Day 31

53:25-55:29

Today is the last pages of the chapter. The quote that stood out to me was:

Out of the amplitude of her pure affection, he defined Love.

So what this means to me is, that based on his demonstration of affection, he defined God since Love with a capital L in Christian Science is another word for God. So how do I demonstrate affection? By this, I assume we're not talking about some direct but generally pointless kindness like holding a door open for someone. To demonstrate affection is to say that person, no matter what they have done or where they are in there life is lovable and loved. Ok, I subscribe to the half-full glass side of the argument. Therefore I believe every life has value and the person is genuinely lovable and deserving of expressed affection. But how to demonstrate this?

It seems the answer is simple until the circumstance is not simple. That pretty much separates my response from the WWJD response. How do I bridge that divide?

So I'm still back to patience, meekness, love, and good deeds. There were other lists in this chapter but I feel like they are either on a parallel track or for the next step in my journey. If I can't demonstrate these four, how can I do any of the rest of it?

Day 30

51:28-53:24

Today's pages have several things underlined. I can tell they will consume me for a few days but here are my first thoughts.

The passage discusses the difference between what Jesus did and experienced versus everyone else:

His senses drank in the spiritual evidence of health, holiness, and life; their senses testified oppositely, and absorbed the material evidence of sin, sickness, and death.

Senses versus material evidence. Those seem like the same thing but obviously MBE doesn't mean them that way. 

The "man of sorrows" best understood [1] the nothingness of material life and intelligence and [2] the mighty actuality of all-inclusive God, good. These were the two cardinal points of Mind-healing, or Christian Science, which armed him with Love.

I noted the items with numbers so I could read it as a list.

His words and works were unknown to the world because above and contrary to the world's religious sense. Mortals believed in God as humanly mighty, rather than as divine infinite Love.

This last passage, written over a century ago is still valid. Perhaps even more so today where we have T.V., movies, and books where God is personified humanly. The image sticks and is much harder to replace with an idea such as Love.

I also noticed how two of the three quotes ended in Love. Still working on "divine Principle, Love" since that does seem to be what I need to work on. If my senses drank in the spiritual evidence of the divine Principle of Love, instead of material evidence of sin, sickness, and death, I would be on my way so I have another goal to add to my list.

Day 29

49:7-51:27

The passages today continue to deal with Jesus's death and resurrection. But the question posed on line 14 of page 50 felt more like a question to me, about me, than Jesus:

Had Life, Truth, and Love forsaken him in his highest demonstration?

You make thing it's wrong that I make a comparison but the journeys are the same. I assume the end will be different from a material standpoint but the Spiritual journey I'm after, isn't. So instead of being laid low the way I was yesterday, I feel inspired by his journey:

He was inspired by God, by Truth and Love, in all that he said and did.

I have been actively looking for ways to express Love as the divine Principle. Good deeds seem to be the easiest. Then meekness, then patience. But love, in any form is still hardest to do.  

How about you - which is hardest for you: patience, meekness, love, or good deeds?

Day 28

47:10-49:6

Some how today's topic, the death (or is it life) of Jesus is too morbid to deal with in any way except material. Nothing struck me in the passage. Nothing seemed uplifting. Or Spiritual. Just doom and destruction.

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.

Day 26

43:21-45:21

I've been thinking a lot about why people love one another. Not family, or sexual love but the kind meant in Love Your Neighbor. Why do we love some people and not others?

In the last year, I've changed my view on love, and not for the better. It's hard to try to be loving to people when the initial response is suspicion, the second response is surprise, and the third response is fear. I don't know if that's because I live up here in the Northwest where people stay in themselves so much or that I have turned inward.

In the last year, I decided to pursue friendships and people that welcomed them and turn from relationships that didn't, regardless of the supposed proximity of that relationship. That isn't very loving. I'm saying these people aren't worth my love. How did I come to a place in my life where I can do that? I'm not happy about it. I'm just tired of being overtly, publicly criticized.

So today's passage is about Jesus and his three days after supposed death. Jesus, who loved everybody, went through a lot more than I ever will in the name of Love. How did he demonstrate Love to people who were cruel? I don't think him standing there and taking it was the demonstration. I think the internal landscape and his verbal record were his demonstration of Love.

