The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me.

Job

Finding God

MARY BEACH

From the August 1966 issue of The Christian Science Journal

* Photo – Job Meets With His Friends – Courtesy of allposters.com

Burdened in one way or another, humanity longs to rest in the assurance of a sustaining power beyond the limits of its own inadequate efforts. Many are willing to turn to God but are uncertain about the correct mental path to His presence. How often the heavy heart reechoes the cry of Job, voiced in the midst of his suffering, “Oh that I knew where I might find him!” 1

Further on in the same chapter we find this statement of Job’s: “Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him.”2 How true it is that we cannot find God by rambling in the mist of finite human opinions. Christian Science explains that material concepts, which present man as a mortal bounded by physicality and struggling to gain some sense of God’s loving support and guidance, have no more substance than a dream. Spiritual perception, however, reveals the truth of being, the truth of what God is and of what the real man’s coexistence with his Maker is.

Through prayer, some realization of God as infinite Spirit must have dawned on Job’s consciousness, for human misconceptions were replaced with spiritual facts in a degree sufficient to free him from his suffering. This healing brought God close to Job in his human experience. The story of Job holds a comforting message for all men everywhere.

To awake in a measure from the dream of matter as real and substantial to the awareness of Spirit as All is the correct mental means for finding God. This awakening is gradual because mankind have been duped by universal false beliefs, which suggest that there are life and intelligence in matter. But the fact is that God is Spirit and creates all in and of Himself. Neither God nor the man of God’s creating can be found in illusory material beliefs.

The physical body is not the image and likeness of divine Spirit; therefore physicality is not the condition of true selfhood. As we begin to understand even in a degree that God is Spirit and that our real, spiritual identity is immediately related to God, we find that the false sense of separation from His loving care lessens.

It was the mission of Christ Jesus to help mankind find God by lifting their thought above the darkness of material beliefs to the light of spiritual truths. The Master beheld the perfect man of God’s creating and proved by his works that spiritual man is coexistent with God. Mrs. Eddy perceived the Science of Jesus’ teachings and works. In referring to his mission she states in Science and Health: “The belief that man has existence or mind separate from God is a dying error. This error Jesus met with divine Science and proved its nothingness.” 3

Mrs. Eddy realized that if one is to find God, he must become increasingly aware of God’s nature. As an important means to this end the Christian Scientist daily devotes time to the prayerful study of the Bible and Science and Health. Throughout the textbook, Mrs. Eddy employs with Biblical authority seven synonymous terms in referring to God. These terms are Mind, Spirit, Principle, Soul, Life, Truth, Love. As the brilliance of a diamond comes from the many facets of the one jewel, so the glory of the nature and essence of the one God appears through these seven synonyms. The divine nature is expressed in God’s man, the only man there really is. Therefore in finding God, one also gains the correct concept of real selfhood.

Let us consider in detail some of the synonyms for God. This procedure will lead us to see how an understanding of these helps us to find God.

God is Mind, the only Mind. Man is Mind’s spiritual idea, reflecting the divine intelligence. The false sense of a personal mind embedded in brain is merely the supposition of intelligence in matter. Such a supposition seems to separate us from God and subject us to a sense of personal problems beyond our ability to solve. In our distress we long to find God, to feel the comfort of a sustaining power.

Truly to seek God entails a willingness to give up self-will, human outlining, a belief of a limited capacity, or false pride in personal intellect. Prayerful study carried on in the spirit of humility brings an awareness that the man of God’s creating is never separated from the source of all intelligence. In the degree that we demonstrate real selfhood, clarity of thought replaces confusion and human footsteps are guided in the right direction. This evidences Mind made manifest through its own idea, spiritual man. Mrs. Eddy says, “God is not separate from the wisdom He bestows.” 4

The ideas of divine Mind are wholly spiritual, for God is Spirit. The physical body is the subjective condition of material-mindedness or a so-called mortal mind. This false concept, unchecked, may come to include suggestions of exhaustion, sickness, deformity, and injury. As we deny reality to matter and turn completely to God, spiritual thoughts illumine our consciousness. False beliefs are replaced with a sense of vigor, health, and perfection. Thus is the presence of God realized in human experience, for spiritualized thought is the direct manifestation of Spirit.

