“He restoreth my soul”

(Psalm 23:1-6)

8,8,8,8

When all around me seems forlorn

And darkness hovers all about,

I trust the eternal Word, not worn

By time, to guide me gently out.

The God within restores my soul,

And guards my way in every sense;

I need not fear the stones and shoals

With orders given: “Remove thou hence!”

The way grows brighter, Light restored,

The night of sorrow turns to dawn;

Never sought or long implored,

‘Tis given freely; Light is One.

So when the darkness hovers round

And I become depressed and lost,

I need but recognize the Crown

Which rises from each outgrown Cross.

Rev. Paul Lachlan Peck

Footsteps Along the Path, iUniverse 2005

This is what is meant by seeking Truth, Christ, not ‘for the loaves and fishes,’ nor, like the pharisee, with the arrogance of rank and display of scholarship, but like Mary Magdalene, from the summit of devout consecration, with the oil of gladness and the perfume of gratitude, with tears of repentance and with all those hairs all numbered by the father. 

Mary Baker Eddy

(Science and Health 357:10)

Why does Christian Science treatment heal and how does it work?

By Allison W. Phinney, Jr.

From the Christian Science Sentinel

You don’t have to read much about Christian Science before you realize that when Christian Scientists speak of “treatment,” they are talking about a specific kind of prayer that heals. They are not just “hoping” prayer will bring a positive response from God but they are clearly expecting prayer, or treatment, to have a healing effect.

Interestingly, this conviction isn’t based on some kind of “holier than thou” outlook but actually on just the opposite. One of the things you soon learn about Christian Scientists is that they don’t believe you have to have achieved some incredibly saintly status in order to be healed or to deserve healing.

It’s true that genuine spirituality is involved in Christian Science healing—not some kind of esoteric assertion of mental control over the body, not some sort of hyped-up willpower. A deep love for God and a desire to make progress in drawing closer to Him are required. But Christian Scientists believe ordinary people can find healing through prayer because of all that God is rather than because of building up some special human deserving.

Actually, Christian Science gives a thoroughly new idea of who and what we are as “made in God’s image.” It doesn’t consider a dark, undeserving, imperfect, and sinful mortal a fair description of man but takes man to be far different from that. Most people, even those who are temporarily mired in a self-image of weakness and evil, have caught glimpses of a better selfhood in moments of love and inspiration. Christian Science says that this glimpse of something better is an indication of the man God really made, a man who is full of goodness and light and who truly expresses what God is.

Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christianly scientific healing and established it through a lifetime of teaching and writing, tells of what is needed in this comment in Rudimental Divine Science (p. 9): “To heal, in Christian Science, is to base your practice on immortal Mind, the divine Principle of man’s being; and this requires a preparation of the heart and an answer of the lips from the Lord.”

To read the article in its entireity click on the link below:

Daily Bread

05/15/2012

Don’t miss the art of life

By Susan Mack

From The Christian Science Monitor

*Permission granted to post photo – Allposters.com

The children seemed quite concerned about Monet’s smoking. One child pointed out, “He shouldn’t be doing that,” and another asked, “How did his wives die?” In fact, many of the children seemed so impressed by Monet’s human story that they were unable to appreciate and be inspired by the magnificent art they had come to see.

As I stood there observing both the art and the way the children were experiencing the film loop, I began to see it as a parallel to how the details of human life can become so impressive that we miss the bigger picture – what we might call the artwork of each one of us as God’s expression.

Our lives are filled with evidences of courage, beauty, grace, dominion, strength, persistence, harmony, joy, and peace. They’re always all around us, no matter how dire our circumstances seem to be. And choosing to focus on this greater evidence of goodness allows the bigger, truer, more important fact of Life as God to come forward and transform the human story.

One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; filfils 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; annuals the curse on man, and leaves nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed.

Mary Baker Eddy

(Science and Health 340:23)

Breaking down walls that divide

A Christian Science perspective.

By Katherine Stephen / May 14, 2012

In their physical aspect, walls can appear formidable, whether we’re on the outside of some situation trying to get in, or inside, trying to get out. Although they’re necessary in the structure of a building, walls can limit, separate, exclude, or even imprison. Mental walls – prejudice, fear, hate, or disdain – also separate people. They can divide by ethnicity, nationality, denomination, economic level, or in other subtler ways.