The passages I marked in the book are:

The divine must overcome the human at every point.

Love must triumph over hate.

The persecutors had failed to hide immortal Truth and Love in a sepulchre.

...through the revelation and demonstration of life in God, [Christ] hath elevated them to possible at-one-ment with the spiritual idea of man and his divine Principle, Love.

The last bit of the last sentence caught my eye. The divine Principle is Love. If the divine principle is Love, then I have to work on that. I knew I had to and that this year reading this book would eventually get to it but some how I had procrastinated in my own thought and pushed it away. How do I love anyone including people who don't love me? The only thing that comes to thought is to see them as they truly are in God's reflection and ignore the material evidence. If I had mastered that already, or even gotten close, I wouldn't be here with the book, again.

Day 25

41:22-43:20

This passage is diving into more of the life and resurrection of Jesus. A couple of passages caught my eye:

"The truth taught by Jesus, the elders scoffed at. Why? Because it demanded more than they were willing to practise."

"Heretofore they had only believed; now they understood. The advent of this understanding is what is meant by the descent of the Holy Ghost, --that influx of divine Science which so illuminated the Pentecostal Day and is now repeating its ancient history."

These aren't really spiritual in nature but I appreciate them.

On a side note, I found a text version of S&H in the Project Gutenberg, in case someone was looking for it.

Day 24

39:31-41:21

I spent yesterday focusing on demonstrating Truth and shutting out material senses. One of the things that came to my mind while I was doing that was "Stand porter at the door of thought." [pg 392, line 24]. As part of material senses, I include any negative thoughts at some to me as well. So when I saw this line in today's passage, I thought I might be on the right path:

"Remove error from thought, and it will not appear in effect."

This chapter has dealt a lot with demonstration of God and the removal of sin. I haven't really dwelt on that here in the blog because I think it might be counterproductive to use the blog as some sort of confessional. However, I do agree that sin needs to be dealt with. I'm working on removing sin and I'm starting with my thought. If I can keep my thought in line, no words or actions will have to be corrected down the line.

Words I looked up from this page:

1. Savonarola
2. Shekinah

Day 23

37:32-39:30

I've been thinking a lot about Truth, since it came up in yesterday's passages. Spiritual truth versus material belief or evidence. Truth as a demonstrable quality of God. So the line that caught my attention was:

"He taught that the material senses shut out Truth and its healing power."

Today's goal: Shut out material senses, demonstrate Truth.

Day 22

35:30-37:31

Well, once again the passage that struck me is also the passage listed in The Journal for these two pages:

"yea, it is the duty and privilege of every child, man, and woman, --to follow in some degree the example of the Master by the demonstration of Truth and Life, of health and holiness."

Progressing in Christian Science by demonstration is what I'm working on so that word caught my eye.
 
I did my listy thing:

• Truth (pg 466, line 13)
• Life (pg 468, line 25)
• health (pg 120, line 14)
• holiness (Webster's 1828 dictionary)
  

Then I started working on meanings for the words. The above list has notations in S&H for possible definitions.The citation for Life is the one that works best for me. The other three are more concrete in my mind. I wasn't surprised that the first two were defined (somewhat) in the chapter titled Recapitulation since this is the chapter used for class instruction.

From a spiritual perspective, demonstrating (reflecting) these qualities of God (Truth, Life, health, and holiness) fit nicely with the work I've been doing on harmony.

The one in the list that seems to be the easiest, for me, to forget or neglect is Truth. So while I think about the four items in the list today, Truth will take front seat.

Followup on Harmony
I've been working on harmony that last few days and I thought I would post the affects. My four year old daughter, usually a sweet kid, has been a bit much the last few days. Not like her but she goes through phases it seems. So the last few days from a material stand point have been rough, definitely not harmonious. I stuck with the thought that harmony was right there the whole time and that I needed to look for it and expect it. By the third day, her attitude changed. Not dramatically with a twirl and flourish that she likes but just one day it was hard and the next it wasn't.

