"Our topic is Freedom but first I'd like to welcome the newcomers. Would you all like to say anything?"

"Sure, I'll start. I'm just getting back into Christian Science after years away from it. I'm also coming out of an eleven year marriage and questioning whether I'm Lesbian or straight. I was amazed as you were reading from Science and Health that its slant on things and even its terminology track what I'm finding in another book I've been reading. It's called Healing Into Immortality, by Gerald Epstein, M.D."

"M.D. — really?"

"Yes, and he's withdrawn completely from material medicine, concentrating on spiritual means alone, although he does use guided meditation sometimes."

"And would you also like to say something?"

"I'm an RN specializing in psychiatric work. I came into Christian Science while taking care of an elderly patient who was a Christian Scientist. She was unable to talk but I read her copy of Science and Health and took to it immediately. I've now had class instruction and my teacher has been very good about my profession. She says I can be helpful wherever I am — and I think The Mother Church has begun to allow medical practitioners to join and take class in the last few years."

"That's similar to what's happened with Gay people — we're now welcome and can take class."

"Recently I had two students of Christian Science come through a psych ward I was working in. One was elderly and I was able to get her into a Christian Science nursing facility. The other was violent and needed short term medication to protect her and her unborn baby from harm."

"I once knew a very old Christian Scientist lady who'd have crying bouts. Eventually she required drug intervention."

"Members of our group have had sharply different experiences with drugs in hospitals. One was almost drugged into death, but somehow got enough clarity to pray for freedom and called his lawyer to get him out. The other was in the throes of schizophrenia and living on the streets when he came to us, but after a spell in a psychiatric unit he has stabilized, has found drugs that work and is now living indoors on his own and spending a lot of time in the Reading Room. I think he's dating too."

"I'd like to describe the work I did during the week on the stories of Joseph and Jonah in the Bible. I've given our note taker some selections for the Readings and want to give credit to Parabola issues from the Fall of 1990 and the Summer of 2003."

"Don't we all know the stories well enough so we don't have to read through them in detail? OK, tell us what you see."

"Both Joseph and Jonah had severe cases of what shrinks would probably call ego-inflation or we'd call human will. This is the form false freedom often takes — but if there's any soul or sensitivity to the person at all, it'll break down through suffering, forcing him to find the one Ego, God to guide his life and actions. Notice how Jonah just wanted to sleep off the problem he'd caused, until the captain awakened him. And how he then allowed the others onboard to participate in casting him into the sea."

"Your point is that he allowed them to be part of the healing — he didn't just go over and slip into the sea alone?"

"Exactly. And of course the fish swallows him and he must come to terms with and submit to God's will. He's vomited out and goes, transformed, to Nineveh."

"You know, he would probably have been a bit of a raw recruit if he'd gone to Nineveh when first ordered to do so."

"That's a very good point. As Mrs. Eddy says, we always have the choice of suffering or Science, but for most of us, we just don't get to the real Science without heart-wrenching submission, and that probably means suffering as we now live ourselves. The point of transformative suffering is even more grueling with Joseph. Could that brash kid prancing around in his multi-colored coat possibly have taken on the worldwide responsibilities he later grew into?"

"Let's not completely put down puer aeternus energy. I mean Jesus was a puer, as was Mozart, but they somehow knew how to let the Ego, God through."

"And there was some considerable suffering."

"Joseph and Jonah are examples of true freedom — freedom from inferior ego drives and freedom to reflect the one Ego of the universe. Also they were not in the least nihilistic, as is so much of religious imagery which concentrates on afterlives and blank minds. These were men transformed and fitted for world-shaking action."

"Oh, there's one other thing about Joseph. Note how he made his brothers suffer — in jail and then through many runarounds — just so they understood something of the pain they'd caused him. But ultimately his pain and theirs were assuaged by the remarkable statement, "...it was not you that sent me hither, but God...."

