Day 12: A Debt of Love

16:24-17:15

The line about forgive our debtors and then Mary Baker Eddy’s interpretation about Love reflected in love made me think about a debt of love, loving your neighbor, who is your neighbor, and loving the world.

It is too easy to pull in to our small circle or just ourselves and feel overwhelmed and incapable of reflecting Love but not only must we, we can, and ultimately, we will.

2010

Day 11: Enlightened Faith

14:31-16:23

This is one of my favorite sections of the entire book. It isn’t radical or controversial. It’s just an easy “yeah, I agree with that” kind of reading. I don’t have to learn any new words, or try to decipher some awkward grammar usage.

The thought that will stay with me all day is:

Trustworthiness is the foundation of enlightened faith.

2010

Day 10: Absent from the body

13:5-14:30

In this reading Mary Baker Eddy has two point that are old standards in Christian Science but struck me new today. The first is to work toward your goal. Prayer isn’t enough; we must do. Take steps. Move Forward. For just a moment, I felt like I was listening to a motivational speaker. That isn’t a bad thing at all. It’s just I never got that from Mary Baker Eddy before.

The second point is to be absent from the body and present with God. When I saw body, I thought all materiality. Life and intelligence are spiritual but pretty much everything else isn’t. It didn’t matter if I was absent from the body or absent from my car. To me, the deeper point is to be present in spirituality enough to be absent from materiality.

2010

Day 9: Habitual Desire

11:5-13:4

On Day 6, the quote about God pouring riches of His Love by affections has been on my mind. I’ve been looking for those affections and as a tradeoff been spotting my own human will and ignoring it. Not easy. I have a list of things I want to get done but I have kids – who require affection from me and have boat loads of human will. But I’ve been just going with it. Something like this:

prayer, coupled with a fervent habitual desire to know and do the will of God, will bring us into all Truth.

2010

Day 8: Space for Prayer

9:5-11:4

Mary Baker Eddy explains that asking isn’t enough. Prayer needs to also include the work of sinning no more. She lists two things that are not a part of prayer:

• material sense
• human will

If I eliminate these entirely from my mental landscape, I wonder if the nature of my prayers would change. I’m not asking to be rich and famous but I have spiritual goals. Perhaps I’m focusing too much on the goal and not the immediate steps in front of me that confirm my progress.
2010

Day 7: False Claims

7:1-9:4

In the first paragraph, Mary Baker Eddy writes

The relinquishment of error deprives material sense of is false claims.

This is stated so succinctly that I wanted to remember it here.

2010

Day 6: Sincerity’s Test

5:3-6:32

Today’s reading is about sin and reformation. Mary Baker Eddy says

God pours the riches of His love into the understanding and affections, giving us strength according to our day.

I’m going to look for how He does this today.

2010

Day 5: The Task of a Solution

3:4-5:2

Mary Baker Eddy says the rule is established and our task is to work out the solution. Here is some of the work I need to do:

1. Reflect God
2. Express gratitude in action
3. Be sincere
4. Prayer: patience, meekness, love, good deeds
5. Habits of unceasing good
6. Watchfulness
7. Obedience

 

2010

Day 4: My Motive for Prayer

1-3:3

In this reading, Mary Baker Eddy asks what the reader’s motive is for prayer. She gives four options:

• make ourselves better
• benefit those listening
• enlighten infinite mind
• heard of men

The way she phrases this, all four options are incorrect motives for prayer. However, the first one, to make ourselves better, is exactly what I’m aiming for -- to be more spiritual by understanding God.

At the beginning of the chapter, she lays out an interesting equation (or at least that’s the way I thought of it):

absolute faith = spiritual understanding = unselfed love

My desire for personal spiritual progress is currently taking front seat to unselfed love. Probably need to correct that.

2010

Day 12

16:24-17:15

This is the end of the chapter on Prayer. I haven't thought so much about Prayer since college. The line in the spiritual interpretation that always sticks with me is:

Give us grace for to-day; feed the famished affections;

Tomorrow, Chapter 2. In my mind, I rename some of the more obtuse chapters. I call Chapter 2 'Jesus'. It's easier to remember than Atonement and Eucharist.

Day 11

14:31-16:23

According to The Journal, the reflection for this chapter is tomorrow but I've been thinking about it today. I'm at the end of the chapter except for the Lord's Prayer and the spiritual interpretation.

I looked through the pages in the blog and the pages in S&H. It feels like my billionth read of the chapter. The idea of prayer as work keeps coming back to me. By work, I mean specifically the demonstration of: patience, meekness, love, and good deeds.

