Reconciliation I
April 11, 2002
Consolation and peace are based on the enlightened sense of God's government.
Reconciliation became our topic last week as we worked prayerfully on the situation in the Middle East. Members felt the metaphysical energies generated from work on this topic could be extended to personal problems as well.
Some helpful inspiration came up last week (see [#topic=20020404#]) about Palestine-Isreal and the readings this week gave a powerful and loving undergirding for healing. Here are some of the thoughts shared by members.
1) People are lashing out at projected images of their own disowned (shadow) parts, which appear to include a lot of crude omnipotence fantasies. Real omnipotence belongs to God, the allness of being, not to so called people running around detonating themselves or firing tank guns.
2) We always have the choice of suffering or Science in retracting and facing down such projected fantasies.
3) Science and Health, the Christian Science Textbook, includes methods for doing this work — see for instance page 462, lines 20 though 4 — but for those looking for a more organized procedure, the Catholic Church provides one through the "Sacrament of Reconciliation", embodying contrition and a sincere wish to reform leading into confession. The 12-Step programs, and of course psychotherapy also approach this work seriously.
4) A member read this to us from his current favorite book, All Is One, by Margaret Laird, page 24: "Peace among nations can be achieved only as each individual nation has peace within itself. In order for each nation to have peace within itself, hate, jealousy, greed, prejudice, intolerance, holding to traditions, must give place to Love as conscious awareness (experience) of each individual comprising that nation. Individually and collectively, all is one."
5) Another member commenting on this passage said we could get to the required living of Love by translating "hate, jealousy, greed, prejudice, intolerance and holding to traditions"into states of desire which are really prayer. "A desiring or prayerful mortal is a fictional representation of a fulfilled immortal."We can live the latter fully, allowing the desiring vehicle to fade out of consciousness (and therefore suppositional existence), to reveal harmonious humanhood.
6) We can convert news reports into "God-speak", the language of Spirit as opposed to all the dualities of materialism."We can keep simultaneous translations going, just like the UN."
7) It's up to each one of us — particularly as students of Christian Science, but ultimately everyone — to live our full potential as infinite divine ideas, including all — Palestinian, Israeli, Arab, Jew, everyone else — as fully satisfied divine ideas. Infinite, eternal interpenetrative divine ideas held in the Gospel of Love.
Some personal material came up.
1) Two members worked for each other in Science to overcome the effects of family alcoholism and low self-esteem around intimacy as Gay men. One awoke in the middle of the night to confront some devils and soon reached the vivid realization of the two men's "now perfection"annulling the dreams of a past or societal coercion and hatred.
The other man awoke with a dream of Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, cutting a piece of paper with writing on it into a circular form and putting it in a plastic sleeve. The full meaning of the dream is not clear but some things can be said. Mrs. Eddy probably represents an anima figure mediating divinity (the mandala shape of the paper, a word incidentally from ancient roots — "papyrus") into form (plastic is a word referring to form or shape).
This same member, as he did his "defensive work"that morning, thought of the British spelling "defence"and saw that the best defense was to "un-fence"himself — i.e., to live infinitely, uncramped by ego-based worries and grandiosities. Soon thereafter he found himself able to converse normally with someone he had gotten into a paralytic obsession over. More about this later, as the healing deepens.
2) One member described his protection from AIDS through adamant Christian Science work. "I just don't accept it as any part of me."He has had to endure the loss of many friends. He has even been able to help those suffering from the belief and be supportive as they pursue medical remedies. Members encouraged him to extend the scope of his Christian Science vision to include world thought. He also humbly owned his nonsuccess, so far, in handling dental beliefs through metaphysical treatment alone.
3) Another member gave us his impressions of the Mexican movie "Y Tu Mama Tambien"("And Your Mother Too"). It's a coming of age story for its characters and for Mexico as well. The hilarity, pain, and uncertainty of the project are propelled by nonstop eroticism. The multiple reconciliations needed are hinted at in the final line, "Me da la cuenta"("Give me the check").
We felt it was a good idea to go forward with Reconciliation for next week.
Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. #And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.
And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the Lord which saidst unto me, Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee:
Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, and the mother with the children.
And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.
And Jacob lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, Esau came, and with him four hundred men.
And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him: and they wept.
Jesus aided in reconciling man to God by giving man a truer sense of Love, the divine Principle of Jesus' teachings, and this truer sense of Love redeems man from the law of matter, sin, and death by the law of Spirit,—the law of divine Love.