In the proportion that human thought is regenerated, the understanding of God as Truth brings to light the reality and substance of Spirit. In this light, what has paraded as the solidity and tangibility of matter begins to fade into its native nothingness. As a result there is a great stirring of thought in response to the leaven of Truth. This transforms thought from a sense of separation from the heavenly Father to the understanding that where man is, God is.

God is Love, and since God is All-in-all, Love embraces all being. Weighted down with numerous woes, humanity longs for the assured safety of a loving, protective power. In reality man is the idea of Love and never has been and never can be torn from the bosom of the heavenly Father. There is no life outside the realm of Love. As we grow in the understanding of this spiritual truth, we find divine Love at hand to meet our present needs.

There was a troubled time in my experience when God seemed far away. My prayers appeared to reach no farther than the walls of my room and to return to me void. My heart cried out as had Job’s. I did not doubt that God was, but I could not find my way to Him.

In the midst of my despair, through no direct or specific planning on my part, a circumstance arose which resulted in my meeting a Christian Science practitioner. I realize now that this meeting was not by chance; it was God’s loving guidance in response to my cry. The simple statement that God is Love which I had heard all my life suddenly became an active force in my consciousness.

The Sunday following this meeting I began to attend a Christian Science church. I went to a practitioner for help, and in the months that followed I spent hours in a Christian Science Reading Room, studying the Bible, together with Science and Health and the other writings by Mrs. Eddy, and reading the Christian Science periodicals. I contemplated with newfound joy the irrefutable fact that anything that seems to oppose God’s goodness is not real. Torments that had put up a pretense of presence and power in my consciousness lost their hold as my thought opened to spiritual truths. Adjustments took place, restoring harmony and peace in my human experience.

To every heart that cries, “Oh that I knew where I might find him!” there is a clear, direct answer. It is not found in the paradox of supposed material laws or in a sense of self as a struggling mortal. The answer lies in the truth of man’s relation to God as given in the Bible and elucidated in the study of Christian Science. Through prayer, which acknowledges the allness of Spirit and the nothingness of matter, spiritual sense gains ascendency over false material concepts. The Bible promises us that if we keep this true fast, “Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am.” 5

1 Job 23:3↑

2 v. 8↑

3 Science and Health, p. 42↑

4 p. 6↑

5 Isa. 58:9↑

I Look Within

by Rev. Paul Lachlan Peck

I look within to know my Life

As perfect, whole and pure;

Within the everlasting Arms

My way is steadfast, sure.

When error would present itself

As Truth to claim my sight,

I wholly look to God alone

To set my vision right.

When sickness, sin, or death would claim

My joy, and make me fear,

I turn my thoughts to Christ

And feel Love’s presence here.

When envy, greed or strife would turn

My thoughts to lack or pain,

I turn to Mind, my Consciousness,

And balance comes again.

I follow the Great Ones along

The Path to future bright;

These labored long on earth below

To conquer darkened night.

Forever free to learn and grow,

In oneness, Life, with Thee,

The earth my classroom,

Heaven my Home—My peace, a surety.

From: Inherit the Kingdom, p. 171

Rev. Paul Lachlan Peck, iUnivesre 2005

Blessings and Hugs!

Paul

When you haven’t forgiven those who’ve hurt you, you turn your back against your future. When you do forgive, you start walking forward.

Tyler Perry

 4:36

Luke  23:34

King James Version (KJV)

 3:20

Can “renewing your mind” make you well?

