Quickly Healed

        A friend of ours who lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts mentioned in a letter recently a healing of his daughter, which could well be of benefit to some of you:

        "My daughter called me as she was on her way home from work one evening.  She complained of severe stomach pains, but this belief was met and eliminated in about 15 minutes by reminding her of her exemption from such suggestions. In my prayerful work, it was clear to me that she had always been one with God, and that we didn't need to work towards perfection, but that she already was so."

        I called him to thank him for his letter and he further elaborated that the basis of his Christian Science treatment were these two statements by Mary Baker Eddy:

        "Jesus of Nazareth taught and demonstrated man's oneness with the Father, and for this we owe him endless homage." Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, page 18

And from Miscellaneous Writings, page 173:

        "If Mind, God, is all-power and all-presence, man is not met by another power and presence, that--obstructing his intelligence--pains, fetters, and befools him.  The perfection of man is intact; whence, then, is something besides Him that is not the counterpart but the counterfeit of man's creator?  Surely not from God, for He made man in His own likeness."

     

Whence Heaven?

People go from place to place
           (Or yearn to)
To find what they hope is Paradise,
While the heaven they seek
Lies before their face.
Did not Christ Jesus teach
The kingdom of God
Is within us?
(See Luke 17:20,21)
What greater heaven
Could one reach?
Not moving to another state,
But lifting thought to see
What our Master meant,
(After all, was he not God-sent?)
Is the heaven-prescribed way.
One may well need
To be in another location,
But first things first --
Taking our Lord
At his Word,
Finding out what
Christian Science reinstates,
We see more of heaven
Right where we are.
Today.

Property of Christ

I am Christ's,


            and I've had


                       the encounters

 
                                         (not for the easily daunted)*


                                                                            to prove it --



                                              But this is another poem or essay

                                                       for a later time.



*As the New Testament states:

"All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution"
                       (II Timothy 3:12)


And Mary Baker Eddy in "Miscellaneous Writings" (page 157):

"It is a great thing to be found worthy to suffer for Christ, Truth."

If Christ Can Deliver Me...

        ...then Christ can deliver you, from any of the strongholds of the prince of this world.  Our Master's warning I just have to share.

          "Ye cannot serve God and mammon", Jesus said one morning while teaching on a hillside. I struggled over this passage for years, with tears at times, since I was primarily concerned with getting daily bread, with things material.  In short with achieving/getting/having--not wholly with giving.  As a lifelong student of Christian Science, I knew better than this, knew that God made us to be living expressions of infinite, divine Love.

        I'll never forget the day the real awakening came.  Happening to pass by the headquarters of a major charity in Boston where we lived, I turned in to give a small amount to their work.  Surprised, the loving lady at the desk ushered me upstairs to the man in charge, who wanted to thank me personally.  For $20!  There behind a well-worn desk in a rather shabby office (these people do not enrich themselves, nor spend money on putting on a show), was a man with the most full of light, Christlike countenance I had ever seen--rich in a way I wanted to be but was not.

        Having just come out of a nice office, with salary to match, the contrast was striking--the beginning of a yearning to obey Jesus' words.  And joy to the world, having made it over this hump once and forever all, God did not leave me in need, begging in the street.  He never will who obey His words. Of this, we may be sure.


     

Doers of Jesus' Words

One day Jesus to his
surprised disciples said,
"I was an hungred, and ye
gave me meat", to which
they replied:  "When saw we
thee an hungred,
and gave thee bread?"
And here words that have
rung down the centuries,
to glorious deeds have led:

"Inasmuch as ye have done it
unto one of the least of these
my brethren, ye have done it
unto me."
(Matthew 25)

His answer, of course
for all Christians professing --
               not just finessing.
When our Master's words cause
in you and me an ouch!,
we know we're going to
get up off that couch.

Mark Well

                    With Christ,

                                We shall prevail.


                    Without Christ,

                                 We're bound to fail.



                            "I am the vine, ye are the  branches:  He that abideth in me,

                                        and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit:

                                              for without me ye can do nothing."

                                             
                                                             Christ Jesus

When Life Gets You Down

When life in general gets you down,

(Or specifically speaking,

Those misguided souls

Who want to see you down),

Lift your thoughts higher,

To help backed up by divine fire:


"Your joy no man taketh from you."

                 Christ Jesus



          It will work every time!

Acting Decisively

        Watching World War II documentaries during the Memorial Day observances here in the United States, I was impressed with how decisive the Generals were.  And no doubt had to be.  They couldn't afford to dither.

        While not prosecuting a war, there are many times when you and I are faced with situations that call for immediate action.  We don't have time to consult everyone in sight as to what steps to take.

        God can give us the ability to reach right decisions quickly.  Christian Science offers a purely God-centered remedy for confusion and indecisiveness.  It declares that man is spiritual, the reflection of the all-seeing, all-hearing, all-knowing divine Mind, God; that therefore the wisdom we need for every decision is already established in the spiritual consciousness--the true being--of each of us, and that we can prove this.

        Jeremiah exclaimed, "Ah, Lord God!  behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee."  (Jer. 32:17)  It's comforting to realize that you and I are never alone before intricate issues that need resolving, weighty decisions that have to be made.  The flawlessly intelligent Mind that has made man and the universe holds these ideas in harmony, peace, and the dominion of perfect understanding.  If decisions actually rested on our shoulders, we might indeed feel burdened at times.  But we are in reality the eternal reflection of tranquil, unerring Mind, which gives man every thought and impels all activity.  Understanding that divine Principle lawfully sustains, legitimately directs, and perfectly controls the real universe including us, we have a working basis for demonstrating divine guidance in human affairs.

        Wisdom, intelligence, and spiritual perception are divine qualities that man reflects.  Therefore they are always available to us to claim as our own.  They constitute our ability to know what to do, and when and how to do it.  There can be no indecision or uncertainty in the consciousness where these Godly qualities actively abide.  You and I, as in truth the very image of God, exist forever at the standpoint of absolute certainty and perfect assurance, and we can act decisively when situations call for such.