The Unlimited Unfoldment of Holy Thoughts

                                           (By John Robert Howell)



Prudential Insurance, smartly co-opting a powerful Christian symbol, reassuringly offers us "a piece of the rock" (for a price of course).  As Christian Scientists we all would like our own comforting piece of the rock--Christ, Truth.  But do the specifics of how to individualize what can seem like solidly monolithic Truth get lost in a muzzy fog of timorousness and uncertainty?  How can one uniquely express infinite God?

We can start by realizing we express God's qualities.  A small piece of the rock has all the qualities of the whole rock, except, of course, size, but we are not trying to be God, but to reflect Him.  Nevertheless, when we get down to the nitty-gritty of our own individual expression, the vastness of the Original can be dauting and overwhelming.  We must then claim our oneness with infinite Mind, all-intelligence.  Doing that, even imperfectly, should enable us to realize that nothing can limit our ability to understand and express God.

Anton Diabelli, a music publisher and minor composer, sent to a number of contemporary composers a little waltz tune of his own composition, asking each to submit a variation on it, which he would collect from all and publish.  One of the composers he included was Beethoven.  At first the irasible genius disdained the publicity ploy and the trite waltz as well, calling it a "Schusterfleck", a mere cobbler's patch.  But even though he tossed it aside, the tune apparently gestated in that great musical mind, and the result was perhaps the finest set of variations ever written:  the 33 "Diabelli Variations", a 50-60 minute masterpiece.  My point, long in coming, is that if Beethoven can do this with a humble cobbler's patch to start with, shouldn't we be able to realize unlimited unfoldment in our own contemplation of God and the truths of Christian Science?  It can be done, and must be done if we are to put off the old man and demonstrate the complete spiritual selfhood of the new man.

If need be, we should see and think of ourselves as artists as well as Scientists.  Did not Mary Baker Eddy call all of us sculptors and if sculptors, then artists?  I quote:  "We are all sculptors, working at various forms, moulding and chiseling thought."  (page 248 of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures)  And as sculptors moulding and chiseling thought, I like to think of our working with the pliable in our consciousness as well as the resistant.

Mrs. Eddy continues on the same page:  "We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives.  Let unselfishness, goodness, mercy, justice, health, holiness, love -- the kingdom of heaven -- reign within us, and sin, disease, and death will diminish until they finally disappear."

We cannot be content to merely think about the truths that come to us, but we must wrestle with them like Jacob until our thought is blessed by an uplifting angel message.  With all we have in Christian Science, how can we entertain the slightest inertia or feeling of limitation?  There should scarcely seem enough hours in each day to ponder all the angel thoughts which our loving Father is sending to us continually.



                        

Jesus' Golden Rule Essential

The way we treat others
Is of course paramount.
But what we are thinking
Does, to God, no less count.

For our thoughts of others,
Feelings of inmost heart,
Will keep us close to God,
Or bad for us, apart.

Oh what disservice we do
When ignoring Jesus' rule for living,
We indulge in thoughts of others
We ourselves don't like receiving.

For God's creation, perfect and complete,
Includes us all, includes us every one.
Mind has infinitely varied ideas,
And we all His daughter or son.

As our Father has made His man,
We can start to think of everyone today.
This is, to the good in store for us
A God-given/Christ-like/proven way.

Short but sweet...

...which is what this entry will be, but worth sharing with the world as it shows conclusively the  healing power of Christian Science.  Just emailed a friend about a quick healing I had a few days ago, which involved a painful ankle.  We were walking our dogs in a 16-acre park near our town's library, with trails that climb upward for 3 levels, and midway I thought, can I complete this hike or not?  Almost immediately a truth that I had read earlier by Samuel Greenwood, a Christian Science practitioner and teacher who lived in Victoria, British Colombia came strongly:  "You are an idea in Mind, with no other source or consciousness."  I reasoned, since God is not thinking this, it is not in my consciousness.  And voila, the pain left -- just like that.

I could never be grateful enough for all that Mary Baker Eddy brings out in her writings about the One Mind, God; that this is our Mind and always has been.  So many powerful statements from especially Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures could be cited here but it would take me all day, and I don't have time right now.