From the Official Blog of Thomas Mitchinson, Illinois Committee on Publication 

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Thomas Mitchinson

I have always loved this parable: “An old legend tells of a young boy who was kidnapped by gypsies.  He was held as one of their tribe and his memory faded of his princely background.  Years later, when passing through his former kingdom, he was recognized.

“An old well-loved retainer saw in the grown man the stolen boy prince.  He got to him pleadingly recalling his true heritage and the greatness of his estate.  But the boy had been so inured that he could not accept anything else.  He turned his back on his heritage, forfeiting his rightful kingdom and continued to live a lie about his being.”

This story has often reminded me of the words of St. Paul in his letter to the Romans.  He wrote, (12:2) “…be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of you mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable and perfect, will of God.”

How many of us accept old thought patterns as a way of life – that anger, frustration, laziness, stubbornness or sadness are just a way of life for us – instead of something that we can change?  Is that being comformed to this world?  Is that just a “kidnapped” way of thinking – and is there more for us than that?

Dale Fletcher, M.S. in the Faith and Health connection website thinks so.  He wrote, “I’m not sure most of us really recognize the importance of our thought life and the impact that it has on our emotions and our bodies.  One of the most important spiritual exercises that we can put into practice for improved health is to monitor our thought life and to adjust our thinking so that it is ‘healthy’ or spiritual.”

He quoted Don Colbert, M.D. author of Deadly Emotions: Understand the Mind-Body-Spirit Connection That can Heal or Destroy You, “I’ve worked with countless people who have discovered that once they made a sincere effort to tackle their dysfunctional thought patterns, they had fewer bouts with depression, anxiety, anger, shame, jealousy, and other toxic emotions.  It isn’t difficult to replace lies with God’s truth.  It just takes intentional and consistent effort….It takes the time and energy to find statements of God’s truth and apply them to life’s lies.”

Fletcher continued, “Do you dwell on past hurts and pains?  Is the deep resentment you keep towards another person eating at you deep in your heart?”  He responds, “Replace these negative thoughts with thoughts that are spiritual, pure and positive….Monitor what you put into your mind.  What kind of music do you listen to?  Are the TV shows you watch healthy for you?  What do you read?  Are the internet sites you frequent consistent with your desire to have spiritually healthy thoughts?”

In his book, Your Best Life Now (pps. 161-162), Joel Osteen shares this story about how renewing one’s thought had a great impact on a man crippled with arthritis.  He wrote, “When I was growing up, we had a former Methodist minister in our church.  His hands were so crippled with arthritis, he could hardly use them.  Thy looked as though they had shriveled up and were deformed.  He couldn’t open a car door.  He couldn’t shake hands or anything like that.  As long as I’d known him, his hands had been that way.  But one day, he went to my dad and showed him his hands – they were perfectly normal!  He could move them like any of us, almost as though he had received a new set of hands.

“My dad was surprised, but so happy for him.  He said, ‘Man, what in the world happened to you?’

‘Well, it’s an interesting story,’ the former minster said.   ‘Several months ago, you were talking about unforgiveness.  You were speaking on how it keeps God’s power from operating in our lives, and how it keeps our prayers from being answered.  As I listened, I began to ask God to show me if I had any areas of unforgiveness and resentment in my life.  And God began to deal with me.  He brought to light several situations that had happened to me down through the years in which people had done me wrong.  I didn’t even know it, but I still had anger and resentment in my heart towards those people.  That’s the odd part; I didn’t realize I was carrying it around.  But as soon as I saw it, I made a decision to forgive them and totally let it go.  And then the most amazing thing began to happen.  One by one, my fingers started straightening out.  One week went by and this finger would be healed.  The next week this finger.  As I continued to search my heart and eliminate all that bitterness and resentment, God brought complete healing back to me, and now look at my hands, I’m perfectly normal!”

