Day 139: Do not Disrespect

270:5-272:2

Neither emasculation, illusion, nor insubordination exists in divine Science.

2010

Day 138: Everything is Mind

268-270:4

The testimony of the material senses is neither absolute nor divine.

Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul.

2010

Day 173: Platform end

339:1-340:29

Today is the end of the chapter, and the end of the platform. I found a little pep talk in the passages I marked.

He is joining in a conspiracy against himself, --against his own awakening to the awful unreality by which he has been deceived. 

never to admit that sin can have intelligence or power, pain or pleasure

life its own proof of harmony and God

Day 172: Harmony and Word Dissection

336:32-338:32

In the last couple of days, I thought about inner-peace and outer-harmony. It's a challenging balance for me. So these two ideas jumped out at me:

For true happiness, man must harmonize with his Principle, divine Love;

Christian Science, rightly understood, leads to eternal harmony.

I need to go back through this chapter and find those sections dealing with harmony and read them again.

Also, I found this sentence confusing:

The dissection and definition of words, aside from their metaphysical derivation, is not scientific. 

Why else would someone dissection and define words? What was she really saying here? What do you think?

Day 171: The Platform and Soul

334:31-336:31

Today's part of the platform covers man and God in the sense that is God in man or man in God. While I usually have a firm grasp on my belief regarding Soul, this sentence caught me unaware:

Only by losing the false sense of Soul can we gain the eternal unfolding of Life as immortality brought to light. 

I've been asking myself what false sense of Soul I have and why? This leads me to think that Soul is really about a connection without the material that is upheld by other religions. It could almost be considered part of American conversation and culture: soul is in the body. It doesn't hold for every religion or people in American but it is common enough to be used in popular entertainment (movies, t.v., books) without much explanation of what the idea is -- it is just assumed the viewer knows.

Day 170: The Platform, Jesus, and the Christ

332:9-334:30

Today is the second day of the platform at the end of this chapter. While I was reading it, I realized this was a great summary of the theology of Christian Science, particularly how CSers view Mary, Jesus, and use the term Christ.

I marked the section about Mary because I felt, as a mom, I also need to mentally conceive of my children spiritually. Yes, they are already born, but I want to continue to keep them in my thought spiritually and recognize their true origin from God.

Day 169: The Platform

330:8-332:8

Today's reading starts the enumeration of The Platform. I don't know what else to call it. I've tagged it as MBE Listy which will include other lists Mary Baker Eddy sets aside. If I've missed one, please comment on it and I'm make sure that day's entry also has the tag.

The two things in today's reading that stood out to me were:

Neither God nor the perfect man can be discerned by the material senses.

And

Everything in God's universe expresses Him. 

These two might seem contradictory but they reinforce, at least for me, the difference between the material and the spiritual and where I need to focus.

Day 168: Oh, the horror

328:4-330:7

Every once in a while, I read a section and I think I see some humor in Mary Baker Eddy's writings. Or perhaps sarcasm. I wonder what kind of people she dealt with to come up with:

Until one is able to prevent bad results, he should avoid their occasion. 

I say something along those lines to my children several times a day. Of course, I also have to give them the pep talk about not giving up:

To be discouraged, is to resemble a pupil in addition, who attempts to solve a problem of Euclid, and denies the rule of the problem because he fails in his first effort. 

 And then the real pep talk, the one I need:

A little understanding of Christian Science proves the truth of all that I say of it. 

Day 167:

326:3-328:3

Today's reading talked about how and why we change toward the spiritual. To me, the reading was really about self-will, although I don't think that was stated. Mary Baker Eddy discusses moral courage, following Christ, and yielding to a spiritual sense. But still, to me, my self-will is my biggest obstacle.

Several lines I underlined:

What a pitiful sight is malice, finding please in revenge!

And

Fear of punishment never made man truly honest. Moral courage is requisite to meet the wrong and so proclaim the right. 

I've read S&H a gazillions times and the first quote about revenge - well - I didn't even remember it. I don't think it is used much in the weekly lesson and I can't remember it used in a testimony or article in the Sentinel.

And the second one reminded me of a TED talk I watched recently. He mentions how a law enforcement punishment technique didn't deter a crime but something else much kinder did.

Day 166: A False Sense

324:7-326:2

The line that I marked was:

A false sense...conceals scientific demonstration.

What I liked about this idea was that even thought I thought a healing or demonstration wasn't happening, it was. I only had to remove the false sense, to see it.

Day 165: Progress

322:3-324:6

I'm beginning to get into the groove of how Mary Baker Eddy wrote. This reading is about spiritual progress: both what is required and then what the result will be. She has pages like this scattered throughout the book but when I first started reading, I didn't know they would reoccur from time to time.

In some ways, this reading is like a pep talk. "Look where you are going. Have you experienced this good result yet? Don't worry. You will."

A couple of lines caught my eye:

Beholding the infinite tasks of truth, we pause, -- wait on God.

And:

Truth is demonstrable when understood, and that good is not understood until demonstrated. 

I bolded the words that hit home for me.

As a side note, matters with boy child are going well. He is back to his lovely and loving self. I prayed and it worked.

