Reconciliation II
April 18, 2002
Good. All consciousness is Mind; and Mind is God,--an infinite, and not a finite consciousness. This consciousness is reflected in individual consciousness, or man, whose source is infinite Mind.
We worked on Reconciliation for a second week and used the first part of the meeting to share readings we'd studied and observations and conclusions we'd drawn from current unfoldments in the human scene.
The member who prayed with the biblical passages shown in our readings said he wanted to keep his vision singular, in order to live the Christ in various events, thus bringing appropriate human adjustments.
This resonated with another's contribution, Science and Health, p. 137: 8-25, about Peter's discernment of the Christ, "the spirit of God, Truth, Life, and Love, which heals mentally."
Others quoted sections of the Christian Science textbook showing how to reconcile Jewish and Christian thought (and by extension that of Muslims); how to annihilate wrongs "in social, civil, criminal, political, and religious codes"; how to "extract error" by pouring in "truth through flood-tides of Love."
The quotation from Miscellaneous Writings was seen by one member as a good description of the chemicalization that occurs as the allness of God, good, dawns on human thought, rectifying, transforming and saving.
Hymn 83 was our closing, but took on the added role of soothing thought stretched to the breaking point by discussion of world problems not fully mitigated by appreciating their non-dual, divine import.
Here's a brief outline of the events we discussed.
1) We noted with joy the gathering movement towards reconciliation in Sri Lanka, where fighting has stopped and the Tamils may eventually have their own "eelam" or homeland; in Venezuela, where Hugo Chavez, the constitutional president, has been restored to office and spoke of reconciling differences with business and labor, not to mention the armed forces; in the Congo and Angola, where ruinous civil wars are now being settled through negotiation.
2) We worked on the upcoming Papal conference on child molestation. There is growing awareness of the real problems, pedophilia and "ephebophilia" (sex with under-aged teenagers). The hierarchy is blurring homosexuality with these diseases and tending to lash out at moderate voices calling simply for protection of the under-aged from sexual engagement with predators. As with other "character disorders" like alcoholism and overeating, sexual malfunction — as well as the results of sexual abuse — can be ameliorated and even healed via a spiritual awakening, as promoted by Christian Science and the 12-Step programs.
3) U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft has spoken out in favor of the indictment of the murderer of two Lesbians on hate crime grounds — linking this prosecution to our nation's prosecution of terrorists.
4) The slow movement towards uncloseting Gay people in China was described in an article in the New York Times, April 12th, 2002.
5) And finally Israel and Palestine. The media blitz on this one was so negative that we couldn't let that stand unchallenged. We managed to find some hopeful points. For instance, Arafat is now unquestioned head of the Palestinians and a world hero. Thus, if and when a deal is ready to be done, he might just be able to lead his people and the Arab world to do it. Could this possibly have been the case after the Camp David meeting with Barak and Clinton — with an 8% approval rating?
Also, the Saudi peace plan has been OK'd by every other Arab government — including Iraq and Syria. Plus the USA, Russia, Europe etc. Was any of this so after Camp David?
The Israeli Lebanon border seems to have been quieted. Powell's visit to Damascus portends better relations there and possibly with Iran, lurking murkily on the fringes.
Arafat's lack of ability in day to day governing, as against being a revolutionary hero, is now plainly seen. Once the new state is launched new technocrats will need to come to the fore.
Sharon's reckless policies, not only in invading but as regards the settlements, are increasingly seen as untenable.
And finally as one member noted, things often have to get truly horrible before wars stop. Are we there yet? Also, when the two nations do finally take up peaceful relations there could be a quick recovery of civility. Think how much we hated the Germans and Japanese during WWII. That cleared up pretty well.
By now the meeting was in overtime but we did have a couple of individual demonstrations to report.
1) A member e-mailed that he saw the Bible Lesson, "Are Sin, Disease, and Death Real", as an excellent study aid regarding man's identity and nature as God's reflection. He and another member prayed with the second section of that lesson — it's about Abraham's "closet" wife, see Genesis 20 — to undergird the emergence of Gay people in their true light. He also was able to overcome flu symptoms by living as divine reflection, unaffected by mortal beliefs.
2) Another member gave a testimony at a branch church in gratitude for insight into a deeper level of an old healing. Twenty years ago he had to pray for months to secure employment at The Mother Church. At that time he saw the eventual healing as a matter of achievement, of obstacles overcome, through Christian Science treatment. Recently, as he listened to others testifying, he suddenly realized that the whole incident was an unfoldment of divine Love.