We don’t have to stay captive to anger, stress, frustration, or any unhealthy thinking.  We are not princes help in sick bodies – through the renewal of our mind
– we can find better health.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Minnesota Senate voted Monday to make gay marriage legal, the last legislative step before Gov. Mark Dayton’s promised signature will make the state the 12th in the U.S. to do so.  Dayton called the bill “one of those society-changing breakthrough moments.” 

Minnesota Senate Approves Marriage Equality | Advocate.com

The Time Is Now

EMADA AVERY GRISWOLD

From the November 27, 1937 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel

The time is now, the Spirit saith,
For all to know abundant life,
One need not wait till after death—
The time is now, the Spirit saith.
Lift up your eyes, take freer breath;
Arise, and see beyond the strife!
The time is now, the Spirit saith,
For all to know abundant life.

Abundance full is yours this day,
Of life and love and highest joy,
And nothing can your progress stay—
Abundance full is yours this day.
Your liberty none can gainsay,
Nor can inharmony annoy;
Abundance full is yours this day,
Of life and love and highest joy.

Author and theologian Frederick Buechner says that “purpose is where your deepest gladness and the world’s hunger meet.”

Purpose = Passion + Service

 3:56

True Greatness

JEAN H. DU BUQUE

From the February 1957 issue of The Christian Science Journal

Since the dawn of civilization, one of the strongest human desires has been to achieve personal greatness. In all ages men and women dominated by self-will and selfish ambition have relentlessly striven to thrust themselves into the pages of history as among the greatest.

Christ Jesus over nineteen centuries ago tersely rebuked this age-old human quest for personal greatness when he said to his disciples ( Matt. 23:11), “He that is greatest among you shall be your servant.” The Master plainly discerned that the importunate search for material power, wealth, and adulation was contrary to his spiritual teaching that man is at one with the Father and has no existence apart from Him. In this illuminating statement the Master lovingly sought to convey to his followers the divine key to true greatness.

Throughout his healing and redemptive mission the humble Nazarene never ascribed power or greatness to himself. He always attributed all power to God, his heavenly Father, and refused to consider for a moment the glory, riches, and homage the devil placed at his feet. He well knew that his holy purpose included no earthly kingdom to rule. Most aptly he said ( John 7: 18), “He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory: but he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him.”

What is greatness? Why is a certain financier, author, public official, military figure, statesman, or religious leader accorded greatness in the eyes of the world? In studying the lives of great men and women of the past, we find that many of them expressed Christlike qualities. In their unselfed labor for the benefit of mankind, they shared such attributes as humility, simplicity, integrity, originality, and diligence. Whether their dedicated work was in the realm of invention, art, natural science, literature, world affairs, religion, or other fields, they were able to surrender personal desire and ambition and to become willing agencies for inspired thought and action in ameliorating pressing human needs.

In every age, trying experiences, betrayal of trusts, or untold hardships have blocked the paths of many great benefactors of humanity. But their vision was so broad and their purpose so impelling that they overcame every intruding obstacle one by one. Through the noble life motives of these great benefactors and their unremitting devotion to duty, all nations and races have been and are being blessed beyond measure.

Mary Baker Eddy writes on this subject of greatness in “Miscellaneous Writings” ( p. 266): “The true leader of a true cause is the unacknowledged servant of mankind. Stationary in the background, this individual is doing the work that nobody else can or will do.” Mrs. Eddy clearly perceived that true greatness was not bestowed upon those who willfully and arrogantly sought it, but was the result of complete self-abnegation and unflagging dedication of thought and effort to achieve a worthy cause for the benefit of others.

Only divinely directed purpose, made effective in loving and helpful deeds in behalf of others, assures attainment of worthwhile goals. Such selfless impulsion is the source of all true greatness. By forsaking false, human concepts of material existence and by faithfully expressing righteous activity in our daily affairs, in accordance with God’s infallible plan and unfailing direction, we, as well as others, are blessed and enriched immeasurably.

