"Harmony's originally a musical term."

"That's a big part of it, but we use it to describe relations between people and things too."

"It comes from a root 'ar' which means 'to fit together'. Words like 'arm' and 'art' come from 'ar'."

"Mrs. Eddy uses harmony a lot, apparently to describe the perfect situation between God and His creation."

"Christ is the bridge between God and the human."

"In other words man?"

"I'd say the word 'man' should be reserved for the absolute reflection of God, which needs no bridge because there's at-one-ment already. The human then would be a a term for man clouded over with human beliefs."

"Needing redemption!"

"Right — by seeing who he really is."

"How do the ego and mortal mind interact?"

"Ego is a word Mrs. Eddy invariably uses for God — it's capitalized. She does refer to 'Ego-man', but he's a reflection of the one Ego, God."

"She uses non-capitalized 'ego' in her so-called other writings — but I think it refers to a belief in an entity separate from God, in other words 'mortal mind'."

"To get to our topic mortal mind is the supposed cause of all disharmony."

"And it doesn't even exist."

"Well for those of us caught in its grip, it's almost total reality, occasionally pierced by some shaft of harmony. I think the best way to approach mortal mind is to see it as an all-pervasive power in belief with its popular gods: sin, sickness and death. By reversal it's a counterfeit of the true all powerful God whose law is absolute harmony."

"With Easter upon us I was working with there being no resistance to demonstrating God's perfection here and now. There are no crucifixions, no stones rolling away or any of that — just harmonious being always rushing forth as the universe."

"As a newcomer to Christian Science, I need to know what its basic premise is."

"We don't believe in matter."

"Everything you sense with your five senses is unreal."

"But it is also totally real to spiritual sense which transcends beliefs in good and evil. Listen to this: '[T]he heavens and earth to one human consciousness, that consciousness which God bestows, are spiritual, while to another, the unillumined human mind, the vision is material. This shows unmistakably that what the human mind terms matter and spirit indicates states and stages of consciousness.' That's from Science and Health page 573, lines 6-12."

"This is pretty confusing. I can't...."

"It takes study and practice. Once you've been healed through scientific prayer you'll understand more clearly."

"Read Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy. Take some of these Sentinels."

"What about homosexuality? The Bible's clear.."

"Christian Science is based on the inspired word of the Bible. Taken literally it's a hodge-podge of dysfunction that can be used to justify anything."

"Just like the Koran."

"Or probably any holy book. We learn in Science how to interpret passages from the standpoint of Spirit."

"How would you interpret Sodom and Gomorrah?"

"Simply everyone involved believed they were living in matter. It's a mythological representation of what can happen when we believe that."

"What about angels?"

"Heavenly interventions by whatever name are just matter beliefs. As for Lot and family, they end up in an incestuous stupor. So, in Science when you run into this kind of mess, you pray to get off the material basis of belief and see the divine idea of purity, innocence and perfection."

"That's the first time I've heard Sodom dismissed like that. Would you do the same with all the bad news crashing down on us?"

"Sure. Christian Scientists pray without ceasing."

"And we can get our inspiration from anything, no matter how silly or negative. On TV the other night an Amish woman was proclaiming the absolute reality of evil. Her vehemence triggered a vehement denial of evil in me, based on Christian Science. The feeling of that reality — that evil did not exist because God, good, is all — carried over for several days and eliminated some problems that seemed to be lingering around me.""How would you handle the death of Osama bin Laden?"

"You mean in Science? That's a bit tough because my human emotions get stirred up — but we're told by Mrs. Eddy not to stand aghast at nothingness. So I'd keep the focus on reality."

"I looked back at the notes for our meeting of September 13, 2001 . Everyone was in shock and grief but we got some pretty good Science up. You know the recent Lesson on Atonement had a passage from Ezekiel about aligning two sticks into one. Someone at the 2001 meeting interpreted the attack on the twin towers as a violent rejection of the motif discovered by Melanie Klein in childhood sand play, where boys symbolically align their penises with the paternal penis."

"Meaning what?"

"That the psychological work was bringing harmony within the family. And the kid wouldn't end up bashed by a horrendous superego."

"I remember that meeting and the Melanie Klein stuff: it's so sexist!"

"Let's face it — it's men who blow things up. But we could universalize the symbolism with the archetypal phallus which everyone partakes of and needs to align with the divine Phallus."

"Could you read some of the correlative Science and Health passages applicable to the Ezekiel story?"

