhaps exercise restraint on actions until the underlying impulsion is clear.

Our readings include several passages from the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus' advice about the mote in our brother's eye as against the beam in our own, sparked a conversation about what psychologists call projections. If we're not consciously aware of our own humanly good and evil aspects — thereby consigning them to the unconscious — we'll probably project the good or evil that is properly our own unto others — perhaps suffering greatly "at their hands". If we can see the projection, retire it to within our own consciousness and work on it there we have the potential for a great victory over evil and release of good into our lives.

Several members mentioned emergency incidents where such elegance of procedure was simply impossible. For instance, one told of a time when a lover was breaking down his door to kill him. He called a practitioner and started studying the Christian Science Bible Lesson Sermon fervently. By the time the door had fallen, the lover was calm and unaware of his earlier murderous state. They soon split up. Our member now has time, these many years later, for quiet reflection on what having had a lover like this says of his own internal state. And with Christian Science this can be a very positive unveiling of the wholly good divine idea emanating from and as his Mind.

On the other hand, another member discussed his struggle over the years with anger. As he started looking into it, everyone else seemed at fault, but with psychological sophistication he realized he was set up for angry reactions, to even mild infractions, by being raised in a very anger-prone household. It was a survival mode which he can now dismantle. More recently he has found spiritual means to convert the anger into energy to fuel his work and love life.

A member phoned in his share on judgment. He was interested in the parable of the publican and the Pharisee at prayer (see Luke 18: 9-14). He feels these two individuals (as well as the Jesus-Judas duality) represent personality extremes which are reconciled by Christ. They could be seen as Freud's id and superego, resolved in the ego. He said we have to be aware always of the drives that are handling us and is quite concerned by the scapegoating of Gay people by our society's — that includes our own — sexual hang-ups and generalized shame.

Another member was struck by how seriously Mrs. Eddy regarded our need to communicate "without harsh words" and to "do good unto your enemies when the opportunity occurs" (see Readings from the Manual of The Mother Church).

We had a demonstration of this at the meeting. One member, who by the way is not an enemy but a very dear friend, is interested in reincarnation and explained how it would work in terms of our subject: There can be no judgment when one has already set up his life before birth to get certain experiences. Of course reincarnation is not part of present Christian Science teaching, but others in the room were able to translate some of its concepts into mainstream scientific thought.

Paul talks of dying daily (see I Corinthians 15: 31) and Jesus left us the example of resurrection and ascension. Mrs. Eddy maintains we gain nothing from death but must still face what we have not spiritualized on this level of consciousness.

We then talked of two legal cases.

1) Child molestation by the clergy. We felt that the church's unrealistic and unscientific views of human sexuality are mostly responsible for this crime. The Vatican has started to blame Gay men in the priesthood for the assaults and may institute a purge. Most abuse is practiced by heterosexuals with a power, not a sexual, agenda. As with so much else that's going on today this is a huge wake up call to us all. Much good can flow from a proper handling of the energies unleashed. In this case perhaps we need to treat sexuality as a sacramental activity. One member said he was finding it useful to keep a watch on his own inner child molester, ready always to beat up his own and others' sense of sweetness and innocence.

2) Andrea Yates. Again orthodox Christianity is a problem. Her mental instability must have been accentuated by her church-inspired rigid role as child producer, housewife and home educator. Apparently psychology was seen a shameful; therefore the unsurprising and often encountered wish to do away with one's children was never faced in this case and depotentiated either by removal of the kids or simple empathic communication. It might be interesting to know — although we probably never will — whether beneath all this rigidity there breathed someone far more talented and alive than the shell of a person jumping through the hoops of conventionalism.

A member wondered how many of us are not living our fondest earthly hopes as expressed in the following sentence in Science and Health: "My angels are exalted thoughts, appearing at the door of some sepulchre, in which human belief has buried its fondest earthly hopes." (p. 299:7-9) We were at the end of our time, so we took that — Fondest Earthly Hopes — as our topic for next week.