Friday, April 30, 2010

Day 110: Spiritual Sense

213:16-215:10

Today's pages work on spiritual sense as opposed to material sense. We know what the material or physical senses are so I'm not going to cover that. And if someone said "he had a spiritual sense about him," you would get the meaning of "spiritual sense." But what about a different view of spiritual sense -- one that takes the idea of  the physical senses and provides a correlated spiritual sense? That's what Mary Baker Eddy tries to do.

But the idea of spiritual sense from Day 108 is still fresh in my mind -- a conscience, constant capacity to understand God. And then I see this today:
Spiritual sense ... conveys the impressions of Mind to man, then being will be understood and found to be harmonious. 
And a little farther down:
Spirit's senses are without pain, and they are forever at peace. Nothing can hide from them the harmony of all things and the might and permanence of Truth. 
So I looked up spiritual sense in the concordance to get more ideas to work with. And holy moly, there were so many references. I know this has happened at least one other time -- where I'm surprised by how many references to a word there are in the concordance. I can't remember what word it is and I can't search my own blog to find it, so it may just be spiritual sense. I went through the S&H references for spiritual sense. One stood out to me on page 505:20.
Spiritual sense is the discernment of spiritual good. 
This explanation I understand and I think I'm pretty close with my idea of seeing Man as the spiritual reflection of God in Day 108. I think the trick is not seeing man that way when times are good and all is well but when life appears bleak and unharmonious. I use the word appear meaning as it appears to mortal man -- not how it is to God. How it is to God is spiritual good. Good. All the time.

I think the chapter title, Footsteps of Truth, might be right on. Perhaps no need for a nickname.





Thursday, April 29, 2010

Day 109: What nerve!

211:7-213:15

Sometimes I read these two pages and I struggle to find the overall theme but not today. The idea of the human nervous system as controlled by mind versus matter without sensation was the subject.

My first quote doesn't have anything to do with that though:

Sympathy with error should disappear.
This line, out of context of the rest of the two pages, caught my attention because I've been thinking this myself. I've never been a radical Christian Scientist, turning from people or culture if it threatened spiritual growth. However, I have noticed I have a lot less tolerance for certain common cultural conversations (aches and pains of my aging in-laws) that before I would listen to just to be polite. I am daily challenged by what and who I allow around me, influencing me, telling me what is and isn't. I consider my tolerance of these other opinions about the way things work to be a form of sympathy with error. And I have less of it as this year goes on.

Reverse this process; take away this so-called mind instead of a piece of flesh, and the nerves have no sensation.
A week ago, I was sick -- very sick. I had an evening class to go to but I just wanted to crawl into bed. I wrestled with this. Go or go to bed. I was worried I wouldn't even be able to drive the fifteen minutes without having a physical challenge. My husband suggested I go, and come home if I couldn't make it through class but at least go.

When I sat down at the little college desk, I just tried to keep my head off the desk and listen to the lecture. As the evening went on, and I became more engaged in the class, I felt better. By the end of the evening, I felt really good -- better than I had in days. So what happened? I had been thinking about this idea of taking my mind off of my physical state. If I could just replace my thoughts, my concentration on my bodily sensation of nerves, I would feel better. I also concentrated on bringing something good to the class. Instead of having a negative attitude thinking this was a waste of time and I should be in bed, I concentrated on listening. I didn't think about my body, and as a consequence, it didn't bother me.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Day 108: Soul and Man

209:5-211:6

These are the ideas that struck me in this reading. Mary Baker Eddy defined Spiritual sense in contrast to her explanations of material sense.

Spiritual sense is a conscious, constant capacity to understand God. 
A constant capacity to understand God is, to me, a capacity to love man. They aren't exactly the same idea but something I read a while back in the book made me equate loving God to loving man so I wonder if understanding God is really about understanding Man as the reflection of God. If we had the constant ability to love our neighbor and see them as the child of God, would that be spiritual sense?