But I will end with a testimony emailed back to me from a Christian Scientist friend down in Georgia.  He wrote: "One time I had some pain in my leg, it appeared to be infected.  I remembered what Mrs. Eddy said about 'If disease moves, mind, not matter, moves it; therefore be sure that you move it off.'  So I mentally moved the pain off.  And it left me ! I have always related that statement to Jesus moving the insanity belief from the man to the pigs.

Can't push me around, no sir!!"

"Press on, press on, ye sons of light"

                                          (By John Robert Howell)


        An understanding of basic mathematics (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) will satisfy the daily needs of most of mankind.  But one would have to be daffy to expect these basic skills alone would somehow carry him through to a degree in quantum physics.  So it is with the understanding of a few basic truths in Christian Science.  Mrs. Eddy tells us that Truth is so powerful that even a small understanding of it will produce salutary results, but what many of us need to oppose and overcome is the all-too-human desire to loiter in the placid vale of a few familiar and comforting truths because we have a chicken in the pot, a comfortable sofa, and our bills paid.

        Those aspiring to achieve "awakening" in Zen Buddhism take it for granted that long hours of meditation are essential.  Christian Scientists must see the parallel need of unrelenting prayer for themselves, their neighbor, and the world.  Because the sincere and honest Scientist is less caught up in the web of materiality than most people and because he knows something of Truth, his life is doubtless less stressed by the aggressive mental suggestions of mortal mind, but if he is not vigilant he can vegetate in the delusion that a dime's worth of prayer will always result in a dollar's worth of blessing.

        The ante needs to be upped, and greatly so.  Our understanding of the metaphors, parables, and truths that provided growth and support at an earlier stage of our experience needs to be deepened and transformed, else our thoughts become little more than ossified comforts like insects imprisoned in amber.  Psalms, Christ Jesus' sayings and parables, and the writings of Mrs. Eddy are a most welcome refuge and comfort, but we can't graze peacefully beside the still waters forever.  We must grow spiritually and Scientifically and increase our spiritual sense of Truth--if necessary, by geometric strides, not just arithmetic babysteps.

        Some might employ that tired old cliche, "we need to think outside the box".  The brilliant idea of adding stages to a rocket, which solved the problem of getting heavy objects into the earth's orbit and even out of earth's gravitational pull, was thinking outside the box for sure, but the genius required to do it was still an extension, however complex, of existing rocket technology.  What is needed is that a completely new mental state be experienced, a putting off of the old man and a putting on of the new and learning more and more what that means metaphysically.

        It is not a process of somehow doing a better job of mentalizing familiar metaphors, parables, and truths, piling them up into a multi-stage rocket, which may really be nothing more than raising the extension on one's mental ladder a few rungs.  What is needed is ever new and fresh levels of thought, ongoing revelations of Truth.  It takes--and how loath some of us are to give it--hours of quiet prayer, the kind of prayer Mrs. Eddy teaches us in "Prayer" in Science and Health.  But if we are humble, trustful, patient, and diligent we can achieve glorious experiences such as the woman in that wonderful testimony in "Fruitage" in Science and Health ("Born Again", pp. 667-69).  Christ Jesus, Paul, and Mary Baker Eddy aren't bad exemplars either.

Doing Things God's Way

If we do what God wants us to,
things go well with us.
If we don't,
they don't.
Isn't this the way it ought to work?
We can't His wishes shirk
and expect all to go well.
Disobedience will tell --
in vexation, disappointment,
things not unfolding as they should.
And could be,
if one were only obedient.
Think about this:
If Jesus had to be (and was) 100%
subservient to His Father's will,
where is there any escape for us?
How could the rules be waived,
God's will set aside, for you and me?
But if I don't do as I want,
I'll lose out, someone may say.
Oh no, you won't.
Our ever loving Father knows best,
and living to please and obey Him,
we gain in every conceivable way.
Not just words these.
I know what I'm talking about.
Try doing it the Master's way,
and good will flow into our life
such that you may want to shout,
Oh, why wasn't I doing this before?
God has for all His children
such infinite good in store.

Christ's "Not my will, but Thine"
can more and more be yours and mine.