Day 164: Word Smith

320:4-322:2

Today's reading covers literal versus figurative interpretations of the bible and how that applies to Christian Science. I marked Mary Baker Eddy's own interpretation of a passage in the bible:

The one important interpretation of Scripture is the spiritual. For example, the text, "In my flesh shall I see God," gives a profound idea of the divine power to heal the ills of the flesh, and encourages mortals to hope in Him who healeth all our diseases; whereas this passage is continually quoted as if Job intended to declare that even if disease andworms destroyed his body, yet in the latter days he should stand in celestial perfection before Elohim, still clad in material flesh,--an interpretation which is just the opposite of the true, as may be seen by studying the book of Job.

I don't have anything to add. I just like to see Mary Baker Eddy's interpretation.

Day 163: Word Usage

318:5-320:3

My challenge with my son has taken a slow and gentle turn. The situation isn't resolved but we both backed away from full-scale war. I'm praising him more and oddly, he is doing the same. He still has moments of complete lack of regard but since he is three and these are not every second of the day now, I can relent instead of rearm. God is talking to both off us.The idea that has been helpful is that there is nothing that can change him from his perfect reflection or interfere with the reflection.

The two sentences that caught me eye are:

We must silence this lie of material sense with the truth of spiritual sense. 

And:

Having faith in the divine Principle of health and spiritually understanding God, sustains man under all circumstances;

Further on in the reading, Mary Baker Eddy talks about language in the Bible. I thought it was an interesting page is discuss word choice and usage. In the above quotes, I either use the sentence for my own spiritual growth and not its intended meaning within the paragraph or, as in the second quote, I mentally change the words to fit my own situation. I changed "Principle of health" to be "Principle of mind and love".

Day 162: Individuality

316:12-318:4

I'm still working with, praying for, expecting a resolution to my current challenge with my son. It isn't materially resolved but I recognize that both he and I want to work through this lovingly and each in our own way. This section on individuality was great:

The individuality of man is no less tangible because it is spiritual and because his life is not at the mercy of matter. The understanding of his spiritual individuality makes man more real, more formidable in truth, and enables him to conquer sin, disease, and death. 

I got from this that we are each different, and that's OK. We don't have to all solve the same problems, the same way, in the same time frame. We are spiritual individuals.

Day 161: Turn from Sin

314:10-316:11

This morning in church, someone repeated an often-mentioned "myth" about my son. I've heard it so often that I expect to hear it but today, when I did, I immediately refuted it. The myth was based on the idea that my son would listen to God in "his own time" (perhaps a long time) to change his behavior and mature. I thought the underlying idea was that something, including my son's own self-will, could come between him and God and I immediately knew that was wrong. Then I knew I couldn't be separated from God either. It was a nice moment to have some clarity regarding this challenge.

The two things I marked were:

...we realize this likeness only when we subdue sin...

And:

...mortals need only turn from sin...

The word submissive (314:30) is used (as in 'submissive to death') but I thought about how I can be submissive to sin by letting my own suborn pride and self-will get in the way.

Day 160: Death and Jesus

312:1-314:9

Today's reading is about material death and the example of Jesus' death. There is something in these two pages, can't put my finger on it yet, that is different or new to me. Some glimpse of something unseen until now. This sentence summarizes it but doesn't really expound on it:

...death is the departure of a mortal's mind, not of matter.

I agree with th departure but where did the mind go? From a spiritual perspective, it is more a releasing than a departure?

I also marked:

That which material sense calls intangible, is found to be substance. 

Day 159: Self-destruction

310:1-311-32

The day was going to pot, just like yesterday, but I grabbed a few minutes reading the Sentinel. Twenty minutes. It made a difference.

Today's reading is about Soul in the body or loosing soul or whatever else people can think happens to it. I have more immediate concerns so that didn't stick with me.

The passages I marked are:

Sin is the element of self-destruction, and spiritual death is oblivion. 

And:

God is Mind: all that Mind, God, is, or hath made, is good, and He made all. 

Sin as self-destruction hit a note for me. I'll be thinking of that one for days.

Day 158: Unsettled

307:31-309:32

I read the entire section twice and all I could think of was:

...mortal belief will be afraid...

I'm having a terrible day. I hope yours is better.

Day 156:

304:3-306:6

A bit of a tough day so this was what meant something to me:

Harmony is produced by its Principle, is controlled by it and abides with it. Divine Principle is the Life of man.

so if I use a little transitive property, can I say:

The Life of man produces Harmony, controls it and abides with it. 

 Sometimes Mary Baker Eddy gets garbled and I have to ungarble. Not sure if this is a good statement though.

Day 155: Identity

302:3-304:2

Today's reading was about identity. I don't think I realized before how Mary Baker Eddy is saying, in my opinion, that our identity, as we perceive our mortal individuality with body and mind, is the root of error. Maybe root of error is the wrong exact phrasing, but something like that. The beginning of the problem. The place to make the change.

This may seem a fairly obvious conclusion since it is reworked and reworded over and over in the book, however, saying it is the root of all evil (our seperateness from God), is different from saying our identity. Until now, because I finally got it. Duh!

I marked:

When the evidence before the material senses yielded to spiritual sense, the apostle declared that nothing could alienate him from God, from the sweet sense and presence of Life and Truth

So the word evidence (as in change the evidence) caught my eye. I still very much praying about my situation with my son and looking for ideas. I thought this was a nice way for MBE to give me a follow-up idea to work with.