"He's not here but he'd just seen 'Waiting for Godot' and felt like exploring the point of the play — that most of us live our lives waiting for something to happen before we really start living."

"Like when I get the lover or a better job?"

"Yeah. For orthodox Christians they'll live when they die."

"You're not saying we shouldn't plan or have goals?"

"I don't know. I plan a lot, but maybe I miss a lot that way."

"Oh please! We need to have some kind of direction — something we're working towards."

"Like working our way up to heaven? Most advanced metaphysicians warn against that. We work out from heaven."

"I'm just seeing how I'm waiting for a significant other to appear—or some bothersome symptoms to disappear. And of course those depend on getting my Christian Science prayers right."

"And how would that happen?"

"Well, personal sense says I need to make it happen. But really I suppose God would give me the right understanding."

"AKA Godot?"

"Eek! Thanks! What did Mrs. Eddy say about just being Love, being Life?"

"That business about orthodox Christians coming to life in the afterlife — maybe there's a hint there for everybody. We only really come to life once we live our Christ or divine-human Life."

"And we can't avoid it. God is our ever-present Life and we don't have any choice — nor does He. It's just the way it is. The choice is whether we hitch our identity to some concept of God and man, but even then, the reality of being is always calling out to us and will get us back eventually. Do we prefer Science of suffering to get there?"

"You make it sound so simple but sometimes it's hard to let go of cherished concepts."

"I'm not sure that's a good way to work. Just live the basic reality of whatever concept you're involved with and it'll morph into something closer to Truth."

"In the play the guys are living while they're waiting around. I think that applies to us too. If I have to work and strive to get the Truth clear, still I'm living and I get to deal with a lot of imagery which can be transformed in the process."

"Do we have some experiences to talk about?"

"I saw 'Angels and Demons'. It's over the top, but well done visually and musically. I was trying to read the unconscious contents of its symbols and saw how the present concept of church will vanish in a flash of light once our condition in quantum physics becomes obvious. The convoluted falderal of placatory religion will go like the horse and buggy before the car."

"Reading the unconscious contents, eh? Is it really of any value to do that with a pop movie?"

"Sure! For those paying attention in 1998 when 'Titanic' came out, it was plain that some awful stuff was coming down the pike as we exulted in being masters of the universe."

"You didn't tell us at the time."

"No. I didn't trust my intuition in this area. But anyway we can still work on it and on the church situation. Remember in Science we only read mortal mind to kick start us into divine Mind reading."

"So what's it saying?"

"You know! You tell me!"

"I'm in charge! That 'I' is God."

"Anyone else?"

"Yes. I was pretty badly abused by a friend recently. He borrowed my phone to line up a date. The guy called back and I didn't get the phone out of my pocket fast enough to suit my friend. He was unbelievably ugly about it! Totally insulting — and I gave it right back! We parted in full fury.

"Later I was going over the incident and realized the hot button issue it touched off in me. I also become irrational and crazy around dating. As a mortal I have abandonment issues in spades. So I moved on to a scientific solution — to be Love, God, who cannot abandon me, since I'm an extension of Him. I was then able to forgive my friend's moment of madness since he too was an extension of God."

"Good work!"

"Can we discuss fornication?""You're talking about the Lesson on Life?"

"Yeah. Section VI. I'll read some of it: 'Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?' (I Cor 6: 18, 19)"

"Isn't that Bible-speak for 'idolatry'?"

"That's one theory."

"Why do you let these silly quotes get to you? Closet queens like St. Paul shouldn't be given any weight in discussions of sex."

"I just pass stuff like that by."

"What does this mean? 'Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.' (I Cor 7:5)?"

"Who knows."

"The problem is octogenarians in Boston preaching at youngsters who probably gave up on the Lesson long ago."

"This could be a very interesting area actually. Christian Science could bring so much to our current psychological understanding of sex drives. Shrinks today draw a distinction between mere instinctual sex — dissociated sex — and sex with feelings. Christian Science could help people find the deepest cause of sexual feeling in Principle, and demonstrate it."

"The Lesson Committee knocked out one possible help when they used a newer translation for the Golden Text. It reads: 'The LORD your God will change your heart and the hearts of all your descendants, so that you will love him with all your heart and soul and so you may live' (New Living Translation, Deut 30:6)! Now here's the King James: 'And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live'(Deut 30: 6).

"The new version is cleaned up and watered down into meaninglessness, while the outlandish use of the word 'circumcise' in the King James surely has some deeper, spiritual meaning. Probably it's about consecration. So a warning about fornication is really a warning about materialism or dualism in life generally, including sex of course. And circumcising or dedicating one's heart to God would warn about dissociated sex — or anything else approached that way.""A friend of mine says sex needs to be a seven chackra affair and not simply coming from the sex chackra."

"I like that, and it could be said of everything. It brings in both the spiritual and the psychological."

"And the physical."

"Remember a few months back we were marveling at Mrs. Eddy's definition of Temple in the Glossary? Let me read it: 'TEMPLE. Body; the idea of Life, substance, and intelligence; the superstructure of Truth; the shrine of Love; a material superstructure, where mortals congregate for worship' (S&H 595: 7-10). Am I being the shrine of Love or simply a material super-structure?"

"Ah, but all those worshipers!"

"To me it all boils down to facing my own self. After all the gurus and all the experts have had their say, do I feel in my innermost being I'm living the life that approaches the supreme good?"

"My experience with college kids today is that many of them are attracted to spirituality but some are getting swept up by the aggressive outreaches of fundamentalist religions. The fundie kids are often liberal on economic issues but very hardcore on social issues, particularly on the rights of women and Gay people. They're amazingly homophobic."

"I think in our church the kids are leading the membership into more reasonable positions on homosexuality."

"Not these fundamentalists! In fact homosexuality seems to be their main concern and they can quote all the scriptural passages they think condemn it."

"Why don't we take fundamentalism as our next topic? What is it — surface wise and down deep? Are we ourselves adherents? At least at some level."

"Okay with me — but let's work to find what's really going on there and not just fall into condemnation."

"Okay. Fundamentalism for to weeks."