This next sentence caught my attention because so many Christian religions argue about Soul: soul in the body, soul leaving the body, purpose of  soul.
Knowing that Soul and its attributes were forever manifested through man...
Soul manifested through man to me is sort of another way of saying man reflects God. But what about Soul's attributes? I looked up Soul in Recapitual( pg 477, line, 19). Soul is defined as

the substance , Life, and intelligence of man.
Vocabulary word:
Solecism

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Day 107: The Cause

207:8-209:4

In these two pages Mary Baker Eddy spends most of the length of the passages discussing Mind as the only cause and creator. Then she moves (at the bottom of page 208) to discussing material body and mortal mind.

You embrace your body in your thought, and you should delineate upon it thoughts of health, not of sickness. You should banish all thoughts of disease and sin and of other beliefs included in matter.
These two pages read like a treatment so I'm still pondering the details but the last paragraph seems the densest and I'm still working on it. 

Monday, April 26, 2010

Day 106: Loving our neighbor

205:7-207:7

When we realize that there is one Mind, the divine law of loving our neighbor as ourselves is unfolded. 
Mary Baker Eddy goes on to speak of selfishness as a beam towards the side of error. When I feel the need to retract emotionally, I do act like I'm the only person on the planet and I don't care about my neighbor. I know it's wrong. This quote is just another indication to me that to grow spiritually, I won't be on the journey alone -- even it that is what I wanted. I'm an introvert by nature so including others isn't easy.

She also goes on to mention will-power and human will as subordinate to God's will and that will-power is capable of all evil. I already knew that but the subordinate to God part is tricky.

She also says the prayer of the righteous heals the sick, the prayer is: hope, faith, love. She sort of sneaks that in instead of making that the main point of the paragraph but I'm going to hold on to that one and think about it.

The last thing I marked was "whatever blesses one blesses all." I'm a Star Trek fan and the prime directive is ingrained in me. These two, MBE's whatever blesses one blesses all and the prime directive are in direct conflict with each other. But it gives me some real (t.v. real anyway) ideas on what blessing one is. It's unselfish and damn-the-consequences.

So I think I'll call that C.S. quote the C.S. Prime Directive. What do you think? Might be easier to remember that way.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Day 105: Spiritual Perception

203:7-205:6

Yesterday I struggled with belief versus practice. I don't think my issues with this are done but I am actively reading for ideas on how to gain spiritual ground. The first section I marked was clear in its purpose:

Spiritual perception [1] brings out the possibilities of being, [2] destroys reliance on aught but God, and so [3] makes man the image of his Maker in deed and in truth.
The last paragraph of the section discusses the idea of God in matter as pantheistic then goes on to list what will happen as long as these mistaken belief continues. The items in the list that caught my attention was sinning without knowing it. In some ways I do this but in a lot of ways, I know and I just don't stop. Why?

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Day 104: Our beliefs

201-203:6

I've read these two pages so many times in the last few days that I feel like I'm probably reading them too much. When I think of the chapters that come to mind easily and that I remember enjoying, this isn't one of them. Some how the middle of the book eludes me. So you may be surprised when I say that the only think that stood out to me in these two pages is:

Our beliefs about a Supreme Being contradict the practice growing out of them.
There are lots of good ideas in these two pages but they seem normal, run of the mill, if there is such a C.S. thing as that. But this statement seems packed with issues -- at least for me.

The next sentence I underlined, I also did the listy:

In the Science of Christianity, Mind -- omnipotence -- [1] has all-power, [2] assigns sure rewards to righteousness, and [3] shows that matter can neither heal nor make sick, create nor destroy.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Day 103: End of the chapter

198:23-200:29

So today is the end of the chapter and I have lots of random stuff to cover. First off is the nickname for the chapter. Obviously from the chapter name, Physiology, this chapter is about the physical world. But based on the below quote, I've selected God's Man versus the 5 Senses as the nickname.

These so-called material senses must yield to the infinite Spirit, named God. 
Lately, I've been writing a lot and thinking a lot about our current point in time: now. If Mary Baker Eddy was, instead of writing Science and Health way back then, writing a blog today, imagine what it would look like. Each reference to a word, person, biblical story, or anything could be linked up to another web site. Imagine following along with her as she cited source material and offered more explanations and further insight. Imagine commenting on her blog post asking for further information or adding a testimony or just letting her know you're there. Imagine a searchable, viewable community of people wanting to join together with MBE now.