But as the story of the battle of Jericho indicates, through divinely inspired thought and action, walls can also crumble, dissolve, or prove to be irrelevant as barriers. The Gospel of John indicates that when the disciples were gathered together after Christ Jesus’ resurrection, Jesus entered the room despite the fact that the “doors were shut” (see John 20:19-31). Walls were not a barrier to the risen Christ. How is this relevant today?

It is the power of God, the one Mind, that gives us the inspiration to transcend whatever walls – physical or mental – might be holding us back, confining, or excluding us. “With my God I can scale any wall,” said King David (II Samuel 22:30, New Living Translation).

As each of us gains in the understanding that there is only one Mind and lives out from this Mind, we’ll contribute to the breaking down of those walls of isolation built by the belief in many mortal minds, and free humanity from their obstruction.

To be of one mind means to be conscious that there is no other Mind but God. It means to be aware that each individual is at one with God and therefore not separated from any other idea of God – that there aren’t separate minds in competition with or isolation from each other. Knowledge of this spiritual fact tends to bring one into right relationship, and communication, with others.

Click on the link below to read the article in its entirety:

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR Breaking down walls that divide

Happy Mother’s Day!

Happy Mother’s Day

from

Emergence International

2012

Through her Bible study, Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, discerned God’s loving, feminine nature and described Deity, in part, as “the affectionate Father and Mother of all He creates” (“Unity of Good,” p. 48). Mrs. Eddy herself was known for the great affection she expressed toward humanity.

God’s mothering promise

A Christian Science perspective: The first Mother’s Day after her mother had passed on, this author found mothering comfort in an unlikely setting – from a male teenage clerk in a convenience store.

By Beverly Peake / May 2012

*permission granted to post photo – Allposters.com

It was clear to me that day that God was fulfilling His promise, “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you” (Isaiah 66:13). The creator of man as both “male and female” in His image (see Genesis 1:27) is always mothering His creation. This is the spiritual reality of existence – the way things really are, even when God’s mothering love seems absent in our own lives or neighborhood or on the other side of the globe. Yet I’ve found that as I prayerfully cherish Love’s universal presence and strive to be more caring, I see signs of God’s love being more widely expressed.

Christ Jesus, forever doing the will of his divine Parent, conveyed God’s maternal nature in his healing and teaching. How tenderly he treated those who came to him for healing. And in Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son, the father demonstrated the constancy and compassion of motherhood, as well as his fatherhood, with both of his sons. Today in those former Bible lands, and everywhere, God’s motherly comfort and guidance are surely present to bless citizens who seek rescue from economic and political turmoil.

No matter how challenging the circumstance – whether it be in Somalia, Syria, or right at home – the valuing of God’s ever-present mothering can help us see increasing evidence that God is always fulfilling His promise of comfort. Then we, too, are comforted.

To read the article in its entirety click on the link below:

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR God’s mothering promise

Daily Bread

05/11/2012

Fearless forgiveness

A Christian Science perspective: News of the trial of Anders Behring Breivik a year after the killings in Norway brings to mind an example of a father’s forgiveness after his daughter was killed by a bombing in Northern Ireland.

By Brian Kissock / May  2012

When a crime has been committed against us, our families, or our nation, there is a righteous indignation, a welling up of resentment and bitterness. But if we let it fester into revenge, hatred, and retaliation, then the terrorists win. Peace is won only through forgiveness, dialogue, and reconciliation. A crime has a great impact on the one who has committed it. The first terrorist to kill a policeman in the Northern Ireland Troubles strutted about in his own area as a hero for a number of years, but gradually he found he could not sleep, he became ill, and eventually he gave himself up to the police and begged the forgiveness of the family.

Even in the face of extreme provocation, terrorism, or war, or when the world shouts, as it did to the crowds surrounding Jesus, “Crucify him, crucify him,” what of ourselves? Can we find it within us to forgive? If we fail to forgive, then we are failing to see even a crumb of humanity in the other person. We are failing to recognize that there stands a beloved spiritual idea of God. In spite of the most heinous crime committed against him, Christ Jesus was able to say, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

He also said that we should forgive “seventy times seven”  – in other words, forgive everything. He made the unconditional statement that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. If we do not, we are not truly following the Master, and we might be seeing ourselves as unlovable as well. But Jesus had a different view. Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Monitor, explained: “Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God’s own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” pp. 476-477).

Daily Bread

05/10/2012

“I was in prison, and ye came to me”

One night an inmate came up to me after the service.  He said he was deeply depressed.  He had not been out of his cell for the past few days and refused to eat.  He was very scared.  He didn’t know how to proceed with his legal options.  He said he had a Bible in his cell.  I gave him a copy of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy – a book he had heard referenced and read from during our sermon.  I turned to page 578 and showed him the 23^rd Psalm viewed in the light of Christian Science.  We read it through together slowly.

