Day 266: Genesis iii.11-15

533:5-535:5

The seed of Truth and the seed of error, of belief and of understanding,—yea, the seed of Spirit and the seed of matter,--are the wheat and tares which time will separate, the one to be burned, the other to be garnered into heavenly places.

2010

Day 264: Genesis iii.1-5

529:13-531:7

The history of error is a dream-narrative. The dream has no reality, no intelligence, no mind; therefore the dreamer and dream are one, for neither is true nor real. First, this narrative supposes that something springs from nothing, that matter precedes mind. Second, it supposes that mind enters matter, and matter becomes living, substantial, and intelligent. The order of this allegory--the belief that everything springs from dust instead of from Deity--has been maintained in all the subsequent forms of belief. This is the error,--that mortal man starts materially, that non-intelligence becomes intelligence, that mind and soul are both right and wrong.

2010

Day 177: Not Power but God

347:12-349:12

I desire to have no faith in evil or in any power but God, good.

Two essential points of Christian Science are, that neither Life nor man dies, and that God is not the author of sickness.

2010

Day 173: The Basis of all Health

339:1-340:29

The basis of all health, sinlessness, and immortality is the great fact that God is the only Mind; and this Mind must be not merely believed, but it must be understood. To get rid of sin through Science, is to divest sin of any supposed mind or reality, and never to admit that sin can have intelligence or power, pain or pleasure. You conquer error by denying its verity. Our various theories will never lose their imaginary power for good or evil, until we lose our faith in them and make life its own proof of harmony and God.

2010

Day 169: Interesting Words

330:8-332:8

The use of shadow and self-existence in the quotes below grabbed me and started working out thought images.

God is divine Life, and Life is no more confined to the forms which reflect it than substance is in its shadow.

He is divine Principle, Love, the universal cause, the only creator, and there is no other self-existence.

2010

Day 160: God is not in a pill

312:1-314:9

A personal sense of God and of man's capabilities necessarily limits faith and hinders spiritual understanding. It divides faith and understanding between matter and Spirit, the finite and the infinite, and so turns away from the intelligent and divine healing Principle to the inanimate drug.

2010

Day 145: No Matter

282:3-284:3

Eternal Mind and temporary material existence never unite in figure or in fact. A straight line finds no abiding-place in a curve, and a curve finds no adjustment to a straight line. Similarly, matter has no place in Spirit, and Spirit has no place in matter.

There is no inherent power in matter; for all that is material is a material, human, mortal thought, always governing itself erroneously.

As mortals begin to understand Spirit, they give up the belief that there is any true existence apart from God.

2010

Day 141: Begin with God

273:29-275:32

The starting-point of divine Science is that God, Spirit, is All-in-all, and that there is no other might nor Mind,--that God is Love, and therefore He is divine Principle.

All substance, intelligence, wisdom, being, immortality, cause, and effect belong to God. These are His attributes, the eternal manifestations of the infinite divine Principle, Love. No wisdom is wise but His wisdom; no truth is true, no love is lovely, no life is Life but the divine; no good is, but the good God bestows.

2010

Day 134: To begin rightly is to end rightly

260:31-262:32

Divine Mind is the only cause or Principle of existence.

Detach sense from the body, or matter, which is only a form of human belief, and you may learn the meaning of God, or good, and the nature of the immutable and immortal. Breaking away from the mutations of time and sense, you will neither lose the solid objects and ends of life nor your own identity. Fixing your gaze on the realities supernal, you will rise to the spiritual consciousness of being

[Man] will then drop the false estimate of life and happiness, of joy and sorrow, and attain the bliss of loving unselfishly, working patiently, and conquering all that is unlike God.

2011

Day 89: The Fundamental Error

170:22 - 172:22

The so-called laws of matter are nothing but false beliefs that intelligence and life are present where Mind is not. These false beliefs are the procuring cause of all sin and disease. The opposite truth, that intelligence and life are spiritual, never material, destroys sin, sickness, and death.

The fundamental error lies in the supposition that man is a material outgrowth and that the cognizance of good or evil, which he has through the bodily senses, constitutes his happiness or misery.

2010

Day 277: What you say about error

554:8-556:2

I’ve been working on two ideas lately: 1) Harmony is all, & 2) Health is all. Harmony and health are, spiritually speaking, the same thing and can easily be synonyms for God. It is easy to confuse material health with spiritual health so an idea from the reading helped to clarify this difference for me [rearranged for meaning]:

Mortal: who made me?

Error: God made you.

The first effort of error has been and is to impute to God the creation of whatever is sinful and mortal; but infinite Mind sets at naught such a mistaken belief.

I need to keep my prayers focused on spiritual health because that is the only kind there is.

Another statement in the reading:

An inquirer once said to the discoverer of Christian Science: “I like your explanations of truth, but I do not comprehend what you say about error.”

Day 275: A Test

550:15-552:12

In the book, Mary Baker Eddy provides several tests with two choices where only one can be correct. These tests are summarized in the two stories: either there is a God and he is all (Gen. 1), or there is only materiality (Gen. 2).