While reading this chapter and found that I have been looking over to see what the title off in the margin is. Sometimes these help me to see what MBE was going for as the overall thought. But in this chapter, when I want that margin heading, it's not there. So I've been thinking of adding my own. Risky that. What if I'm wrong?

If I were to build a website that helped other people read S&H in a year, one of the features I would have is a full citation arrive in the person's email box with a link back to the blog/journal engine. The full citation would have relevant links to tricky words, historical figures. In the online journal, I would let people select certain words in the text and add their own comments or thoughts that came to them while reading it. I would also add the ability for margin notes and chapter titles (any text really). I would build an index on the fly via search instead of the index that is in the back of the book.

I also find myself correcting her grammar. Clarity is king. I think I may be editing too much in my other life. 

So for my insight into the reading today, it's something about grand human capacities and man being upright and Godlike -- but I'm still working on it.


Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Day 102: The Elasticity of mortal thought and the fear farmer

196:11-198:22

The Elasticity of mortal thought is a great function. We can bounce around from fear to love to anguish quickly. I do this all the time when I watch a movie. It's a little harder when the situation seems real. I've been thinking a lot about human will lately. Another term for this is free will. People often use this as some sort of great thing. We have free will! Isn't that wonderful. You can choose. I've always ignored the argument because it seems contrived but now I want to take a side.Free will versus God's will.

I've been examining my thoughts closely while reading this book. It's easy to tell myself I can change my mind, ignore error, do the right thing. But free will can swing both ways. I can listen to fear and anger and wear it as though it were clothes.

Mary Baker Eddy said:

We should master fear, instead of cultivating it. 
I know a lot of productive fear farmers. I'm not going to worry about them though. Just me. Am I a fear farmer? Do I bring my crop home? More than I care to admit.

But the elasticity of mortal thought needs to be applied. I will change my crop. I've been watching my actions for human will or willfulness. That's a good step but now I want to actively apply love to my actions. That's easy on the surface. I take care of my obligations, my family, and my house. But what about my thoughts? What am I thinking as I sweep the floor for what feels like the millionth time this week? Am I grateful to even have the floor? And what about when something I want doesn't work out? I say "no big deal" but I stew inside. That needs to change. 

A technical note: I'm going to be making some changes to the previous posts: adding labels/tags, adding a link to the pages, etc. This is clean up. At the end of the year, I plan to export off of Blogger to a Wordpress site. In order to make that export easier, with less cleanup, I'll start now.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Day 101: Another kind of Kaspar Hauser

194:6-196:10

In these two pages, Mary Baker Eddy discusses the case of Kasper Hauser and the barbarisms of learning. The part of Kasper's story that MBE is interested in is his time and acclimation to his dark, quiet living space of his youth and his inability to adapt to normal life in the physical world.

All that gives pleasure to our educated senses gave him pain through those very senses, trained in an opposite direction.
She goes on to discuss how education doesn't necessarily make us more spiritual.

If materialistic knowledge is power, it is not wisdom.
I purpose that Kasper, in essence, is the normal material man. And that an analogy can be drawn from the rest of society in Kasper's story to the rest of Spiritual life in mine. Let me explain. Kasper was a mental infant Mortal man is a spiritual infant. The physical world, which Kasper had little or no experience in is analogous to my spiritual world, which on most days I feel I have little understanding of.

But I'm not really that much of a spiritual infant. I know the spiritual world, I just have trouble ignoring the physical one. Ignoring might be the right word for me, but the wrong intent. To grasp the spiritual world more, I need to do something with the material, but what? Ignore isn't right but it's close.

Ideas?


Monday, April 12, 2010

Day 100: Spirit does not share with Human Will

192:4-194:5

I've started reading each day's section two or three times. I know it sort of defeats the purpose of the quick read but I'm either having problems grasping the material the first time through or wondering why these two pages were picked -- meaning why start here and end there.