Day 21

33:27-35:29

The passages today is still diving into the life and death of Jesus. The passage that struck me today is:

Through all the disciples experienced, they became more spiritual and understood better what the Master had taught. ... It helped them to raise themselves and others from spiritual dulness and blind belief in God into the perception of infinite possibilities.

The two ideas of that passage that are interesting are the idea that experience and learning (aka being taught) are stepping stones to progress. I've been thinking along the same lines for a couple of days but didn't have this passage in front of me to lean on.

I'm a big believer that I personally can learn anything I want to with enough time and gumption. I've taught myself several skills and while I won't win awards for them, I went on to use them (experience them) in a way that has stuck with me.

A little voice keeps telling me this project is pointless and nothing will come of it and at the end of the year I'll be generally frustrated. I know who's voice this is and that I don't want to listen to it. But the passage today said the opposite thing to me. With enough experience and knowledge, I will gain ground. I can do this on my own and it won't be impossible.

Day 20

31:25-33:26

I heard from a friend that, at one time, TMC considered having a website to coincide with reading S&H in a year. Right about now, I wonder what guidance or community it would have given me. I wish I could use it.


Yesterday, I decided to have harmony as a goal since that seemed to what yesterday's readings said to me. Reporting back, yesterday was a very harmonious day spiritually. Materially, it was a battle ground. I'm usually wiped out and upset at the end of that kind of a day. But not yesterday. I don't think it was some euphoric religious zeal but an actual demonstration of spiritual harmony.

Today, the readings are about the sacrament, the Passover, of Jesus: the physical and spiritual significance of the meal he shared with his disciples. The passage that struck me was also the one listed in The Journal. I didn't purposely do that but I have noticed it's happened a few times. The exact wording that caught my eye was:

"the new understanding of spiritual Love"

This is what I'm looking for. So I did the numbering thing I mentioned with a list of comma'd items for the rest of the quote for what the new understanding of spiritual Love does:

1. blesses its enemies
2. heals the sick
3. casts out error
4. raises the dead from trespasses and sins
5. preaches the gospel to the poor, the meek in heart

I realize I could read the sentence as where the new understanding does or what the spiritual Love does. I'm choosing the first. What do you think? The difference is that the first meaning says I could do those things, and the second meaning says God does those things. When I say I, I mean I reflect God. I don't know. Maybe it's a minor point. Some of MBE's wording throws me off.

Anyway, it's a long list. I'm going to stick with harmony as a goal.

Day 19

29:30-31:24

The line that caught my eye today was the first one:

Man as the offspring of God, as the idea of Spirit, is the immortal evidence that Spirit is harmonious and man eternal.

I haven’t been reflecting harmony. I don’t feel harmonious. One particular relationship comes to mind but it’s too cliché to mention.

Goal for today: demonstrate harmony in every word and deed.

Day 18

28:1-29:29

Today’s passage that struck me was:

“There is too much animal courage in society and not sufficient moral courage.”

I’ve been struggling with this point myself. Specifically I have a terrible temper. Not on the level of road rage but for what I want for myself, and what my husband and I want for our family, I’ve fallen short, repeatedly.

I’ve been thinking a lot about

1)      obedience and responsibility,

2)      patience, meekness, love, and good deeds

Lately we have been having battles at the dinner table over simple manners. I can’t even watch my daughter eat. I’ve been praying about it but in the heat of the moment when the dinner table looks like a battlefield, I’ve lost my temper several times.

No conclusion – just, I’m working on it.

Day 17

26:1-27:32

These two pages discuss the literal events and purpose of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. I found these two statements conflicting, and I cannot reconcile it in my thought so I am going to keep on it -

1.  Page 26, line 30: His proof of Christianity was no form or system of religion and worship…
2.  Page 27, line 28: Why do those who profess to follow Christ reject the essential religion he came to establish?

 When these contradictions happen in S&H, I

1. get angry because I know I’m focusing on something that, in the end, will be insignificant to my spiritual growth, and
2. distract me from gaining the insight I need.

