Day 227: The First Impression

449:7-451:7

This reading still deals with sin. MBE informs us that our porter at the door of thought is our sign post of Character:

The first impression, made on a mind which is attracted or repelled according to personal merit or demerit, is a good detective of individual character.

Her instruction is pointed:

Christian Scientists must live under the constant pressure of the apostolic command to come out from the material world and be separate. They must renounce [1] aggression, [2] oppression, and [3] the pride of power.

Her first statement sums up why:

The wrong done another reacts most heavily against one’s self.

Day 198: Rise

391:7-393:3

I have been working with my daughter on a challenge she had. I thought it was done with but it has reappeared and more difficult this time. I'm feeling frustrated and angry about this as if it is my fault, that somehow I have caused this but I have no control over it now. That is what I was thinking about as I read:

therefore meet the intimation with a protest

rise to true consciousness of Life as Love

Your decisions will master you, whichever direction they take.

perform your office as porter and shut out these unhealthy thoughts and fears. Exclude from mortal mind the offending errors;

Day 182: Arguments

357:7-359:17
Today’s reading concerns several arguments about and against Christian Science. This are issue each person has to work out for themselves, if they are issues. They aren’t for me so I passed by those. But this did sound like it was written for me:

Even though you aver that the material senses are indispensable to man’s existence or entity, you must change the human concept of life, and must at length know yourself spiritually and scientifically.

Day 135: Mis-creation and Invisible Objects of Creation

263:1-264:19

Today's reading is about who the creator is: God or man. This is still a challenging question. I know the spiritual answer but there are so many little arguments that get in the way. I won't go through them.You probably have your own list. Perhaps a little tape that plays in your head when you are standing porter. But to remember the one creator and one creation is a great place to go when a spiritual or physical challenge is stalled. If you begin with God as the only creator and that he only made good, what you do you have? Good. Now find a way to see it.

Yesterday, I was definitely having a problem seeing it but I knew it would work out. Has it? Well, the situation isn't resolved but I'm committed to looking for the good that God created.

I marked:

As mortals gain more correct views of God and man, multitudinous objects of creation, which before were invisible, will become visible.

I'm going to say that the objects of creation, in my case, aren't physical, but spiritual and that they are becoming visible -- regardless of a bump in the road like yesterday.

Day 127: What is the model before mortal mind?

247:10-249:11

I'm getting some wonkiness from the above link. It is technically correct but the spirituality website doesn't seem to like it all the time - fair warning.

Today's reading is a continuation of yesterday's but instead of dealing with time in terms of decay and death, these pages focus on the Spirituality of immortal man - the intangible qualities of man we strive for: grace, goodness, etc.

When I was a child and into my teenage and college years, these pages seemed as though they we re talking to someone other than me. Grace? Comeliness? These weren't qualities I was interested in obtaining nor did I see their value:

Comeliness and grace are independent of matter.

I have matured and found I gravitate to people with these qualities. I would add happy (or calm or a balanced life) and the center of harmony in that person's circle of friends:

the unchanging calm and glorious freedom of spiritual harmony

The last thing I underlined:

We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives. Let [1] unselfishness, [2] goodness, [3] mercy, [4] justice, [5] health, [6] holiness, [7] love -- the kingdom of heaven -- reign within us...

Whenever I read the above section, I stopped at grand and noble.That was for fairytales and movies and heros. But now I have a different idea about who can be grand and noble and someday I might get there. The list of attributes helps me recognize what I need to work on -- uh, most of them. But I'm working on the model in my thought continually.and standing porter at the door of thought. Reading S&H every day helps with that. 

Day 82: What is an idea?

156:5 - 157:32

The first paragraph of this section has an account of a case of dropsy which required tapping.Mary Baker Eddy worked with this patient by attenuating the medication then changing over to a placebo. The patient improved even though no medication entered her body. But the patient didn't know the pills were placebos. So it was a mental drugging of a kind, not physical.

The first line I marked was:

In metaphysics, matter disappears from the remedy entirely, and Mind takes its rightful and supreme place. 

I've been thinking a lot about how matter is the dream which isn't really there. The five senses are powerful and hypnotic. I want those five senses in waking life as much as dream life. But are they real? I've also been thinking about the idea of a thing recently. If I didn't have sight, how would I perceive my existence. I don't mean on a physical level but on a spiritual level. How would I perceive any ideas? What would an existence of all the ideas be like?

The other one I marked is:

...Life is continuous and harmonious.

Harmony is a funny idea. It's easily hidden under the seeming details of life: the little judgements, and thoughts in my own mind. I've been standing porter at the door more actively lately.

Day 27

45:22-47:9

The two passages I underlined in these pages are below. The first summarizes the reading for the day. The second points to my hope for reading it.

Jesus' unchanged physical condition after what seemed to be death was followed by his exaltation above all material conditions; and this exaltation explained his ascension, and revealed unmistakably a probationary and progressive state beyond the grave.

His students then received the Holy Ghost. By this is meant, that by all they had witnessed and suffered, they were roused to an enlarged understanding of divine Science, even to the spiritual interpretation and discernment of Jesus' teachings and demonstrations, which gave them a faint conception of the Life which is God.

I've been looking at every problem in the last two days and thinking  the divine Principle is Love. Standing porter at the door of thought with that one.