True greatness is ours when we diligently work in the vineyard of our Father, endeavoring to reflect the pure christ-consciousness in all that we do and say. We must not yield to the perverse temptation to lay claim to personal knowledge, ability, and accomplishment, nor attribute power, fame, or wealth to person, place, or circumstance. Such self-inflated and erroneous beliefs forfeit the lasting dominion, harmony, and grandeur bestowed by the Most High upon His beloved sons and daughters.

When we listen quietly for the still small voice of God, or Truth, and implicitly follow this divine direction, God reveals the wisdom and perspicacity we need to express our endowment of good. He bestows upon us the capacity to achieve all things in His name.

It is most illuminating to define the words “power,” “wealth,” and “acclaim” from a spiritual standpoint. The only power is the all-power of God and not the deceptive power of mortal sense testimony. The only real and lasting wealth is the endless flow of spiritual ideas from the divine Mind and not the fleeting wealth of material possessions. The only enduring acclaim is to be called the image and likeness of the Father-Mother and not the illusory acclaim of earthly eminence.

As a loyal disciple of the great Exemplar, Christ Jesus, Mrs. Eddy rejected the blandishments of human greatness. Although her inspired revelation of Christian Science brought her world renown as a great spiritual leader, she disdained personal glorification. In founding The Mother Church and arranging for the establishment of its branches throughout the United States and in other countries, as well as directing the many fruitful activities of the Christian Science movement, Mrs. Eddy expressed great love for mankind. Her superlative spiritual achievements in a densely materially minded world stand forever as irrefutable proofs of her faithful adherence to God’s direction and purpose.

When world homage was thrust upon her as the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy, not unmindful of the reverence bestowed by those healed and redeemed by her writings, wrote ( The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 306): “I have quite another purpose in life than to be thought great. Time and goodness determine greatness.”

Let us, like our Leader, walk humbly in the footsteps of the great Master. Let us also obediently and faithfully follow the teachings of Christian Science, without seeking or expecting reward for our good works in the service of God and mankind. Then we shall find the key to true greatness and understand the divine import of Jesus” words, “He that is greatest among you shall be your servant.”

Happy Mother’s Day

From

Emergence International

2013

There’s never a moment when anyone can be separated from God’s mothering love.

Mother’s Day

By The Editors

From the May 20, 2013 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel

*Photo – Love’s Embrace – Courtesy of allposters.com

While many mothers around the world will be honored in some way on this special holiday, it’s worth taking a few moments to consider the one Mother all of us have and that we can never lose, namely God, our Father-Mother.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, describes our divine Parent: “Love, the divine Principle, is the Father and Mother of the universe, including man” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 256). In this statement she reveals the nature of true Mother-Love, and also provides for its purity and constancy by associating it with divine Principle.

This is the Mother who comforts not only the mothers who see themselves as “good mothers,” but also the mothers who feel like failures, or who are on drugs, or whose children have just been lost in war or other tragic circumstances. The divine Mother holds tenderly all mothers and mothers-to-be.

This divine Mother also mothers orphans or abandoned children, the abused or neglected, and those who are not mothers or whose mothers have passed on. She is perpetually with each of us.

Mother never gives up on Her loved ones.

The nature of our divine Mother is outlined beautifully in Ezekiel’s description of the good shepherd, showing that this Mother never gives up on Her loved ones: “As a shepherd seeketh out [her] flock in the day that [she] is among [her] sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day” ( Ezekiel 34:12). Whether the “dark day” is a time of war, loss, or grief, Mother-Love is there to comfort and strengthen.

Our divine Mother’s love is practical, and She provides for Her children’s needs: “They lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed” ( Ezekiel 34:14). Whether we are in settled circumstances or refugee camps, in war zones or vibrant cities, right there, Mother-Love is with us.

Our divine Mother doesn’t just love the “good kids” or the good mothers. Even if a mother or a child has strayed, neither one can escape Her goodness: “I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick” ( Ezekiel 34:16).