From first to last the supposed coexistence of Mind and matter and the mingling of good and evil have resulted from the philosophy of the serpent. Jesus' demonstrations sift the chaff from the wheat, and unfold the unity and the reality of good, the unreality, the nothingness, of evil.
Human philosophy has made God manlike. Christian Science makes man Godlike. The first is error; the latter is truth. Metaphysics is above physics, and matter does not enter into metaphysical premises or conclusions. The categories of metaphysics rest on one basis, the divine Mind. Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul.
Question. — What are the demands of the Science of Soul?
Answer. — The first demand of this Science is, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." This me is Spirit. Therefore the command means this: Thou shalt have no intelligence, no life, no substance, no truth, no love, but that which is spiritual. The second is like unto it, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." It should be thoroughly understood that all men have one Mind, one God and Father, one Life, Truth, and Love. Mankind will become perfect in proportion as this fact becomes apparent, war will cease and the true brotherhood of man will be established. Having no other gods, turning to no other but the one perfect Mind to guide him, man is the likeness of God, pure and eternal, having that Mind which was also in Christ.
LORD GOD. Jehovah.
This double term is not used in the first chapter of Genesis, the record of spiritual creation. It is introduced in the second and following chapters, when the spiritual sense of God and of infinity is disappearing from the recorder's thought,—when the true scientific statements of the Scriptures become clouded through a physical sense of God as finite and corporeal. From this follow idolatry and mythology,—belief in many gods, or material intelligences, as the opposite of the one Spirit, or intelligence, named Elohim, or God.
The very circumstance, which your suffering sense deems wrathful and afflictive, Love can make an angel entertained unawares. Then thought gently whispers: "Come hither! Arise from your false consciousness into the true sense of Love, and behold the Lamb's wife,—Love wedded to its own spiritual idea." Then cometh the marriage feast, for this revelation will destroy forever the physical plagues imposed by material sense.
The murder of the just Nazarite was incited by the same spirit that in our time massacres our missionaries, butchers the helpless Armenians, slaughters innocents. Evil was, and is, the illusion of breaking the First Commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me:" it is either idolizing something and somebody, or hating them: it is the spirit of idolatry, envy, jealousy, covetousness, superstition, lust, hypocrisy, witchcraft.
The glorious truth of being—namely, that God is the only Mind, Life, substance, Soul—needs no reconciliation with God, for it is one with Him now and forever.
Jesus came announcing Truth, and saying not only "the kingdom of God is at hand," but "the kingdom of God is within you." Hence there is no sin, for God's kingdom is everywhere and supreme, and it follows that the human kingdom is nowhere, and must be unreal. Jesus taught and demonstrated the infinite as one, and not as two. He did not teach that there are two deities,—one infinite and the other finite; for that would be impossible. He knew God as infinite, and therefore as the All-in-all; and we shall know this truth when we awake in the divine likeness. Jesus' true and conscious being never left heaven for earth. It abode forever above, even while mortals believed it was here. He once spoke of himself (John iii. 13) as "the Son of man which is in heaven,"—remarkable words, as wholly opposed to the popular view of Jesus' nature.
Nothing is gained by fighting, but much is lost.
Peace is the promise and reward of rightness. Governments have no right to engraft into civilization the burlesque of uncivil economics. War is in itself an evil, barbarous, devilish. Victory in error is defeat in Truth. War is not in the domain of good; war weakens power and must finally fall, pierced by its own sword.
The Principle of all power is God, and God is Love. Whatever brings into human thought or action an element opposed to Love, is never requisite, never a necessity, and is not sanctioned by the law of God, the law of Love. The Founder of Christianity said: "My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you."
Christian Science reinforces Christ's sayings and doings. The Principle of Christian Science demonstrates peace. Christianity is the chain of scientific being reappearing in all ages, maintaining its obvious correspondence with the Scriptures and uniting all periods in the design of God. The First Commandment in the Hebrew Decalogue—"Thou shalt have no other gods before me"—obeyed, is sufficient to still all strife. God is the divine Mind. Hence the sequence: Had all peoples one Mind, peace would reign.
God is Father, infinite, and this great truth, when understood in its divine metaphysics, will establish the brotherhood of man, end wars, and demonstrate "on earth peace, good will toward men."