Day 144: Inspiration Found

280:1-282:2

Divine Science does not put new wine into old bottles, Soul into matter, nor the infinite into the finite. Our false views of matter perish as we grasp the facts of Spirit. The old belief must be cast out or the new idea will be spilled, and the inspiration, which is to change our standpoint, will be lost.

I’m going to step aside from Mary Baker Eddy for just a moment here. I think the above quote might give one the impression that it is either now or never. The boat is leaving and you need to be on it. But I’ve known so many people with a spiritual path that wasn’t straight and had many potholes. Matter is a difficult belief to work through on the road of Spirituality.

I don’t think God ever gives up on us and his inspiration is never lost. Ours shouldn’t be either. Trust in God, yourself, and your fellow man.

2010

Day 143: Spirit, not matter

278:1-279:32

as we approach Spirit and Truth, we lose the consciousness of matter

In proportion as the belief disappears that life and intelligence are in or of matter, the immortal facts of being are seen, and their only idea or intelligence is in God.

Spirit, God, is infinite, all. Spirit can have no opposite.

2010

Day 117: Dishonor God

227:14-229:14

The illusion of material sense, not divine law, has bound you, entangled your free limbs, crippled your capacities, enfeebled your body, and defaced the tablet of your being.

The transmission of disease or of certain idiosyncrasies of mortal mind would be impossible if this great fact of being were learned,--namely, that nothing inharmonious can enter being, for Life is God.

There is no power apart from God. Omnipotence has all-power, and to acknowledge any other power is to dishonor God.

2010

Day 40:

72:1-74:2

Mary Baker Eddy writes:

The belief that one man, as spirit, can control another man, as matter upsets both the individuality and the Science of man, for man is image.

I would like to propose as modified version of this sentence, for your consideration:

The belief that one man, as spirit, can control [negative verb of choice here] another man, as matter upsets both the individuality and the Science of man, for man is image.

My point is that the concept of control, fear, or harm isn’t limited to spirits but is something we walk around with everyday. Some of use give spirits more power than any other materiality, when we shouldn’t. None if it should have any more power than God. Or more correctly, none of it has power at all. 

2010

Day 29: The Real Cross

49:7-51:27

Mary Baker Eddy explains the superficial, material cross Jesus bore and the spiritual, real one. The crucifixion is the material and the hatred of Truth and Love is the spiritual.

Following that line of the spiritual cross further, who or what hates Truth and Love? Sticking to a non-material line of reasoning, the people or place involved isn’t the hater. It has to be something non-material. Perhaps animal courage, animal magnetism?

To me, it is about someone being different, possessing something different. Jesus didn’t flow with the crowd, he built a new crowd. He didn’t follow the rules, he revealed them for what they were. He attracted with Love, not control. He healed, instead of abused.

2010

Day 26:

43:21-45:21

Mary Baker Eddy describes the material veil over the three days in the sepulcher. 

It’s impressive what was overcome.

2010

Day 24: A Convenient Season

39:31-41:21

In this reading, I felt like a errant child. In some regards, I am always looking for a convenient time to get things done. Five minutes here to do the dishes, twenty minutes here to do the laundry, a few minutes after picking up the kids from school to run errands. My life is all about a convenient season materially. But not spiritually. If anything, I struggle with how to remove the veil of matter. I often wonder if a different place, time, or position would lend itself to more spirituality.

In the meantime, here I am, reading each day to glimpse that spirituality and find that calm.

2010

Day 217: Great Quotes

428:3-430:12

Some days, I underline most of the reading. Today is one of those days but for this blog, I’ll just pick out a few:

Man’s privilege at this supreme moment is to prove the words of our Master: “If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.”

To divest thought of false trusts and material evidences in order that the spiritual facts of being may appear, – this is the great attainment by means of which we shall sweep away the false and give place to the true.

eternal building

everlasting Father

We must realize the ability of mental might to offset human misconceptions and to replace them with the life which is spiritual, not material.

We must hold forever the consciousness of existence

We must being, however, with the more simple demonstrations of control, and the soon we begin the better.

if we are wise, we look beyond a single step in the line of spiritual advancement

Faith should enlarge its borders and strengthen its base by resting upon Spirit instead of matter.

Day 216: Death

426:5-428:2

A side note: I’ve had 216+ days so far to think about how I want to continue this journal next year. Mainly, I’m focusing on making the tasks less time consuming so that I can spend more time on reading and thinking about each day’s reading instead of the mechanics of how to blog about it. One step is to move off of blogger. Another step is to get all the days’ readings mapped out and linked up before the next year. I’m a little concerned this might be some sort of copyright issue if I do that. While I’m not ‘copying’ the content, you could say I’m breaking the spirit of the copyright. I do burn a lot of time with that process and if it were available, other’s might join in the blog-journal year with me. So, copyright violation? Moral violation? Or seems practical and helpful? Thoughts?

Today’s reading covers death as “another phase of the dream that existence can be material.” Some little idea popped in the back of my mind; its sitting there waiting for me to know it. I don’t know when I dropped the fear of death. Maybe I never had it. I just didn’t seem relevant. And I wasn’t worried about anyone I left behind until I had kids. But that too is not a huge nagging issue for me. But the whole death as another phase implies that there is the ability to side-step the dream altogether. That’s the new idea.

I don’t mean in the Jesus didn’t die way but something even larger than that -- something completely outside of life as we believe we know it.

Day 181: Matter versus Spirit

355:9-357:6

In this reading, Mary Baker Eddy went back to the discussion of original creation and original creator. This caught my eye:

Strangely enough, we ask for material theories in support of spiritual and eternal truths, when the two are so antagonistic that the material thought must become spiritualized before the spiritual fact is attained.

This is something I’ve been thinking about myself lately. MBE said it better, of course.