The first sentence of the second paragraph starts with erring power. I always think of that as something that isn't me so but I could tell by the rest of the paragraph I was misreading. Then I looked at the paragraph title in the white space: Human power a blind force. Ok then. It is talking about me. Still not entirely clear on what is going on, I finish the section to find this:

It has been demonstrated to me that Life is God and that the might of omnipotent Spirit shares not its strength with matter or with human will.
Oh, I get it now: human will power. I've got loads of that -- coming out my ears. Probably why I have a difficult time hearing God.

One more thing that I saw which, this time, made total sense right off:

Human opinions are not spiritual.
So few people express happy, positive, loving opinions -- myself included. There are a couple of people around me that if they express any opinion, I know it will be a big glob of negative, hate-filled goo.

So today's goal (yes, I do have one) is to not fill up on my own will or opinions but leave the mental tank empty and see what God puts in.

On a different note, today is day 100 for me. I'm a couple of days behind in the general journal calendar. Sorry about that. While I may be a neanderthal spiritually, I'll keep working on it. I'm sort of proud of having come this far.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Day 99: Human thought is Bondage

190:1-192:3

I can tell by flipping through the journal that there are only a few pages left of this chapter. I'm not keen on that and I'll probably read it through a few more times but I probably shouldn't stop altogether. Do you have chapters like that right now? Just want to stop and read it over again?

Yesterday I ended on a need to work on fear. Today's reading continues along the line of what a mortal body is and isn't. I'm not going to say it as well as Mary Baker Eddy but she does make a couple of points that struck me.

First:

As mortals give up the delusion that there is more than one Mind, more than one God, man in God's likeness will appear, and this eternal man will include in that likeness no material element. 
The point about more than one God has always struck me more of a them kind of issue. Those Gods over there. But last night I got into a fight with my five year-old and in hindsight it was entirely of my own making because I wanted to control an uncontrollable situation. I wanted to be a God. Not in any thunder and lightening kind of way, but in the "my way or the highway" way. It was stupid and I'm sorry it happened. And the best part about the whole affair is that I realized the God of my making wasn't something outside myself but was me. Mary Baker Eddy talks about this but until last night, I didn't realize I was doing it. I have serious control freak issues which totally have to do with fear and anger. All I can say is I'm working on it.



Saturday, April 10, 2010

Day 98: The Dream

188:3-189:32

In these two pages, Mary Baker Eddy uses two analogies. The first is the dream, which is one of my favorites. The second is the setting sun. For me, the point is about reality and understanding. Daily the five senses would have me believe a reality that is not spiritual but material.

I've been thinking a lot about yesterday's other Gods in my life. Here is what I underlined:

Sickness is a growth of error, springing from mortal ignorance or fear.
I'm going to assume my work is more on the side of fear, and less on the side of ignorance. This year, I've seen so much fear, not just in my life but everywhere. Most of the time it's little things that people do that they have been doing so long they probably wouldn't even recognize it. But sometimes, it's big fears: death, loneliness, lack of love.


Friday, April 9, 2010

Day 97: The Absense of God

186:11-188:2

These two pages continue the treatment so this is day three or 6 pages of patient treatment. I read this section twice and here is what I got out of it:

Error or evil leads to the belief of no God which man incorrectly then elevates his own mind and therefore this body.

The above is my own paraphrasing and not something Mary Baker Eddy wrote. Here is what I underlined:

It [evil] is unreal, because it presupposes the absence of God, the omnipotent and omnipresent.

The human mind has been an idolater from the beginning having other gods and believing in more than the one Mind.

Here you may see how so-called material sense creates its own forms of thought, gives them material names, and then worships and fears them. 
What did you get out of these two pages? A different line of thought?

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Day 96: The Patient

 184:16-186:10

Some of the words from yesterday's entry stuck in my head: production of harmony, obedience, remedy, and denial. The feel of the treatment from yesterday continued into the beginning of today's pages. Mary Baker Eddy wrote a few statements in today's pages that feel like something more than just the regular explanation. They feel like guidelines, rules, or something more. I don't really know what could be more but that doesn't stop the words from having that kind of an impact on me.

