Loving Jesus

        Someone from another Protestant religion said to me recently, you can't be a Christian Scientist and love Christ Jesus!  Oh?  Well, I beg to differ and this is the way one devoted and indebted Christian Scientist feels about our Lord and Master:








                                                               Loving Jesus






                                                          Loving Jesus as I do,


                                                         Can't help wanting for Him


                                                         What His Father wants --


                                                                  
                                                               Honor,


                                                                      Obedience


                                                                                 Love.






                                                          And I want all to want this


                                                                  For Jesus, too.


                                                                                                                                       




                                 "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.;
                                                          hear ye him."


                                                      (Matthew 17:5)
                                              

Christian Science Healing

        The quickest, safest, and most potent remedy for any inharmonious bodily condition is through the teachings of Christian Science.  They make plain the way Christ Jesus healed.


        This knowledge is available to any sincere seeker.  What Christian Science presents makes practical the divine method of deliverance referred to in Jesus' words, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."  (John 8:32) The study of divine Science turns the sufferer from the mistaken belief that God is far-off and unavailing, and lifts his thought to see that Christ, the manifestation of God, is ever at hand to set  him free.  The sufferer then has no need of drugs.  And blessedly, no need to undergo so many of the side effects associated therewith.


        In her search for truth, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, perceived that God is the source of all reality and being, and that whatever is contrary to His nature must be considered untrue and unreal, however tangible it may appear.  She writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "It is well to be calm in sickness, to be hopeful is still better; but to understand that sickness is not real and that Truth can destroy its seeming reality, is best of all, for this understanding is the universal and perfect remedy." (pages 393, 394)


        Christian Science reiterates with precision and reverence the Master's mighty works.  For this reason it cannot be valued too highly.  Through scientific prayer we heal from a purely metaphysical standpoint, basing our work on the allness of divine Mind, God and the nothingness, the nonexistence, of matter.


        Mrs. Eddy's writings accentuate this sine qua non of divine healing.  She states, "My insistence upon a proper understanding of the unreality  of matter and evil arises from their deleterious effects, physical, moral, and intellectual, upon the race."  She continues at the bottom of the next page:  "What is the cardinal point of the difference in my metaphysical system?  This: that by knowing the unreality of disease, sin, and death, you demonstrate the allness of God.  This difference wholly separates my system from all others.  The reality of these so-called existences I deny, because they are not to be found in God, and this system is built on Him as the sole cause." (Unity of Good, pages 8, 9-10)


        Since bodily discord does not exist as a fact but is only an illusion of material sense, one is  healed as his misconceptions yield to the powerful and corrective Christ, Truth; to the recognition that God is perfect and man is His perfect image and reflection, now and forever.


        The action of Truth bringing light to one's consciousness destroys the darkness of fear and suffering and lifts thought to  behold the all-presence of spiritual harmony.  This corrected mental state is then objectified in one's experience as health and freedom. This is Christian Science healing, and any one of us, anywhere in the world, at any time, can experience it.






   

Keeping Our Thoughts in Him

                                                          John Robert Howell






        Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, like the Bible, is a wondrous book, ever unfolding kaleidoscopic statements of Christian Science. Each thoughtful reading reveals new facets of sentences and paragraphs which have been read dozens, if not, hundreds, of times before.  Only eternity will reveal the whole of it.  All that in a mere 600 pages!


        For example, there is this challenging statement: "Whatever is cherished in mortal mind as the physical condition is imaged forth on the body."  (411:25-26)  Cherish is an intriguing word.choice. It is likely that its usual meaning is not the most fruitful one.  Here are some others from the Student's Reference Dictionary:  "To treat in a manner to encourage growth, to harbor; to indulge and encourage in the mind."  The word implies active support, which I would hope all Christian Scientists avoid assiduously.  The word harbor, however, is passive--and subtle.  A harbor is where boats seek shelter and moor or tie up.  Are we unconsciously permitting false beliefs, mesmeric suggestions, to dock unchallenged in the harbor of our consciousness?  Such beliefs may reside quietly and unobtrusively for a time, but eventually they begin offloading their malignant cargoes.


        God gave His perfect reflection, man, dominion over error in all its forms.  To cede that dominion would be a sin.  For many, frenetic lifestyles seem to allow little unencroached-upon time for adequate study and prayer.  It usually takes time to calm the agitation of mortal mind before meaningful prayer, communion with God, can take place.  Effective prayer is not a product knitted together in the odd scrapes of time left over from a busy day.  True prayer draws truths from the scabbard of the page, enthrones them in active thought and thereby lets the sword of Truth guard and guide individual experience.  Sufficient quiet time for prayer, keeping our thoughts in Him, ensures that we may realize, and enjoy, our God-given dominion over all error.

God the Substance of All Things

"How do you grow such flowers?"


My neighbors would ask.


I used to say, "feeding and watering?"


Lest they think I'm a bit odd.


But now I come right out and say,


"I talk to them,


Tell them  how pretty they look,


How well they're doing."


After all, don't most of us


Appreciate a little praise


Every now and then?


But in the final analysis,


It is truly feeling that


It is God Himself who is


The substance of a flower.*








*"Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures"
             by Mary Baker Eddy,
                   page 508
         

Sonata Celestial

                                              Golden harp standing



                                              Alone in springtime meadow,



                                              God's winds performing.





(A scene on the nightly news, somewhere inTennessee, brought this haiku to thought, also this from Mary Baker Eddy's book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"Wind:  That which indicates the might of omnipotence and the movements of God's spiritual government, encompassing all things.")