"When we say 'oneness' aren't we just looking for others to agree with what we think?"

"Right. Everyone has to agree with me and my opinions. It's crazy! We need to find the common ground we all spring from, where all is one."

"We're talking God or divine Mind. But from that source comes infinite variety. Every person, place or thing is a unique idea."

"And all from the oneness of divinity — so there's harmony. What's the quote from Paul about diversity of gifts?"

"OK — here, I've got it: "Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit... But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal... For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ... For the body is not one member, but many... And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?... If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?... But now are they many members, yet but one body. (I Cor 12: 4, 7, 12, 14, 16, 17, 20)"

"Let's go deeper. Even the most seemingly unbridgeable differences can be resolved metaphysically if we can find the center of being."

"Would you like to give us an example of how you'd do that? Take Al Qaeda."

"OK, and why not Taliban, Shia and Sunni too?"

"Throw in the Christians and Jews."

"OK, OK. So what are we all seeking? I'd say peace and well-being."

"Don't be simplistic — they want to kill us!"

"You mean the Christians?"

"You know who I mean — the Muslims."

"Oh well, that's their ticket to heaven — kill the non-believers. But it's just a belief — no more nor less than our belief that by bombing the hell out of them we'll establish our secular heaven of peace and security."

"This is insane!"

"All I'm saying is we're all looking for some end result, whether it's called heaven in the great beyond or peace and security here on earth.."

"Go on..."

"The resolution is very simple. In Christian Science we find the spiritual facts of what the material beliefs are proclaiming."

"I'm not getting this."

"In Science we're all already where we're wanting to go."

"They want to kill us, so we're all in heaven. Wonderful."

"Drop the words, cut through the imagery. Desire is prayer. Both sides want to kill to reach a harmonious result. We are students of Christian Science and it's up to us to elevate the desire for heaven to its pre-existent, right here and now actuality. Let's give us all a free ticket to heaven-earth. 'Freely ye have received, freely give.' "

"I don't have any power to give anyone a free ticket to heaven."

"Well of course if you approach it that way, you won't. But if you humbly step into the shoes of your true identity as infinite idea including all right ideas, you're there, they're there with no ghastly payments required."

"There's a quote from the Lesson that could apply here. It's Matthew, Chapter 10, verses 5 and 6. Here: 'These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.' In other words, don't let our work in Science get caught up in dualistic political and religious squabbles, but let us rescue and restore the divine idea hidden by the masquerade.""They say there are no formulas in Christian Science treatment but it helps me to just be in a state of not knowing and letting divine Mind move on the waters of mortal mind."

"That's like 'Lean not unto thine own understanding but acknowledge me in all thy ways'"

"Exactly. You find you're leaning on the sustaining infinite. I don't even have to have a problem or situation needing healing. It's just a pleasure to rest secure in the oneness of being where God-man-universe are one."

"I've got something I need help on. I was dating this guy for a few weeks — we really liked each other and we even had sex. He started pulling away maybe a week ago and he's hard to get in touch with now. I'm really hungry for a relationship and this situation is very painful."

"For some reason this relationship stuff is the hardest thing to handle in Science. Maybe because we as Gay men put so much stock in it. I don't know what to say except to pray — to try and love him spiritually which includes forgiveness."

"We can also use some of the absolute ideas we saw with the warring parties in the Middle East. We're all divine ideas including all right ideas. Mrs. Eddy said something once that might help. As she was instructing students how to heal, she said to go to the patient as Love, the Love that never heard of sin, sickness or death."

"Wow — very good. That would make it easier to expunge all the craziness lingering in human consciousness about failed relationships of the past."

"Yes — let all that go into its native nothingness — scientifically, not through human repression."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Don't push it into the unconscious where it can fester and erupt to do its worst at some future date — or maybe just taint everything with a low grade infection of bitterness."

"So, what's the Science you could use to de-fang the past?"

"There's an infinity of ideas possible but for me it'd be something absolute like being Love and celebrating the oneness of being in God."

"Let me read something from the Lesson: 'The definitions of material law, as given by natural science, represent a kingdom necessarily divided against itself, because these definitions portray law as physical, not spiritual. Therefore they contradict the divine decrees and violate the law of Love, in which nature and God are one and the natural order of heaven comes down to earth.'(S&H 118: 26-32). If she can say ' ..the law of Love, in which nature and God are one' why not 'sex and God are one'?"

"Whoa! You're stretching poor Mrs. Eddy way beyond her meaning."

"Please don't put that in the notes!"

"It's going in."

"Now look, nature conceived materially is filled with horrors: earthquakes, hurricanes, cobras, tornadoes, HIV. Mrs. Eddy is inviting us to transcend all that, to bring nature out of its blighted state, to see the real unfoldment of perfection right there. A hundred years later I'm extending her vision into another blighted area in urgent need of proper vision."

"I had a healing seven years ago of a sexual injury just reading the Bible and praying."

"What'd you see?"

"I can't remember exactly. I just read the Bible and surrendered to the goodness of God. I knew He wouldn't endorse anything like that. It took more than a week but when the healing came it was immediate.""I had a demonstration last week. A friend invited me to Shakespeare In The Park. I gave myself plenty of time to get there but the trains were running slow and I was still standing on the subway platform at 8:00 when the play as supposed to start. Of course my cell phone didn't work in the subway, so I felt really bad for my friend waiting there for me. I kind of kiddingly turned to God and said ' Well, let's see what you do with this.' But then I did some serious work. I affirmed He was in total control of the situation and would resolve it harmoniously."

"What happened?"

"Well, the station was chaos — a huge crowd and many loud complaints. So it took concentration to keep my thought upbeat. It came to me to go up and catch a cab, but I thought with all this going on and it being now 8:10 — a major traffic hour in New York — how would I find a cab? I went up anyway and there to my delight was a cab just waiting for me! We raced up to 82nd Street, I got in contact with my friend who talked me trough the complicated paths to arrive at the location. My ticket was at the box office and as I entered the amphitheater there she was waving me to her As my derriere lowered into the seat an announcer said ' Sorry ladies and gentlemen for the delay' — it was now 8:30 — and the play began."

"Wow. You must be using the ideas turned up there in other contexts."

"Oh, definitely. I've been turning wholly to God in everything since that."

"I had something sort of like that with my phone. It had a lot of static for a few days, so I called Verizon and they sent a technician. He said I'd lose the dial tone for a couple of hours but actually it turned into a couple of days. I called that phone on my cell phone and my voice mail was still cheerily inviting callers to leave a message. I was getting pretty uncomfortable at the prospect of people calling without any response from me, so I prayed and ended up calling a practitioner whose first comment was ' Communication is out of human hands!' That's in line with the sentence in Science and Health 'The intercommunication is always from God to His idea, man' (S&H 284: 31-32). Of course the phone was soon operating and I'm putting the ideas that came up in this healing to work in many areas."

"Great guys. We need a topic for August."

"I'd like to work on the Group as a topic. It's getting a little flat and I think we can bring more inspiration to it."

"OK with me. I'd like us to have readings again."

"We have them now, interspersed in the discussion."

"I mean right at the start with silent prayer."

"Let's try different things but support it with scientific prayer."

"If we work on the Group I can see expanding its meaning to include all associations, relationships, get-togethers."

"So we have our topic: The Group."