On a more pleasant note, Hymn 40’s use of “feast of love” caught my attention. I have so rarely felt a part of a feast of spiritual love that the idea is oddly new and very attractive. Do you have any spiritual feast of love stories?

Day 16

24:4-25:32

This passage discusses the sacrifice of Jesus and the meaning of his death, theologically. The two ideas that stood out to me are obedience:

"By his obedience to God..."

and responsibility:

"by no means relieved others from giving the requisite proofs of their own piety"

My teacher mentioned obedience when I first told him about this blog project. It's come up in several other ways since. The other idea, responsibility, is a double-edged sword. One side is humility, the other is control. To balance those two until reverent and spiritual responsibility is achieved is difficult.

Spirituality.com had a series of articles a few years ago about the ten commandments. Each article covered one commandment. I remember the article on stealing. After reading the article, I understood stealing to be anything: love, honor, time, or responsibility. To do something for someone, who could and should do it themselves, was stealing. That one article (and I've read many on the site), still sticks in my head.

Day 15

22:3-24:3

Well, if the first two pages seemed to not speak to me, these two pages seem as if they were written just for me. I have so many things underlined. The very first sentence is a good summation of where I feel I am:

Vibrating like a pendulum between sin and the hope of forgiveness, --selfishness and sensuality causing constant retrogression, --our moral progress will be slow.

That's me, slow moral progress. I know that's a matter of perspective. Since this is my perspective, and I'm usually pretty tough on myself, rest assured I'm not a serial killer or some other obviously morally corrupt person. I would characterize myself as upper middle class corrupt, which really is it's own category. Don't think I'm being flip because I don't take this seriously. It's just, well, it's already a tough subject, my spirituality, and I have a ways to go. No reason it has to be a completely dry journey. Humor makes it easier. My teacher likes to read relevant jokes during association.

The other quote that caught my attention is:

...pinning one's faith without works to another's vicarious effort

This is sort of a different slant on the traveler and the passport. Instead of having my own journey, I might tag along on a friend's journey. I thought of MBE when I read this. She took her journey, and now I have to take mine.

I read a blog post yesterday asking the question "Are you a hugger?" When you say hello or goodbye to friend or stranger, is it your initial urge to hug? I've never been a hugger but I've noticed I have two new friends that are. And you know what? I like to visit with them cause I feel loved both when I see them and when we part company. The hug is symbolic more than anything else. It got me to thinking does anyone feel loved after a visit with me. I would bet not. I'm going to find ways to express my gratitude and love to the people in my life.

Day 14

20:6-22:2

It is hard to sit here at the computer, typing on the keyboard, and not think of Haiti. I don't have cable TV or radio so I'm not constantly bombarded with the visual and audio material picture. But I have Facebook and Twitter, and some days, that's just the same. These big, world-changing events leave for a loss as to direction of prayer. I listen. That's all.

Today's passage continues with Jesus in the pursuit of understanding Atonement and Eucharist.

I always love MBE's use of story in her text - the friends setting off on a journey by rail, traveling together, or on separate paths. This is one of my favorites because the message is so clear. The last bit of the story with the passport never caught my eye before, but it did today - the material identity of the person. I always thought of myself as the thief with the passport. Funny which role I chose.


The passage that stuck out to me is

He [the disciple] constantly turns away from material sense, and looks towards the imperishable things of Spirit.

Day 13

18:1-20:5

As I have written here before, it's been a while since I read S&H. Some chapters I have a good memory of or at least a feeling for when I see the title. All I think about with this chapter is Jesus.

When I started reading on page 18, I felt like I was coming into a conversation where the most important part, the part that set the stage, had already happened. MBE dives right into atonement and reconciliation.

It feels like she was responding to some argument posed by someone else at an earlier time. I don't have much academic religious instruction. Maybe if I went to a Seminary, this would be one of the first courses. But here and now, it doesn't feel right. I find myself struggling for a place to hold onto in the passage, something that pops out at me and connects back to Prayer, the previous chapter.

The only thing I find is the idea of "practical repentance, which reforms the heart." But that's a stretch. How do I go from prayer through works to atonement or at-one-ment? That is, both in a practical and spiritual sense, what I'm trying to do. I just wish I heard the rest of the conversation.