It's funny how every time I 'work' on CS, concentrate on it and take time for it, some part of my life turns to heck. And that part seems to take over my thought and the problem grows until I don't want to read S&H, I just want the human problem fixed in a human will kind of way. Skip prayer. Just get it done. 

The idea in today's passage that caught my eye was the mention of the first lie. The text doesn't say it there but I always think of the first lie as the idea that I am separate from God. It's a seductive lie and can be anywhere and anything. It can even be a thought that I'm not getting anything out of this or that it's too much work to change. On an objective level, I know the lie. I know how to argue against the lie. Yet, still, the noise in my head...

Tomorrow, the Lord's Prayer.

Day 10

13:5-14:30

The passage today talks about meaningful prayer versus superficial prayer. Vain repetitions. It's easy to say any prayer, grab on to any passage from S&H in a superficial way and gloss over the meaning. The passage goes on to discuss how to be "present with the Lord" as

"obedience to the law of God, to be absolutely governed by divine Love, - Spirit, not by matter."

Love keeps coming up.One dictionary definition for love is gratitude.

Being present is a something else I've been working on. It's a hourly job I don't feel I'm succeeding at.

Day 9

11:5-13:4

Today's passages discuss prayer for the purpose of physical healing. I'm trying to grow to a different level so I'm not focusing on just a single or collective physical healing but a complete shift in thought.

I'm still stuck on WORK. My work of spiritual understanding. Not Gods work - his work is already done.

So there's patience, meekness, love, and good deeds. Ok. Still working on those.

I know I have an issue with love, both with a big L and a little l.

The passage that stuck out to me are:

The moral law, which has the right to acquit or condemn, always demands restitution before mortals can "go up higher."

The other phrases I underlined are "sacrifice everything for it" and "It is best expressed in thought and in life."

Day 8

9:5-11:4

Yesterday I mentioned I change the word "poor" to some other word, two different and unrelated words actually. I kept thinking "Yes, I need to work on loving this [word omitted] person, but I'll never seem them again." Oh gees. I'm praying to change my thoughts and thinking "Yeah, but I won't have any chance to see if it's working 'cause what is the chance I'll bump into that person. Really?"

So I take my kids to the Children's museum. We go once a week and we have fun there. The staff recognizes us and chats me up a few minutes.

In walks [word omitted] person. I don't know if you would have noticed him but I practically ran right into him - so I noticed. I was with my two year old son. I think of this as sort of my own little trial (lack of love trial) to resolve but my son, oh my dear son. He grabs this guy, starts talking away and won't leave the man alone. The man is kind and sort of stymied that my son is so forward and demanding. The man goes along with it. I'm so embarrassed and the whole time I'm thinking "I really did want to work on this, and now he's here."

The man is with his family but my son has decided only this person in all of the museum he can play with - a grown man I have been praying about. I'm still terribly embarrassed that my son has forced himself on this man.

The three of us go over to the toddler area where my son wants this man to work a puzzle with him. Over and over again. I ask him about himself, and his family, trying to break the ice. We chat a bit and I'm feeling ok about it. But still my son is determined to zero in on this one guy and not let him go. I ask about the man's daughter, our kids are close in age. The two of us, this man and I, coax my son into going over to play with his daughter.

The whole time I'm wondering am I doing this right? I prayed about it and here he is and we are talking and everything is going ok. I introduced myself to his wife and we talked kids for a few minutes. It was nice. I don't think I've got this whole [word omitted] problem down but little steps, right? Something like that.

The passages from today's passage I'm moving forward with are:

"Seeking is not sufficient. It is striving that enables us to enter."

and

"Consistent prayer is the desire to do right."

Day 7

7:1-9:4

Each page of The Journal has the page numbers and line numbers for the passage, an area to take notes, and a quote at the bottom from the passage. The quoted sentence is usual the big concept for the passage. Today's is

"We should examine ourselves and learn what is the affection and purpose of the heart, for in this way only can we learn what we honestly are."

This is too nice and easy. The passage that is much more pointed is

"If we turn away from the poor, we are not ready to receive the reward of Him who blesses the poor."

I changed the word poor to something I have an issue with, some character flaw or physical detail of the people around me. Something I don't love.

I have two words that I replace for poor. I've been working on them for a while. It's not like the whole world knows. Its a private matter to me and you probably wouldn't guess what it was. That's not the point. The point is I know.

Day 6

5:3-6:32

I’ve been stuck in CS for a while now. My daily grind of Mom-dom with two wee ones is all consuming. It’s easier than it was a few years ago but still I get distracted with the kids. So I’m reading to progress, which is what today’s section talks about.

