No Topic
September 19, 2002
And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.
We couldn't come up with a topic for this week, so the meeting was devoted to discussions of areas we were working on in our individual practice of Christian Science.
1) One member has recently become the chairperson of his branch church's finance committee. He has found that while church expenses have remained high for the last few years, membership has receded and revenues have fallen, leaving a yearly deficit. The church is now eating into the corpus of its investment account. He plans a metaphysical meeting to address this situation and read to us portions of Mary Baker Eddy's Message to the Mother Church of 1902, which will underlie the presentation he will make. (See pages 14-20, some parts of which are included in our Readings.) He is particularly impressed with Mrs. Eddy's demonstration of disseminating the Truth while concurrently having the means to do it.
Another member piggybacked on this discussion to point out that shrinking revenues and asset values are a current world belief based on holding assets to be material. He also mentioned the seemingly modest achievements of the Johannesburg "World Summit On Sustainable Development" which he felt were in fact quite impressive in terms of addressing poverty, inadequate water supplies and sanitation. Sure, there were disappointments on global environmental issues, but he drew hope from the involvement of private firms in the struggle. (They can be boycotted.) Alcan, for instance, is helping Bangladesh remove arsenic from its water supplies.
The same problem facing the branch church is facing planet earth: enough good for everyone. Christian Science has given us insight into the means for seeing and bringing forth the needed good.
2) Another member used his week to pull together and refine a letter in response to the Christian Science Sentinel's issue of July 22, 2002 on AIDS. Here are a few quotes:
"Can you imagine the crushing disappointment I felt when I discovered that you address the imposition of AIDS on Africans (ghastly, I admit) to the exclusion of the Gay society! I hate to say, however, it's not surprising, in view of the history of anti-homosexual articles that have appeared all too often in the religious periodicals of the Christian Science church."This same member worked during the week on letters to family members with whom he's had heated arguments over the last month. In order to compose the letters, he found it essential to see himself and the others in the light of Love, to let go of all blame and just offer a full apology."The C.S. Church has a lot it must answer for before it can make any meaningful headway against AIDS."
"Anyone with an ordinary sense of fair-play (let alone advanced metaphysics) can see that the first order of business is to publish enlightened and loving statements and articles that expose and renounce the unchristian and unscientific character of these anti-Gay/homosexual articles in the Christian Science religious periodicals in the C.S. Churches, Reading Rooms, Sunday Schools and general circulation."
3) Another member who has been affected by physical pain to the point of having to miss some of our meetings, phoned another member during the week to review his prayerful treatment of the problem and to celebrate locating what may well be an answer in the form of a clinic devoted to eliminating or managing pain.
4) Another member brought in a couple of newspaper articles on current world situations. One was an 8-page Christian Science Monitor Special Report with the title "Is America the Good Guy?" In case after case spanning the world, it appears we're not. One metaphysical approach to this is, according to this member, "getting over having to be good guys. If Jesus eschewed this adjective as applying to himself, should we keep up the facade?" (See the Readings from Matthew.) Next, based on what Jesus recommended, he felt we should realize that everyone as the reflection of God, good, does partake of good. "But it's not a personal possession — it's only through reflection and this applies to everyone."
The other article was a New York Times op-ed piece by Thomas Friedman (September 8, 2002) entitled, "Iraq, Upside Down." The author says Iraq can be deterred the way China and Russia were deterred,by our weapons of mass destruction "because (Sadaam) loves life more than he hates us." Friedman fears the "undeterrables who hate us more than they love their own lives." The undeterrables are young men from repressive Islamic countries filled with rage and envy at the humiliation and lack of dignity they feel vis-à-vis what they see of technological advances and political freedom in western countries. He finds a bit of hope in a recent "Arab Human Development Report" produced by Arab scholars declaring the reasons for Arab-Muslim backwardness rest upon deficits in political freedom, modern education and the empowerment of women. Our member feels that radical Christian Science prayer is needed to support the liberalization of the Islamic world.
For next week we'll work on Control. Who or what controls us; and where should it be based in Science?
And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God:
But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.
Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.
When we learn the way in Christian Science and recognize man's spiritual being, we shall behold and understand God's creation,—all the glories of earth and heaven and man.
The universe of Spirit is peopled with spiritual beings, and its government is divine Science.
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.
Despite the prosperity of my church, it was learned that material organization has its value and peril, and that organization is requisite only in the earliest periods in Christian history. After this material form of cohesion and fellowship has accomplished its end, continued organization retards spiritual growth, and should be laid off,—even as the corporeal organization deemed requisite in the first stages of mortal existence is finally laid off, in order to gain spiritual freedom and supremacy.
I suggest as a motto for every Christian Scientist,—a living and life-giving spiritual shield against the powers of darkness,—
"Great not like Caesar, stained with blood,
But only great as I am good."
The only genuine success possible for any Christian—and the only success I have ever achieved—has been accomplished on this solid basis. The remarkable growth and prosperity of Christian Science are its legitimate fruit. A successful end could never have been compassed on any other foundation,—with truths so counter to the common convictions of mankind to present to the world. From the beginning of the great battle every forward step has been met (not by mankind, but by a kind of men) with mockery, envy, rivalry, and falsehood—as achievement after achievement has been blazoned on the forefront of the world and recorded in heaven. The popular philosophies and religions have afforded me neither favor nor protection in the great struggle. Therefore, I ask: What has shielded and prospered preeminently our great Cause, but the outstretched arm of infinite Love? This pregnant question, answered frankly and honestly, should forever silence all private criticisms, all unjust public aspersions, and afford an open field and fair play.
Healing all manner of diseases without charge, keeping a free institute, rooming and boarding indigent students that I taught "without money and without price," I struggled on through many years; and while dependent on the income from the sale of Science and Health, my publisher paid me not one dollar of royalty on its first edition. Those were days wherein the connection between justice and being approached the mythical. Before entering upon my great life-work, my income from literary sources was ample, until, declining dictation as to what I should write, I became poor for Christ's sake.
The Christian Scientist cherishes no resentment; he knows that that would harm him more than all the malice of his foes. Brethren, even as Jesus forgave, forgive thou. I say it with joy,—no person can commit an offense against me that I cannot forgive. Meekness is the armor of a Christian, his shield and his buckler. He entertains angels who listens to the lispings of repentance seen in a tear—happier than the conqueror of a world. To the burdened and weary, Jesus saith: "Come unto me." O glorious hope! there remaineth a rest for the righteous, a rest in Christ, a peace in Love. The thought of it stills complaint; the heaving surf of life's troubled sea foams itself away, and underneath is a deep-settled calm.
Are earth's pleasures, its ties and its treasures, taken away from you? It is divine Love that doeth it, and sayeth, "Ye have need of all these things." A danger besets thy path?—a spiritual behest, in reversion, awaits you.
The great Master triumphed in furnace fires. Then, Christian Scientists, trust, and trusting, you will find divine Science glorifies the cross and crowns the association with our Saviour in his life of love. There is no redundant drop in the cup that our Father permits us. Christ walketh over the wave; on the ocean of events, mounting the billow or going down into the deep, the voice of him who stilled the tempest saith, "It is I; be not afraid."