A patient under the influence of mortal mind is healed only by removing the influence on him of this mind, by emptying his thought of the false stimulus and reaction of will-power and filling it with the divine energies of Truth.
The reaction of will-power isn't a phrase I expected to see but it fits with where I am. I'll barrel through somehow. That's a common thought I have everyday to the circumstances and situations I find myself in daily. Every time I stubbornly attempt to carry on, I know I'm not listening to anyone including God. But I don't realize this until afterward. The odd thing is that when I let go of my way and just let things occur, they work out alright. So why do I have to be such a control freak and inject myself in where obviously it would be better to just go with it? Something for me to think about.
Christian Science destroys material beliefs through the understanding of Spirit, and the thoroughness of this work determines health.
Understanding of Spirit -- working on that.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Day 95: The Treatment

182:18-184:15

These two pages read like a treatment of sorts. I underlined several things but in honesty I just want to read the whole two pages over and over because I think there is a lot here and a casual read doesn't get to it.


I'm going to list what I underlined all at once:
the legitimate and only possible action of Truth is the production of harmony
 Obedience to Truth gives man power and strength. Submission to error superinduces loss of power.

The remedy consists of probing the trouble to the bottom, in finding and casting out by denial the error of belief which produces a mortal disorder, never honoring erroneous belief with the title of law nor yielding obedience to it. Truth, Life, and Love are the only legitimate and eternal demands on man, and they are spiritual lawgivers, enforcing obedience through divine statutes.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Day 94: The One and Only

180:25-182:17

Today's two pages delve into the material versus spiritual again. The thing that I come back to is there is either all-powerful God or there is not. If not, then the other (evil/error), is all-powerful.

So which is it? Am I:

too material to love the Science of Mind ... satisfied with good words instead of effects
The hardest part is that the material senses are themselves hypnotic and the world beautiful. It's only when things are going well that I see the illusion. If body and life are great, I don't try to see past the illusion but the illusion is wonderful. Its a drug. I want more.

The demands of God appeal to thought only

Monday, April 5, 2010

Day 93: Reflecting

178:28-180:24

Yesterday, I mentioned group thought. At church yesterday, we had a guest soloist. He gets up to join in the first hymn and I'm missing the other soloist, then he starts to sing. I think the entire church collectively, as a group, was overjoyed. Then when he sang his solo, it was as if the finest Tenor on the planet was in the church. The room was filled with group appreciation for this man's voice. I've never heard anyone sing like that except on a professionally produced music cd.

Today's two pages discuss how to approach the patient mentally. I noted this:

Whoever reaches the understanding of Christian Science in its proper signification will perform the sudden cures of which it is capable; but this can be done only by taking up the cross and following Christ in the daily life.
I need to add more love and less rules to my daily life. I already knew this but it's nice to be reminded.

Then:

Immortal Mind heals what eye hath not seen; but the spiritual capacity to apprehend thought and to heal by the Truth-power, is won only as man is found, not in self-righteousness, but reflecting the divine nature.
 I'll work on reflecting the divine nature of Love today. How about you? What do you want to reflect today?

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Day 92: Group Think

176:21-178:27

Today's section is something that has been on my mind lately: group thought. In these two pages, Mary Baker Eddy discusses how group thought gives medication it's power.

Consequently, the result is controlled by the majority of opinions, not by the infinitesimal minority of opinions in the sick-chamber.
My relationship to God is my own and for the most part is entirely in my thought. So why is this one-to-one relationship so heavily affected by other people? Or why can't I stand on an island by myself and live? I know from reading the chapter on Marriage, which I titled "Happiness in Relationships" that I'm supposed to connect with people. How do I connect but guard my thought against what I don't want from those in the group? It's a literal question, not rhetorical.

Friday, April 2, 2010

Taking the day off

I'll be back tomorrow.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Day 91: Disease of the day

174:22-176:20

These two pages discuss the culture of disease in society. The sentence I marked is:

We should prevent the images of disease from taking form in thought, and we should efface the outlines of disease already formulated in the minds of mortals.

Prevent the image, prevent the thought. Replace it, override it with something that you do want to think about.