Getting Back on the Track
December 11, 2003
Spiritual causation is the one question to be considered, for more than all others spiritual causation relates to human progress.
The member who recommended our topic was unable to attend but others jumped into the breach and provided some lively give and take.
The models for our discussion were Job's experience and the parable of the Prodigal Son. In both stories a false personal sense appears to separate the central character from his true Being or God. Much suffering ensues but serves to bring the protagonist to a new and living experience of his divinity.
Some of us wondered whether slipping off the track into a seeming separation from God could actually be a Soul-revealing occurrence. "Yes — definitely!"responded one member. "But you'd have to somehow have the wisdom to let the separation and suffering drive you back home,"as with both Job and the Prodigal. "Think of the consciousness expansion for both these guys. You can see it by referring to Job's friends and the Prodigal's older brother. They're still stuck in servitude and envy."
As we looked carefully at the older brother's part in the Prodigal story we found he was still seeing himself serving the Father "lo these many years,"observing all the rules and seething with envy. But he too — and the friends of Job — have the makings of transformation if they can just get what God is always saying to every one of us "...all that I have is thine."
We found words can trip us up. Several members thought that seeing ourselves as on a track or path is strictly the mortal appearance. To designate the journey as a pilgrimage is helpful perhaps in discerning its sacred intent, but still leaves us earthbound, needing to break free. As one member put it, "Heaven is now. We're all there now. If we want healing and harmony we must experience this now."While not disagreeing, another added, "And that'll look like a path or pilgrimage to human eyes."I agree — but now comes the delicate part — keeping the human unfoldment or path in alignment with the divine facts."
How? We all agreed the human aspect of life must be kept secondary to its spiritual roots — "It's effect, not cause."One member gave us this: "The work — which is no work really — is to get beyond seeing myself as someone doing or seeing something. as praying or treating with Christian Science, or applying it to a problem. Couldn't I just be the Being which constitutes the universe?"Well, isn't that a bit lacking in humility?"Oh no — anything less would be pompous and idolatrous."
"You certainly can't hit a newcomer with that!"Why not? Why load them down with semi-metaphysics that sound good but basically just peep and mutter."(That's a reference to Isaiah 8:19: "And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God?").
A member asked whether we were ready for the spirituality our Christian Science treatment might bring upon us. "It seems so bland and uninteresting to me."Another member replied that we're dealing with a science here. "Would we balk at mathematics because of its blandness and regularity? Should we wish for more excitement and fun when we add up the grocery bill and get a different answer each time? Should we rejoice as the bridge collapses from flexible math?"
Another member talked of a friend who's undergoing quite a struggle to stay alive. How can we help him? He does have a copy of Science and Health, but is resistant to studying it right now. Others agreed we've all been there and the best we could do is understand and live the friend's — and everyone's — divinity. This should be far more helpful than haranguing him about his lack of study.
This brought us to a very interesting question. Rather than practicing Christian Science to patch up personal problems, why not take a much more expansive view? Getting back on the track then becomes being on a universal quest to convert the belief in matter into the presence of God. One member used this example: "Christian Science promotes the idea of raising the dead. I could expand that to the Truth that not one of God's ideas was ever born or is subject to death. If I got that clear and lived it — why, think of the glories and joys that would break forth on the human scene."
A member told us of a friend who is apparently addicted to drugs. It's probably pot. We went on quite a bit about this situation, until one member asked, "What would it take for us to be healed right here and now of our fascination with this problem?"We worked to get some realization of the spiritual equivalent of both pot and self-righteous indignation. Pot claims to expand and calm consciousness; its metaphysical counterfact might be infinite Mind resting in action. Self-righteousness proved more elusive. Could its spiritual equivalent be simply reflecting God? Then we're not just a person trying to be good — but right idea including all right ideas.
Recent articles in the Christian Science Monitor came up.
1) "How legalizing gay marriage undermines society"an Op-Ed piece by Alan Charles Raul in the December 9, 2003 issue.
Our feeling was that since Mr. Raul starts off assuming that Gay marriage is immoral his conclusions are tainted to say the least. The legalization of Gay sex and marriage are just part of the decline he sees in America as it lurches towards minority rights and supports family life in ways he finds immoral. We see it as one of America's prime tasks to provide a nurturing atmosphere for the minorities of the world to understand each other, building a new society from that.
2) "Out of the margins, into the mainstream" — a feature article by Mary Wiltenburg in the December 10, 2003 issue.
This may be the Monitor's first survey of the march of LGBT rights presented in human terms with lots of family involvement — parents and siblings of Gay people as well as some of our own partnerships raising children. Surely this article is a breakthrough for the Christian Science Movement, showing the basic humanity of Gay people. "Maybe it's preparing the way for inclusion of our healing stories in the religious periodicals,"speculated one member.
For next week we'd like to look at Politics in order to sharpen our spiritual perspective before the 2004 elections unfold.
Then Job answered the Lord, and said, I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee. Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.
I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.
And he said, A certain man had two sons: And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry. Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and entreated him. And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.
Creation is ever appearing, and must ever continue to appear from the nature of its inexhaustible source. Mortal sense inverts this appearing and calls ideas material. Thus misinterpreted, the divine idea seems to fall to the level of a human or material belief, called mortal man. But the seed is in itself, only as the divine Mind is All and reproduces all—as Mind is the multiplier, and Mind's infinite idea, man and the universe, is the product. The only intelligence or substance of a thought, a seed, or a flower is God, the creator of it.
If you launch your bark upon the ever-agitated but healthful waters of truth, you will encounter storms. Your good will be evil spoken of. This is the cross. Take it up and bear it, for through it you win and wear the crown. Pilgrim on earth, thy home is heaven; stranger, thou art the guest of God.
Whatever holds human thought in line with unselfed love, receives directly the divine power.
Christian Scientists, be a law to yourselves that mental malpractice cannot harm you either when asleep or when awake.
Christian Science is simple, and readily understood by the children; only the thought educated away from it finds it abstract or difficult to perceive.
Metaphysics, not physics, enables us to stand erect on sublime heights, surveying the immeasurable universe of Mind, peering into the cause which governs all effects, while we are strong in the unity of God and man.
Science reverses the evidence of material sense with the spiritual sense that God, Spirit, is the only substance; and that man, His image and likeness, is spiritual, not material. This great Truth does not destroy but substantiates man's identity,—together with his immortality and preexistence, or his spiritual coexistence with his Maker.
Mind is its own great cause and effect. Mind is God, omnipotent and omnipresent. What, then, of an opposite so-called science, which says that man is both matter and mind, that Mind is in matter? Can the infinite be within the finite? And must not man have preexisted in the All and Only? Does an evil mind exist without space to occupy, power to act, or vanity to pretend that it is man?