Divine Love is infinite, active, insistent that our nature is spiritual and that we can perceive our own goodness and spirituality and that of our children. Divine Love doesn’t give up. So wherever you are on Mother’s Day or afterward, smile with great gratitude and assurance. Mother dearly loves you, your mother, and your children—and always will.

“God is Love.” More than this we cannot ask, higher we cannot look, farther we cannot go. 

(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures)

Health and the Mother-love of God

Posted: 09 May 2013 04:46 PM PDT

* Photo – Morning Meal

Recently there have been reports in the news describing research results about the effect of human consciousness on physical health – specifically, that individual consciousness focused on a loving God. An anthropologist from Stanford University, T. M. Luhrmann, writes in the New York Times (‘The Benefits of Church’), “To know God in an evangelical church, you must experience what can only be imagined as real, and you must also experience it as good.” Luhrmann continues, “…the capacity to imagine a loving God vividly leads to better health.”

This is very consistent with my understanding of who God is – a loving, wholly good, omnipotent and omnipresent supreme being – and the effect of experiencing this powerful being on individual health. To me, it also indicates the inseparable relationship one has with the loving God, our divine Parent.

As a spiritual healthcare practitioner for many years, I have seen that the closer a patient feels to this presence – actually, the more one understands that he cannot be separated from the blessings of an all-loving, all-good supreme being – the more tangible these blessings become in his life, in improved health, positive relationships, better financial circumstances. Who wouldn’t want to be close to this beneficent Parent?

Several years ago I was in a serious car accident that took emergency crews 45 minutes to extract me from the wreckage. In moments of consciousness, I prayed with all my heart to the Divine for help. It was all I could do. Over the next several days, I felt closer to God than I had ever felt before. I had such a tangible and real sense of Mother-love, tenderly enveloping me, assuring me – and yes, healing me.  Through prayer, a gentle physical restoration began to take place. In a few weeks, I was back driving my kids to school and caring for my family. (For a complete account of this healing, click here)

When I think and pray vividly about all the good qualities of my divine Parent, it is easy to feel and experience this Mother-love embracing me fearlessly, guiding me in wise decisions, and protecting me from harm. In this state of uplifted spiritual consciousness, I am separated from anything unlike the divine qualities because I am inseparable from the Divine – these are my qualities too. I am like the image in a mirror that can only reflect the original.

A loving mother of course wants only good for her children and will do all in her power to ensure it. She loves us first and shows us what unconditional love is. We bask in this love and cannot help to love in return. When we love and are loved, don’t we feel happier, safer, better?

Now imagine this mother-love grander, greater, ineffably closer…this is a glimpse of the infinite, omnipresent and omnipotent love of our divine Mother. She has loved us first in our lives – and we are first in this great heart of Love. All the abundant good that is, is bestowed on us unconditionally: health, happiness, peace. This is real Love.

“God is Love.” More than this we cannot ask, higher we cannot look, farther we cannot go. (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures)

Mary Baker Eddy once wrote this about prayer: “True prayer is not asking God for love; it is learning to love, and to include ALL mankind in one affection. Prayer is the utilization of the love wherewith He loves us.” 2

 5:17

Inclusive Prayer

MARY METZNER TRAMMELL

From the March 1996 issue of The Christian Science Journal

It’s no fun being left out. It’s no fun being excluded—from a club or a party or just a conversation. A friend of mine says one of his most vivid childhood memories is of being left out—in a car full of kids, while his aunt went shopping by herself. Forty years later, he still gets a little burned up when he thinks about it!

Apparently a lot of people feel the way my friend does. Maybe that’s why there’s so much talk these days about being “inclusive” in the way people speak and act toward each other. The idea behind inclusive language, for instance, is never to leave anyone out, for any reason—not because of race or nationality or age or sex or religion or economic bracket, or any other human classification.