In God's Presence

                                      (Written by John Robert Howell)



Each of us has always existed in the eternal now as God's perfect and harmonious idea.  The extent to which this is not being realized and expressed is the extent to which sin and aggressive mental suggestions occupy thought.  Through prayer, the righteous overcome sin and its attendant demons of fear, disease, and death.

Our world today seems awash in a Pandora's box of afflictions.  Nevertheless, every inharmony we experience, see, or just hear about--whether it is sin, disease, death, hatred, war, famine, loss, or poverty--exists entirely and exclusively in the only place it can--in the rag-and-bone shop of our own personal and mortal sense of existence.  If God, good, is really omnipresent (and He is), then there is no hidey-hole for such inharmonies to lurk in, no place for such a thing as a real inharmony.

Christ Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy have shown us how to experience being in God's presence.  They admonish us to enter our (mental) closets, close the door and pray to our Father in secret.  The door, we are told, shuts out sin:  sinful sense, the physical senses, the erring senses, the material senses (Science and Health 15: 4, 7, 10, 16).  Those false senses, facets of personal sense, blind us to the everpresent God.  The door must be shut, not just pulled to, since being even slightly ajar will allow false belief, which can never perceive God, to enter.  Then prayer becomes a wrangle with error instead of a communion with God, and tussling with error can have the effect of making its claims appear more real and formidable.  In that event what was intended to be standing in God's healing and uplifting presence devolves into a kind of mad hatter's tea party. Further, it is more important that our prayer be a knowing of Truth than a denial of error.

Why must we pray in secret?  Secret is being used in the sense of unseen, private, removed from sight.  "The Student's Reference Dictionary" gives this inspired definition of secret:  "Known to God only."  Daily growth in grace will enable us to pray more effectually, but the specific steps each of us takes will of necessity be the result of individual spiritual unfoldment.  Then we shall not just read, but know, that "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High [abides] under the shadow of the Almighty."

Effective Prayer

(John Wellsman is not only a longtime friend and devoted student of Christian Science; he is a gifted photographer as well.   His website is www.JohnWellsmanPhotography.com  He and his wife Jennifer live in Southern Arizona with their 2 dogs and 3 cats.)


Recently I was reminded of an incident which happened some time ago that illustrates the power of individual prayer to adjust human situations.  It was necessaray for me to interact with the bureacracy of the state in which I lived at the time.  This state has a reputation for brash, in-your-face individuals and surly civil servants to say the least.

When I arrived at the office where I needed to transact my business, it was immediately apparent that one of the clerks was far less than happy to be there that morning, and was taking more than a little satisfaction in sharing the mood with others.  As there were quite a number of clerks, it was not at first clear that I would have to deal with this individual.  Nonetheless, I felt a strong desire to keep my own thinking above the fray, so to speak.  Taking the necessary forms to the quietest corner of the office I sat down and closed my eyes briefly to reach out for some comforting thought.

Almost immediately this passage from Mary Baker Eddy's work, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" came clearly to my consciousness:  "divine Love cannot be deprived of its manifestation or object:" (p. 304:10)  Just as suddenly came the clear understanding of the absolute truth and power of that statement to prevent me--or anyone else for that matter--from believing otherwise.  Without giving further thought to the situation I proceeded to fill out the necessary paperwork and await my turn.  By this time, it was obvious to many in the room that there had been a change in the mental atmosphere surrounding that particular clerk's window.  Within a few more minutes it was obvious that I would be dealing directly with this individual.  As I stood in the line awaiting my turn I could clearly see the change in attitude.

When I ararived at the window, I greeted the individual with a warm, "Good morning!"  After a brief but intense look, the clerk returned the greeting with warmth and sincerity.  We transacted the necessary business quickly, exchanged a couple of humorous observations and as I turned to go, I wished the clerk a good day which elicited a smiling, "Thank you!  You too!"

In the first chapter of the above-mentioned book, "Science and Health" entitled "Prayer" Mary Baker Eddy defines prayer thus:  "Desire is prayer," and she goes on to say"...no loss can occur from trusting God with out desires that they may be moulded and exalted before they take form in words and in deeds."   (p.1:11)  The foregoing incident illustrates to me the truth of that statement.