Here it is:

“[Divine Love] is my shepherd; I shall not want.

[Love] maketh me to lie down in green pastures: [Love] leadeth me beside the still waters.

[Love] restoreth my soul [spiritual sense]: [Love] leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for [Love] is with me; [Love’s] rod and [Love’s] staff they comfort me.

[Love] prepareth a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: [Love] anointeth my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house [the consciousness] of [Love] for ever.”

When we returned the following Monday, he ran up to me in the chapel and thanked me profusely.  He said that as he read from Science and Health, he felt God’s love quieting his fear and giving him the intelligence he needed to go forward with his life.  He even brought his two fellow cellmates who were astonished at the change in his demeanor.  I gave them both copies of Science and Health also.

God loves everyone.  This love is unconditional and can break through even the most guilt-ridden or anger-infused life.  God’s wisdom encourages, comforts and helps break the entanglements of sin and addiction.  No one is lost.  No one is expendable.  Everyone is truly a child of God.  There may be punishments to be served; compulsions and cravings to be quieted, and even injustices to be overcome; but God’s power truly is omnipotent.

To read the article in its entirety click on the link below:

1. Bully Official Trailer #1 – Weinstein Company Movie (2012) HD …
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Leaving the bully behind: why kids stay silent about bullying

With “Bully” the movie coming out in theaters later this week, Modern Parenthood is thinking about bullying and how to help a child who is dealing with a bullying.

By Anne Collier, Guest blogger

A lot of adults wonder why kids don’t often reveal that they’ve encountered a bully, or why they don’t tell a parent or “trusted adult”  that they’re experiencing bullying.

“He said it was that he didn’t want to bring that home. Like, he wanted to walk in the door and just be a normal, regular kid,” his mother, Jean Cheese, told NPR host Michel Martin. “And he also really kind of felt ashamed of how he was treated and was worried about how I would see it or how my husband would see and what our reaction to it would be.”

Mary Baker Eddy wrote in Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, “The healing power is Truth and Love, and these do not fail in the greatest emergencies” ( p. 5).

Daily Bread

05/08/2012

WEB ORIGINAL

Where the rubber meets the road

By Diane Marrapodi

From The Christian Science Journal - May  2012

One instance of prayer “where the rubber met the road” was when I was a dorm RA (resident assistant) at a college on the East Coast. One night a girl on our floor asked me to check on another girl who wasn’t doing well. When I walked into the student’s room, she was passed out on her bed with an empty bottle of prescription drugs next to her. I was told that after she’d learned of some deceit in the relationship with her boyfriend, she planned to end her life.

Immediately rejecting this “report,” I reached out to God in prayer, and the first two sentences in “the scientific statement of being” came to thought: “There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all” (Science and Health, p. 468). Matter certainly seemed to be the master of ceremonies, but I understood that my first responsibility was to recognize the truth of these statements. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was omnipresent and omnipotent Life, and though the student was “unconscious,” I began to talk with her about her inviolate relationship with God and about God’s constant, tender care for her.

As an RA, it was my responsibility to report this situation to the infirmary immediately. I was told by the staff to get the student to them right away and that they would meanwhile make arrangements to get her to a hospital. (The roads leading to the infirmary were under construction, and because of recent rains and mud, no vehicles could get up the hill to the dorm.) I carried the student down four flights of stairs, past glassed-in lounges. No one came to help me until I reached the bottom floor—when a fellow came to my aid, carried the student the quarter of a mile to the infirmary, rode with us in the ambulance to the local hospital, and arranged a ride for both of us back to the campus. The interesting thing about this student was that the RAs had been told he was the biggest drug dealer on the campus. Yet he hadn’t thought twice about helping us.

Discord of any kind is unnatural, and Christian Science teaches how to refute it prayerfully and effectively. Science and Health says, “Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts” ( p. 261). Prayer that reasons out from just such a premise is “where the rubber meets the road”—where it all comes together. Thought is examined, evil rebuked, God’s all-power and all-presence are acknowledged, healing takes place, and gratitude is expressed.

The power of spiritually scientific prayer moves thought, and this changes experience. Where we may have seen red lights before, we discover green lights—progress, accomplishment, and a life that is blessed.

To read the article in its entirety click on the link below:

WEB ORIGINAL Where the rubber meets the road By Diane Marrapodi