"I had a glimpse of the one Ego's action the other day. I was just walking along and got this wonderful feeling of peace and well being when I realized that everyone and everything is the reflection of God. Here's what I wrote down later: 'Living in alignment with — and as — my divine Selfhood, the Selfhood of all, the One and Only I or Us — I'm not only free, eternal, infinite — but I'm at peace with all, even as all are at peace with me. No push or pull, no manipulation — just living out from the One and Only.'"

"Very nice. I'd like to talk about an interaction I had yesterday with a young friend who I'm sure is Gay. He's being summoned back to his home country to marry a young woman, in order to fulfill tradition and please his parents."

"Well, that happens all the time in traditional cultures — and we're certainly not free of it here."

"He's Buddhist and I'm Christian Scientist but we really got down below the surface and managed to drop terminologies to find a common language of compassion and, dare I say, love. It was so sad, and yet so exhilarating at the same time. I'm sure there'll be some kind of adjustment: if nothing else, he'll discover ways on the ' down low' to accommodate his real desires."

"Whew! That's beautiful. I'm about to cry."

"Yeah, thanks for that. Did anyone have any further thoughts about the Republican Convention?"

"I loved the burst of creativity it brought on. Marches, workshops, theater, t-shirts. It felt so 60's — so Gay."

"I'm sure the Republicans enjoyed showing the world they could control a big, messy, liberal city — because dear country and world, you're next!"

"I loved Cheney's remark the other day that we'd better make the right choice on November the 2nd or the US could be hit again, devastatingly. The way he worded it, the right choice could be Kerry."

"Or better, God! We'd better not be leaning on paltry mortals instead of the sustaining infinite. Everyone everywhere is infinite idea, held in the gospel of Love."

"At the breakfast table the other morning some of us were grappling with why there'd be even a suggestion of evil if God is all. That led me to question the use of terms like mortal mind and divine Mind. Maybe there's just mind or, if you prefer, Mind. It's like the math tables — we can use them well, or badly — it's up to us. Now that's really free will, so proceed carefully. If I choose to think 2+2=5, fine but it'll beak down and I'll eventually have to find and use what's true. So, good is what's really there, what really works, and evil is what's false and doesn't work."

"I was listening to the Sentinel program Sunday morning. It was about healing loneliness through Christian Science and the testimonies were very fine. After that I turned to NPR and found something called The Infinite Mind. I thought, 'Oh goodie, more Christian Science' — but it wasn't at all. It was psychology, from a distinctly medical standpoint. I listened sort of absent-mindedly, but my interest perked up when they started talking about the Rapture. I thought they would deconstruct the fundamentalist Christian concept set to occur before the Second Coming. It turned out to be a discussion of what biochemists are calling the Rapture in their field. It promotes nothing less than immortality in the flesh — achieved through genetic and emerging rejuvenation techniques. There's a book called The Rapture coming out soon. Sorry I didn't get the authors' names."

"Well, I guess biotech is the new religion."

"From the level of enthusiasm, unmodified by any caution, and the gleaming visions put forth on the radio, I'd have to agree."

"Well you know Mrs. Eddy said something like we'd have immortality in the flesh if we'd just drop the belief in death."

"Can you find the quote?"

"Sorry, no. But if you read between the lines of any page in her writings, that idea is there."

"The ancient Egyptian view of what we call the afterlife is just more of the same life we now have here, only enhanced and beautified."

"Here's a line from Mrs. Eddy: '...as in heaven, so on earth, — God is omnipotent, supreme.'"(Science and Health, pg. 17:2)

"This is a good place to describe a way of working in Science on problems that come up. They're problems because they're my present, dualistic apprehension of a divine idea. So a storm is really Omnipotence. Now drop the storm and just glory in the Omnipotence. Illness is really the Life that is God. Now drop the illness and luxuriate in Life."

"How would I handle inflamed childhood issues?"

"You might start with what childhood counterfeits. It's a belief, or series of beliefs, about origins and fundamental influences. And it's all coming to bear now. Here's what occurs to me:God is the source and condition of your being. Get that firm, then have a look at any psychological issues and the priceless gems of reality they hide."

"Our time is up. Do we have a suggestion for next week's topic?"

"How about Now?"

"I like it. What do others think?"

"Good. Fine, let's do it."