Sin, reformation, and progress. Those are strong words. I have a good idea where I’m off track with sin. Gosh, I don’t want to even type that word.

I’ll focus on reformation and progress then. I’ve never bought the confessional idea as a way to reform. It’s too easy. It doesn’t feel right. Reformation means true change.

MBE goes on to discuss talents, work, and wrongdoing. The phrase that stuck out to me and always does stick out to me is: “

“Calling on Him to forgive our work badly done or left undone, implies the vain supposition that we have nothing to do but to ask pardon, and that afterwards we shall be free to repeat the offence.”

I come from a long line of workaholics and I married one. Idle hands were definitely not welcome. Any difficulty in my spiritual direction, as suggested by my CS grandfather, could be handled with work-work. The idea was I should pray as I worked. It was cheating to think work-work got me farther in my spiritual work but at least I was doing something.

I keep going back to patience, meekness, love (I remembered this time) and good deeds. Love is still my sticking item in the list.

Day 5

3:4-5:2


What Caught My Eye

Yesterday, I pondered the idea of work as a step to effective prayer. Today as I read the next two pages, the word WORK stuck out. I underlined it every time I saw it - 6 times. There a lot of words I associate with Christian Science but that is not one of them. Then I opened the Concordance and looked at how many times it was used there. Pages and pages of reference to the word WORK. Then I started doing my numbering with comma'd items in sentences as I explained yesterday. The three lists I found are at page 4 ln 4, page 4 ln 19, page 4 line 27.

So somewhere in thinking about it, here was what I got out of the passage: The work of spiritual understanding requires: 1) patience, 2) meekness, 3) love, and 4) good deeds. This work is expressed in daily watchfulness and demonstration the divine character. I can't change God with prayer. His work is done. I must work toward my own understanding of how to reflect his nature.  

That's a little muddled but at the time I read it and thought, "wow, that totally makes sense." I never got that before just reading the book.

A few hours later

So I've been going over the ideas in my head as I went about my daily tasks. I remembered WORK and I remembered the list: patience, meekness, something and good deeds. Wait a minute! What was the one I missed? Love. That's says more about me than I care to elaborate on. So now I'm focusing on WORK and LOVE.

Day 4

1-3:3


My Initial Thoughts
Prayer is the first main chapter in the Science and Health. When I started reading S&H as a child, I didn't realize how vastly different pray in Christian Science was from other religions. Now I think of Christian Science as a quiet religion because there is no chanting of prayers or other dramatic happenings. No beads. No candles to light. No incense.

How I read the passages

The passages in these two pages cover the motive of prayer (1st paragraph of page 2), the means of accomplishing the prayer (page 1, line 6-9), and most importantly what prayer is not (page 2, line 8 to page 3 line 3).

New Vocabulary for me

I looked up self-immolation. I had a sense of the word but I wanted to look at the actual meaning. I used dictionary.com which was the wrong thing to do - self-sacrifice. Then I switched over to thesaurus.com and it got worse - hari kari or self suicide. I've always assumed it meant selflessness or unselfishness.

What Caught My Eye

"Prayer, watching, and working, combined with self-immolation, are God's gracious means for accomplishing whatever has been successfully done for the Christianization and health of mankind." 

I took class instruction a few years back. Sitting in a room of people reading Science and Health is great because I got all those different perspectives. Before class instruction, I would have quickly read over the following sentence. But my teacher pointed out a different idea on how to read it.


In this Internet age, we are used to bullet points and lists to feed us the important points so I read a list like this and see:

Effective prayer is:

1. Pray
2. Watch/Listen
3. Work
4. Be unselfish - put others first

Items 1, 1 and 3 seem straightforward to me. The third item in the list, work, is tricky. What does that mean to me?  It doesn't mean have a job, but it could mean have a purpose. Or it could mean do something, move forward, get on with it. Or it could mean put my thoughts into action. When the new ideas come to me, don't ignore them. Don't let them slide off into oblivion with the rest of the noise in my head.

My Journey So Far
So here is my 9th post on this blog. What do you think?

I'm still feeling my way through it. I've talked to a couple of people about this blog and the idea of reading the book in a year but I'm feeling very alone with it right now. I read the 2 pages at night and mull it over then blog the next day. 2 pages is nothing, less than five minutes. If I wasn't trying to figure out what to write in the blog, I probably wouldn't remember what I read. But now I have to slow down and think about it. I like that part - thinking about it.