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.

Day 3

xi:1-xii:27


A Confession
I have a small confession to make. I didn't receive my copy of the Journal until yesterday night. I had one a while back but gave it away. When I opened the book last night, I looked at it from front to back. It has lots of goodies I didn't remember. The first is a place to write down my expectations before I started reading the book. The most interesting one is the last page which is a letter from Mary Baker Eddy to a student named Gale. She tells her student to "read slowly and pause as you read to apply certain portions of which meet your present need - to thought that will carry them out in action. The book is complete in itself; it is teacher and healer." The letter feels like it was written to me.

Expectations
I've been thinking about why I want to do this. There are far too many reasons to do this and the only reason I can think of against it is time. Time is a dear commodity in my life right now, especially time to myself. But I've hit a plateau in my spiritual development and I don't want to settle for status quo.

I'm a terrible listener. While I do pause for the still small voice, I don't often hear it. So the big picture for me is to be a better listener of the Divine. The thought came to me in Church today (it is Sunday), to listen and learn.

The Passages
The top two paragraphs on page xi begin Mary Baker Eddy's instruction in theology. She lays it out in clear words. There is so much to S&H that sometimes its easy to get lost in the details. This book is about spiritual healing. The rest of the Preface reads like a resume of sorts. She was a busy woman.

What Caught My Eye
The one phrase that grabbed me was the first line of the quote starting on line 19 of page xi: "To Preach deliverance to the captives [of sense]."  Mary Baker Eddy added the words in brackets. The idea of being captive by my senses is not new. I equate this with the idea of the snake in the Garden of Eden. The story contained in Genesis 2 is about the senses. What was there. Who was there. How Eve was created. What the snake said. What Eve did with the ominous apple. Adam and Eve in many ways seemed free but the story itself is about being a captive of the senses.

Day 2

ix:1-x:32

Today I read two more pages of the short Preface.

Mary Baker Eddy's humility grabbed me. She thought about her ideas on Christian healing for years. She wanted the example of healings to precede the publications. At the bottom of page ix, she mentions "copious notes of Scriptural exposition, which have never been published." I wonder if those are at her library now. I've never been there.

In the middle of page x, at line 7, she states that the human mind is not the healing agent. I could write about this one line forever, but right now - it's too soon.

The last paragraph of page x is her most encouraging for me. She says any sincere seeker of Truth can experience healing. Then she goes on to say "no intellectual proficiency is required." That's always been such a welcoming thought: anyone who wants to learn, regardless of education or station in life.

Tomorrow: finishing the Preface with page xi - page xii.

Day 1

vii:1-viii:32

Happy New Year and thank you for joining me while I read S&H this year.

The first two pages of the Preface cover a lot of ground. I don't think as a new Christian Scientist or a youth, I would see that. 

The selection begins with the biblical Christmas which is nice since I still have my tree up the living room.

She discusses the needed for thinkers. I've always thought of Christian Science as a thinker's religion. Blind belief is pointless and the opposite of Christian Science. "A new book introduces new thoughts, but it cannot make them speedily understood." We, each of us, has to think through our own spiritual journey.

The two key phrases that stick out to me are: "Contentment with the past and the cold conventionality of materialism are crumbling away." and "Theology and physics teach that both Spirit and matter are real and good, whereas the fact is that Spirit is good and real, and matter is Spirit's opposite." Materialism, matter on one hand. God (Spirit with a capital S) on the other hand. It's that simple. We always want to say its more complicated than that when we are in the crises of some moment. But going back to that simplicity is the key.

I did have to use the dictionary to look up "Antediluvians". I never remember that word; no one uses it anymore. It means the people before the great flood. The flood Noah built the ark for.

The last paragraph on page viii discusses another book of Mary Baker Eddy's: Restrospection and Introspection, which she wrote as her biography. She also mentioned earlier drafts of S&H as crude compositions. It's hard for me to grasp how much she wrote both in producing S&H, revising over and over again, and in general with her other books, newspaper, magazines, letters to friends and associates. She did it without a computer and she did it well.

Tomorrow: Preface page ix - page x