Sometimes, though, it’s hard to remember to be inclusive. If you and I were both plumbers, let’s say (or computer programmers or Bible scholars), we might get so absorbed in talking to each other in our own language that, when we’re with other people, we forget all about speaking in language that includes everybody—language that everybody can understand. We might get so absorbed in talking about “widgets” and “pipe fittings” and “seepage pits” that we forget that some people have no idea what these terms mean. So, without really intending to, we speak in exclusive language. In language that can make other people feel left out.

One of the most radical messages Jesus Christ brought to humanity had to do with inclusiveness. It simply doesn’t work, he said, to love some people and hate others—to include some people in your affections and leave others out. Love isn’t for real unless it’s for everyone.

And why is real love inclusive? Because God’s love is all-inclusive. It’s not just for you. It’s not just for me. It’s for everyone. As Jesus explained, God “maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” His love is “perfect”: seamless, flawless, changeless, unending. And ours should be too, because we’re God’s children.1

As Jesus said, God’s love is for friends, enemies, good people, everyone. It’s for children, women, men. It’s for people who speak Chinese or Navajo or Arabic or Italian or Serbian or Norwegian or Russian or English or Greek or Zulu or Portuguese or Japanese, or any other language. It’s for the whole universe—with absolutely no exceptions.

God doesn’t see the material picture of good people and bad people, or people divided into gender groups and age-groups and national backgrounds. These are surface characteristics, mortal characteristics. They wash out of sight when you take a hard look at reality—at the actual, spiritual facts. Facts like these: that God is Spirit and totally good. That we, God’s children, are His likeness, spiritual and totally good. That a description of us that doesn’t take into account our spiritual nature and total goodness is fundamentally inaccurate.

Maybe prayer
has a lot to do
with caring about
other people rather
than simply sitting
in a chair and
meditating.

So inclusive love—Godlike love—looks only at these spiritual facts about you and me and everyone. It shines on all God’s children, leaving no one out. And inclusive prayer? Well, it does the same thing. Because prayer is our way of responding to the universality of divine Love. It’s a way of loving all God’s children. And it’s a way of letting the healing power of God’s love bathe your whole life in light.

Mary Baker Eddy once wrote this about prayer: “True prayer is not asking God for love; it is learning to love, and to include all mankind in one affection. Prayer is the utilization of the love wherewith He loves us.” 2

But is this kind of overarching, all-encompassing prayer too vague to help you when you’re in trouble? Not at all. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with praying specifically for yourself and others. But the more outreaching and unselfish your prayers are, the more their impetus flows back to bless you. It embraces you in the very Love you’ve been celebrating in your heart. And it heals you.

A friend of mine (we could call her Annie) feels real prayer is a matter of “turning out.” Here’s how she learned this. She’d been diagnosed with osteoporosis and told she would need medication the rest of her life. The pain was so bad she couldn’t work. But somehow, since she’d been raised as a Christian Scientist, she couldn’t believe all this about herself. It seemed too cruel a verdict. So she stopped taking the painkillers and asked a Christian Science practitioner to pray with her.

Annie and the practitioner thought for several weeks about her unadulterated spirituality. They thought about how impossible it was, logically, for pain and disease to intrude on her pure, Godlike being. Annie began reading the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mrs. Eddy, from beginning to end—ten pages a day.

More and more, she felt confident she would be healed. She even had periods—sometimes for hours at a time—of feeling fine. But the pain would return. What she really needed to do, she believed, was to spend more time alone—in quiet, uninterrupted prayer.

One morning after she’d sent the kids off to school, she settled down for what she hoped would be a beautifully silent session of prayer to God. No sooner had she touched down on the sofa, though, than a man who lived down the street appeared at her door. He’d just been diagnosed with a terminal disease—and wanted to talk to Annie about God. So for the next couple of hours she told him what she’d been learning from the Bible and Science and Health. He left with new courage, new hope.