As we worked to come up with next week's topic, a member asked for help on a problem he has just become aware of — although he has been burdened with it for decades. He is unable to form real romantic attachments or even friendships because of an obsession with male beauty. He heard during the week a statement by Margaret Laird, CSB, to the effect that a mortal perceiver sees everything from the outside as dualistic object — leading to this kind of bind: "he's beautiful but of course I can't get to know him." We need to live all as ourselves, from the inside out, as the one I or Us.
Another member remarked that we should be as careful around "beauty" as around evil or danger. We should always look for the man in Science.
This area seemed a good one to work on for the week. At first we came up with "Intimidation" but finally settle on "Idolatry".
The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! #No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.
I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.
Man is the reflection of Soul. He is the direct opposite of material sensation, and there is but one Ego. We run into error when we divide Soul into souls, multiply Mind into minds and suppose error to be mind, then mind to be in matter and matter to be a lawgiver, unintelligence to act like intelligence, and mortality to be the matrix of immortality.
Mortal existence is a dream; mortal existence has no real entity, but saith "It is I." Spirit is the Ego which never dreams, but understands all things; which never errs, and is ever conscious; which never believes, but knows; which is never born and never dies.
Even Christ cannot reconcile Truth to error, for Truth and error are irreconcilable. 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.
Yearning to be understood, the Master repeated, "But whom say ye that I am?" This renewed inquiry meant: Who or what is it that is able to do the work, so mysterious to the popular mind? In his rejection of the answer already given and his renewal of the question, it is plain that Jesus completely eschewed the narrow opinion implied in their citation of the common report about him.
With his usual impetuosity, Simon replied for his brethren, and his reply set forth a great fact: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God!" That is: The Messiah is what thou hast declared,—Christ, the spirit of God, of Truth, Life, and Love, which heals mentally. This assertion elicited from Jesus the benediction, "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven;" that is, Love hath shown thee the way of Life!
The Jew believes that the Messiah or Christ has not yet come; the Christian believes that Christ is God. Here Christian Science intervenes, explains these doctrinal points, cancels the disagreement, and settles the question. Christ, as the true spiritual idea, is the ideal of God now and forever, here and everywhere. The Jew who believes in the First Commandment is a monotheist; he has one omnipresent God. Thus the Jew unites with the Christian's doctrine that God is come and is present now and forever. The Christian who believes in the First Commandment is a monotheist. Thus he virtually unites with the Jew's belief in one God, and recognizes that Jesus Christ is not God, as Jesus himself declared, but is the Son of God. This declaration of Jesus, understood, conflicts not at all with another of his sayings: "I and my Father are one,"—that is, one in quality, not in quantity. As a drop of water is one with the ocean, a ray of light one with the sun, even so God and man, Father and son, are one in being. The Scripture reads: "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me." (Exodus xx. 3.) The First Commandment is my favorite text. It demonstrates Christian Science. It inculcates the tri-unity of God, Spirit, Mind; it signifies that man shall have no other spirit or mind but God, eternal good, and that all men shall have one Mind. The divine Principle of the First Commandment bases the Science of being, by which man demonstrates health, holiness, and life eternal. One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfils the Scripture, "Love thy neighbor as thyself;" annihilates pagan and Christian idolatry,—whatever is wrong in social, civil, criminal, political, and religious codes; equalizes the sexes; annuls the curse on man, and leaves nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed.
The way to extract error from mortal mind is to pour in truth through flood-tides of Love. Christian perfection is won on no other basis.
In proportion to a man's spiritual progress, he will indeed drink of our Master's cup, and be baptized with his baptism! be purified as by fire,—the fires of suffering; then hath he part in Love's atonement, for "whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth." Then shall he also reign with him: he shall rise to know that there is no sin, that there is no suffering; since all that is real is right. This knowledge enables him to overcome the world, the flesh, and all evil, to have dominion over his own sinful sense and self. Then shall he drink anew Christ's cup, in the kingdom of God—the reign of righteousness—within him; he shall sit down at the Father's right hand: sit down; not stand waiting and weary; but rest on the bosom of God; rest, in the understanding of divine Love that passeth all understanding; rest, in that which "to know aright is Life eternal," and whom, not having seen, we love.
Then shall he press on to Life's long lesson, the eternal lore of Love; and learn forever the infinite meanings of these short sentences: "God is Love;" and, All that is real is divine, for God is All-in-all.