These tests work for me because I know there is a God and I know materiality isn’t all.

She provides another test of this kind in this reading:

Either Mind produces, or it is produced. If Mind is first, it cannot produce its opposite in quality and quantity, called matter. If matter is first, it cannot produce Mind. Like produces like.

Day 274: The Great Observer

548:18-550:14

In this reading Mary Baker Eddy goes through the idea of generation for an egg or from self-division. She is discussing material creation as well as material, scientific discovery. There are two tones that eek out of the reading. The first is that if you start with birth, you end in death, which is the second story of Genesis. The second is that focusing on material discovery means you miss the spiritual discovery.

At this point, however, even this great observer [Agissiz] mistakes nature, forsakes Spirit as the divine origin of creative Truth, and allows matter and material law to usurp the prerogatives of omnipotence.

I’m going to work with observation and prerogatives today.

Day 268: Literal vs. Inspired

536:30-538:22

In this section, Mary Baker Eddy makes several points about this second story that I want to remember.

1. Knowledge of evil was never the essence of divinity or manhood.
2. The purpose of the second story is to depict the falsity of error and the effects of error.
3. Inspired writers interpret the Word spiritually, while the ordinary historian interprets it literally.
4. Literally taken, the story is contradictory in places.
5. Literally taken, God’s love is changeable.
6. Literally taken, Man is not allowed to reform.

Day 267: Sorrow, Desire, & Rule

535:6-536:29

Well, now. Adam and Eve get a talking to – don’t they. The 2nd Story God lays down the punishment.

The woman will multiply her sorrow, her only desire to serve her husband, and he (her husband) shall rule over her. God just made man the god of woman. So now there are many gods.

Mary Baker Eddy’s response is right on:

Divine Science deals its chief blow at the supposed material foundations of life and intelligence.

The material foundation are not only how man is created but how man and woman are to live, which in Science is in harmony, with only one god – God.

Then God turns to man and says he can’t eat of that tree anymore, man can eat herb of the field, bread. Ok. so why isn’t this passage (Genesis 3:17-19) taken literally if so many religions want to take Genesis 3:16 literally? Just bread for man. 

Then Mary Baker Eddy sums up what this 2nd Story God did:

The illusion of sin is without hope or God.

Day 265: Death

531:8-533:4

The Adam dream (the second story) has an interesting figurative twist. Adam believed he would die if he ate the apple and so he hadn’t until woman offered it to him. The death wasn’t material but spiritual. So this story has two lies to tell us. First that we are material, and second we will stay that way.

Day 250: Genesis

501-503:5

Just as a side note, I wonder why the chapter of Creation and the chapter of Genesis or so far apart in this book. It seems they would either be intertwined or consecutive.

I read an article in the Sentinel a while back where the author said he always went back to the idea of creation, Genesis, for his spiritual authority in Christian Science. He did a great job of explaining it – so much so that I agreed and remember it to this day. So this is what I expect I will get out of this chapter, but in my own way.

Today’s section includes just:

Genesis i. 1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

I’ve thought about the beginning/only relationship explained for this passage before. The key phrase that caught me in today’s reading is:

The creative Principle … is God.

This phrase as two meanings to me. One, the obviously intended Principle is God. But the second one focuses more on the word creative. So many times (like right now!), I’m facing a situation that seems hopeless, and impossible to change, and I’m sitting on the sidelines, not even sure what to do. This phrase reminded me that not only is there one solution (G0d), but that solution is creative – my limited scope of possible solutions doesn’t count. God is creative Principle. The right solution will be found. Definitely a Go Team! moment for me.

Day 142: Like produces like

276:1-277:32

You can probably tell one of the phrases I underlined based on the title. Also:

Nothing we can say or believe regarding matter is immortal, for matter is temporal and is therefore a mortal phenomenon, a human concept, sometimes beautiful, always erroneous. 

So here is what today's reading stirred up in my head, based on year-to-date reading:

There is only one God. Man was created spiritually by this one God. God and his spiritual reflection, man, can only produce like -- spiritual reflections of God. 

An epiphany to me.

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 115: Spirit and Truth

223:7-225:4

The first sentence in the section totally grabbed me:

Matter does not express Spirit.

It is definitely a quote for the Beginning/Only Christian Science. The next bit that caught my attention was:

Spiritual rationality and free thought accompany approaching Science, and cannot be put down. They will emancipate humanity, and supplant unscientific means of so-called laws. 

Free thought is different from free/human will to me but how are free thought and free will different? Free thought, to me, implies changed thought -- allowing a person's thinking to mature or develop through change.  Free will to me implies a human will or stubbornness to changing thought. So I could reword this to say something like

Changing thought will free humanity. 

The last thing I underlined was:

No power can withstand divine Love.  

That goes back to the Beginning/Only idea. Another way to express it would be:

No power can withstand divine Love because Love is all. 

 I'm going to spend today working with that.