Finally, Annie thought, she could begin praying. But not ten minutes later, another neighbor—this one with family problems—knocked at the door. So Annie plunged into helping her. For the rest of the morning, they talked about how, with God, there’s always a way to move forward. There’s always God’s comfort and love.

At last, around noontime, Annie was alone. And that’s when she realized she was healed. There—in the midst of all that had gone on in her living room that morning—she was healed. At first, it just didn’t make sense. She hadn’t even had time to pray!

But then, it started to come together in her thought. Maybe she had prayed, after all. Maybe prayer has a lot to do with caring about other people rather than simply sitting in a chair and meditating. Maybe it has more to do with “turning out” than with turning in toward yourself. Maybe you’re really praying best when you want more than anything to help someone else. And you want it enough to stop everything and give somebody else the facts of real Life, in a way that makes that person—and you—feel all wrapped up in God’s love.

The practitioner thought Annie was right about all this. Together they remembered something Mrs. Eddy said about prayer in Science and Health: “The test of all prayer lies in the answer to these questions: Do we love our neighbor better because of this asking? Do we pursue the old selfishness, satisfied with having prayed for something better, though we give no evidence of the sincerity of our requests by living consistently with our prayer?” 3

Questions like these, they decided, amount to an open invitation to prayer that’s God-first, not me-first. Prayer that’s inclusive. Prayer that heals.

1 See Matt. 5:43-48.↑

2 No and Yes, p. 39.↑

3 Science and Health, p. 9.↑

No one chose to be gay. We are what God made us. We don’t need to be fixed. We aren’t broken. [...] My partner Vicki and I have been together for 24 years. Last year, we entered into a civil union. [...] If my happiness somehow demeans or diminishes your marriage, you need to work on your marriage.

Delaware state Senator Karen Peterson came out as lesbian during the floor speeches of a debate about legalizing gay marriage, multiple outlets have reported.

Delaware will become the 11th state to allow same-sex marriages

 0:33

COVER ARTICLE

A Storybook Bible For All

By Kim Shippey

From the November 21, 2011 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel

It would be hard to imagine a better book for National Bible Week and the Christmas season than Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s Storybook Bible: Children of God (Deluxe Edition), Zonderkidz, 2011. It costs less than $25, and includes two audio CDs of Tutu reading each Bible story aloud, enhanced by music and sound effects. Several well-established artists from around the world were selected to illustrate the 56 stories spanning Genesis to Revelation—they come from the United Kingdom, South Africa, Russia, France, Vietnam, Argentina, the Netherlands, Italy, and China.

Sample audio clips in which Tutu retells two of his favorite stories are available at http://childrenofgodbible.com/. Tutu’s narration is marked by his strong South African accent, but he speaks slowly and expressively, and is easy to follow. When he smacks his lips to bring the creation story to a close, you are swept up in his unbounded enthusiasm: “God looked at everything that he had made and clapped his hands together in delight. ‘Isn’t it wonderful!’ ” ( Gen. 1:31). And in an excerpt from the 21st chapter of the book of Revelation, he really takes off: “ ‘You are all brothers and sisters together, my family. Come and drink, my beloved children, from the water that gives you life, love, and joy!’ ”

Tutu’s credentials for this job are impeccable—man of the cloth (Anglican), Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and father of four children and seven grandchildren. In his introduction he explains that this truly is an international Bible “created by people in many, many lands for children all around the world . . . .”

He says: “God made every one of us different—but he loves all of us equally, for we are all God’s children. And no matter what happens, God will never stop loving [us].

“God also wants us to fill our lives with love. Jesus says we should love God, love other people, and love ourselves. How do we do this?

“By doing three important things:

“Do what is right, be kind to one another, and be friends with God.”

I suspect that many people who pick up this book, especially at this time of year (even if they just turn the pages and enjoy the pictures), will “clap their hands together in delight.”

—Kim Shippey, Senior Editor