"Here are a couple: 'The scientific unity which exists between God and man must be wrought out in life-practice, and God's will must be universally done.' And 'One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfils the Scripture, "Love thy neighbor as thyself;"annihilates pagan and Christian idolatry, — whatever is wrong in social, civil, criminal, political, and religious codes; equalizes the sexes; annuls the curse on man, and leaves nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed.' "

"We're going to need some consecrated work to handle the beliefs facing the world now — like the Arab Spring that's showing some negative signs — or the world economy."

"Economists are talking about the 'great re-balancing' of world economies. China and other emerging economies are shifting to consumer societies while we're shifting back to manufacturing and exporting."

"Don't you think they're getting closer to a deal in Washington to address the deficit?"

"Oh, I don't know. There are several plans — but we need to understand oneness — one Mind in operation in all these areas."

"It bothers me how we get jerked around by politics. I mean a deficit deal could be put together in ten minutes — the same with a Palestine-Israel deal. We all know what's needed and appropriate, but we allow ourselves to get manipulated by politicians who are experts at appealing to the reptilian level of mental functions."

"Let's counter that by living the one Mind as I and all. Mind never heard of manipulation or error of any sort because it's Truth. Mind, Truth constitutes each of its ideas as perfect, eternal and infinite. Everyone's employed as God's expression, everyone's at home in heaven, everyone's healthy and immortal. It's all the experience of my Mind, our Mind, God going on as us."

"That reminds me of the scam someone tried to pull on Emergence members by posing as one of us asking everyone else for money to pay a hotel bill and an airline for a return ticket after his belongings were stolen in Dubai. It's absurd on the surface — no hotel lets you into a room without swiping your credit card and no one goes to Dubai on a one way ticket. No one fell for the deception. But the Christian Science is deeper. The level of desperation, poverty and conniving proclaimed by the scam needed healing — in other words, correct knowing. I just saw these brothers as having infinity, all. Their desire expressed in criminality is actually prayer. And as Christian Scientists we're in a position to answer it with Truth."

"I agree we should see the reality right there. The usual Christian approach of allowing oneself to be a victim or alternately throwing a thunder bolt would just perpetuate the error. Seeing their divinity in spite of appearances is real power."
"Now what about the end of the world? It's supposed to happen on May 21st."

"Well, what can we say — it's bogus of course but sadly fortunes are exchanging hands. People are selling everything and sending the money to the Christian minister who came up with the fantasy."

"May 21st, 1894 was the laying of the corner stone of The Mother Church. That could be seen as the second coming and maybe that date is floating around in mortal mind for the mentally unstable to pick up."

"So The Mother Church is a Gemini — that explains a lot: intellectual, dualistic, unsettled."

"1894 — the Church's sun is progressed into the last degrees of Virgo. No wonder she's been so riven with criticism and backbiting for the last, oh..27 years, but relief is on the way — Libra looms just over the horizon. Maybe all the Church Alive activity is a foretaste of more dynamic times."

"Are you shocked we'd use astrology on The Mother Church?"

"Yes — totally!"

"Mrs. Eddy said it was ok in its place — here's the quote: 'Astrology is well in its place, but this place is secondary.' That's from Miscellaneous Writings page 334, lines 5-6."

"Fine — most things are secondary in Christian Science, so let's be Truth, Love and Principle and be done with supposed secondary structures and supposed influences on them and on us."

"There's something else that occurs to me about the end of the world fantasies: every moment the world as a dualistic concept dies and then comes back. It's an on-off-on phenomenon mirroring in matter as best it can the fact of eternal being."

"What was that you were telling me about the grapes or lemonade and Mrs. Eddy?"

"I don't remember which one it was but a student was at her house partaking of say grapes and said ' These are very good' to which another student quickly responded ' They only seem good to sense.' Mrs. Eddy intervened and said ' They are good.' At first I just thought 'Oh she was just making the first student feel comfortable and perhaps seeing the grapes as sort of a suffer it to be so now or hieroglyphics of deity sort of thing.' But then I saw the real depth of the statement. She was looking right through the symbol to the fact of absolute perfection, represented to mortal belief as grapes. But she wasn't about to leave the grapes floundering on the belief level. There's only one universe!"
"We need a topic for the next few months."

"I've been wanting to work on treatment — how Christian Scientists do it."

"There's no formula but some people say start with God."

"Didn't we do treatment before?"

"Yes — as part of our work with Arthur Corey's book."

"Right — but we could certainly do it again, this time on our own without outlines or guidance from a teacher."

"Sounds great — let's do it — Treatment is our new topic."