"Our keeper of the Books isn't here tonight, but let me have any readings you have and I'll get them up on the site."

"The topic is Thanksgiving. Let's start with our newcomer. Would you like to say anything?"

"Yes, thanks. I'm not a Christian Scientist but I am interested in metaphysics. My religious background is Unitarianism. I like the topic. My ex-wife recently moved to Montana with our son, but I went out there before Thanksgiving and was able to spend some time with him."

"You're divorced?"

"Yes, it was a bitter parting. We're still working out arrangements for my son and me to see each other. I'm grateful we've gotten as far as we have, but I worry she'll manage somehow to cut me out of the picture."

"We can certainly address and destroy that fear with Christian Science."

"I'm grateful I got to spend a peaceful Thanksgiving here with friends who have children. It helped me deal with the pain."

"Thank you so much for sharing. Does anyone else have something?"

"Well, I'm having a breakthrough with my family. I haven't felt close to my parents or my brothers for a long time, but recently and particularly on Thanksgiving itself we did get much closer. I'm grateful for this and also for some career counseling which is just opening up for me. Oh, and let me add I'm thankful for this group. When I got here a few months back I was so depressed I could barely get out of bed."

"That's remarkable! I could never guess from your present appearance and overflowing good spirits you'd been so 'down' just a few months ago."

"A couple of weeks ago there was a Sentinel program on the radio about gratitude. The point was made that gratitude in the Bible is always from man to God. But this gratitude reaches its full expression in actions between us humans. It's like practicing the First Commandment and the Golden Rule. I used this as a model for my visit with my family over the holiday. I'd been dreading it but a practitioner said I was prophesying erroneously. That was a jolt and then the Sentinel program gave me a practical guide for handling difficult situations with people."

"So, how did it go?"

"I was afraid I'd have to be unreal, suppressing all evidence of my sexual orientation, not mentioning politics or religion and just being a cipher. That kind of denial usually ushers in overeating binges for me. But based on what I'd heard on the Sentinel program I worked to share myself as fully as possible in the circumstances. I pushed the envelope and tried not to lie about my identity and my feelings. That got me into some fascinating discussions. I'll say more about it later, but first I want to hear from others."

"Well, this meeting seems to be all about family reconciliations, and I've had a major one this year. I'm getting to know my sister again after twenty years of not speaking with her. There was a pink cloud period in our renewed relationship before all the problems that drove us apart re-surfaced. But it's okay because we have a commitment now to persist. That'll give us the chance to work the problems through and heal the anger."

"I love that! It's a great way to look at things."

"I once heard Margaret Laird, a Christian Science teacher, say that gratitude is not good Science. It locks us into a dualistic concept of ourselves and others, instead of promoting the correct view of us all as infinite divine idea, the full reflection of God."

"You could see gratitude as a break with the dualism, on the way to oneness."

"You mean the belief of me could briefly be grateful as it merges into the facts of being?"

"Well, if you must. I suppose 2+2=5 could be thankful as it dissolves into the truth."

"Isn't gratitude like desire, a sort of halfway house? It's not divine but it is a feeling or form of human prayer — and is thus dual. If we go over to God's view of this transaction, we find total perfection already established and can let this flood us with reality."

"That keys in with something I discovered on a recent plane flight. It was very bumpy — it felt dangerous, so I prayed. That gave me some peace, but the situation didn't improve until I saw clearly that I was infinite idea, including all right ideas. The belief of me was seated in the plane, but the fact of me was already everywhere, including our destination. In that realization there was no one and no thing to be grateful to. Gratitude would have been an offense against God's presence as divine idea. It would have set up hierarchies where there are none and ruptured the healing, so called."

"Isn't that interesting? It reminds me of one of our recurrent after-church, Sunday brunch topics: Why is there so little healing in Christian Science today? Two weeks ago we were moaning and kvetching our way along this well trodden road when it suddenly occurred to me and others that the lack of healing was because our whole focus is on physical healing rather than spiritual growth and the practice of Christian Science. Thanks for giving me some language to express that. How did you put it? I have to literally be divine being, where all perfection, joy and harmony prevail."

"Oh, I almost forgot — I wanted to talk about an interaction I had on Thanksgiving day with my niece's mother-in-law. She's a Bushite but inquired quite lovingly as to my reasons for voting for Kerry. We were able to talk with care and civility and even agreed there are severe problems to be addressed. As we proceeded I found myself saying the most amazing thing. I referred to Nixon opening up relations between China and the US; a Democrat could not have done it, he'd have been impeached! Then I said probably Bush would be the President who presided over the arrival of government sanctioned civil unions for all — Gay and non-Gay — while churches could distribute legally meaningless, though emotionally significant, marriages to their flocks."

"You may be right. I know Bush has said civil unions might be available for Gay couples if states allow them. That's the slippery slope that'll eventually remove government from endorsing church backed relationships where they should not be poking their nose."

"I heard Dr. Land, the head of the Southern Baptists, say on TV the other night that civil unions were the way for Gay couples to go. He left out any mention of Hell fire. He sounded sane."

"Given where he and Bush have come from, they're making quite a leap."

"Yes, but let's base our hope on Science, on the completeness and wholeness of each individual. Let right-wing sanity be based there, not swinging free in material belief."

"I wanted to give gratitude for something that happened last month. I had a vivid dream which carried over into a kind of waking hallucination. Somehow I managed to call a member of this group and he played along with the fantasy enough to gain my confidence. Then he got me to wake up by asking me to turn on the light. When I did, the hallucination faded out. I found out later that several of my friends have had this kind of thing happen."

"Sure. Carl Jung had lots of them, as did Mary Baker Eddy. Calvin Frye transcribed some of hers and they're available in the so-called Red Book."

"If you can recall any of the content of the dream or hallucination we could deconstruct it psychologically and then move the symbols through to their Science."

"I'd like that."

"We have to end soon, but we need a topic for next week."

"I've been unable to figure out how Christian Science handles emotions."

"Easy. We don't have any."

"That's what I mean. I think most Scientists suppress their feelings and emotions..."

"And get into a load of trouble — like strange illnesses and addictions."

"Religious people tend to suppress emotions. In fact intellectuals and even many psychologists do the same thing."

"Well, should we work on emotions? We'll be breaking new ground."

"Emotions is fine with me, but let's really watch what's going on and keep notes. How do we process our emotions and handle them in Science?"

"Okay?"

"Very good."

"Fine."