Day 246: New Connections

489:24-491:16

A few of things I would like to note about this reading. First, I think there might be several points that are new in recapitulation, to me anyway. I know this is probably error on my part. So the second thing is that I’m considering reading this journal again next year instead of moving on to misc writings. If I missed some key points and didn’t figure it out until around page 500, I wonder what else I missed. Third, if other people were blogging about their experience reading the book, and I could find/read those blogs, perhaps I wouldn’t have missed what I now consider very important points. Drat! Double Drat!

[Just spent 20 minutes trying to find an online link to the Journal for Misc Writings. Argh! I’ll post here and on the About Me page when I find it. Anyone know if it is officially out of print?]

First point:

The corporeal senses are the only source of evil or error. Christian Science shows them to be false, because matter has no sensation, and no organic construction can give it hearing and sight nor make it the medium of Mind. Outside the material sense of things, all is harmony.

This is the best definition of evil/error so far in the book – the first one that was applicable to my life and experience.

Will-power is but a product of belief, and this belief commits depredations on harmony. Human will is an animal propensity, not a faculty of Soul.

Will--blind, stubborn, and headlong--cooperates with appetite and passion. From this cooperation arises its evil. From this also comes its powerlessness, since all power belongs to God, good.

This is the first connection I’ve seen between human will and belief (or was it there in the trial somewhere?). Also another good tie into to evil.

Human belief--or knowledge gained from the so-called material senses--would, by fair logic, annihilate man along with the dissolving elements of clay.

Now a tie between belief and the material senses. The following formula isn’t exactly write but close to what I’m getting from this reading:

Material Senses = Belief = Will = Error/Evil

Thoughts?

And then the last little bit about sleep which I thought was a great example of what Mary Baker Eddy is trying to say:

Sleep and mesmerism explain the mythical nature of material sense. Sleep shows material sense as either oblivion, nothingness, or an illusion or dream. Under the mesmeric illusion of belief, a man will think that he is freezing when he is warm, and that he is swimming when he is on dry land. Needle-thrusts will not hurt him. A delicious perfume will seem intolerable. Animal magnetism thus uncovers material sense, and shows it to be a belief without actual foundation or validity. Change the belief, and the sensation changes. Destroy the belief, and the sensation disappears.

Day 194: The Penalty Due

383:3-385:14

There is alot her to consider and prayer about:

We should relieve our minds from the depressing thought that we have transgressed a material law and must of       necessity pay the penalty. Let us reassure ourselves with the law of Love. God never punishes man for doing right, for honest labor, or for deeds of kindness, though they expose him to fatigue, cold, heat, contagion. If man seems to incur the penalty through matter, this is but a belief of mortal mind, not an enactment of wisdom, and man has only to enter his protest against this belief in order to annul it. Through this action of thought and its results upon the body, the student will prove to himself, by small beginnings, the grand verities of Christian Science.

Day 183: The Ideal

359:18-361:32

Today is the last day of this chapter. The two statements that caught my eye are:

You are bringing out your own ideal.

And:

A human perception of divine Science, however limited, must be correct in order to be Science and subject to demonstration.

These two statements have a lot to teach me.

Day 143:Ideas are tangible and real

 278:1-279:32

Today, my spiritual growth seems to be challenged by my current situation. I know this is a matter of elevating my thought, but still, it is a challenge.

Today's reading talks about matter and spirit and which is real and which is not. That's suitable as most of my day I wonder [1] what is real and/or [2] what is real.

The first thing I underlined I broke into two different ideas, so marked:

[1] Spirit is the only substance and consciousness recognized by divine Science. The material senses oppose this, but there are no material senses, for matter has no mind. [2] In Spirit there is no matter, even as in Truth there is no error, and in good no evil. 

So no matter. Got the philosophical gist of this but what does that really mean. My teacher once told me he stared at a tree trying to see that it wasn't there. He probably didn't say it exactly like that but the irony isn't lost on me. If I could think in just the spiritual realm without any thought for the sensual/physical realm, I understand I would be a different person. I can do it for a time but to do it always -- not even close. Some thing I'm working on.

The next thing I marked was:

Ideas are tangible and real to immortal consciousness, and they have the advantage of being eternal. 

This struck closer to home because ideas are my core business as an adult professional. But are ideas tangible? What would the spiritual sense of touch be? Or is spiritual touch one of those ideas that has a figurative meaning but not a literal?

And then what about immortal consciousness? Is that me or is that God? Or is it a we thing?

At this point in my life, I understand spiritual sense as an idea over there far away from me but somewhere I want to get to. Ideas however are closer to home and more concrete to me (if ideas can be concrete - maybe that's how they are tangible). Any way, this chapter is getting deep and to the point where I'm feeling a bit lost.

I should mark this as the point where I need to return for further study.

Day 136: The Hour of Development

264:20-266:19

There are several things in today's reading that I would love to sit down with friends and discuss. So grab a chair and chime in when you want to:

The first one is:

The truth of being is perennial, and the error is unreal and obsolete.

The idea of perennial in Christian Science has always intrigued me. The definitions I found suggest renewing or lasting an indefinitely long period of time.But I tend to think of the gardening idea of coming year after year with some sort of dying back then period of growth underground -- unseen to material eyes.

Another one:

When this hour of development comes, even if you cling to a sense of personal joys, spiritual Love will force you to accept what best promotes your growth.

 The hour of development is so specific a period of time that I can almost feel Mary Baker Eddy's own journey of development. Many times what best promoted my growth was not the step I wanted to take. I doubt I'm alone in that. But most times I don't see it immediately. It isn't until long after that I see I tried to be willful when if I had just let things happen, everything would have been fine. I'm getting better a recognizing this in the moment though.

The last one:

This is done through self-abnegation.Universal Love is the divine way in Christian Science. 

 So what is this? Reading the paragraph up to that point, I could choose several things.  But in as concise a way as possible, what is this?

Day 128: Dreams

249:12-251:27

Dreams have always been a topic between my mother and I. Discussing them but not really diving in to their meaning or beyond. I think it was an easy conversation.I've always had very vivid and action-packed dreams. Sleep is important but if I don't dream during the night, I might as well have not slept at all. So these pages have a special meaning to me, namely that I'm giving something power that shouldn't have power.

The first thing I underlined was:

Sleep and apathy are phases of the dream that life, substance, and intelligence are material.

It's interesting that Mary Baker Eddy would equate sleep and apathy. As though being asleep is the same as not caring. There is probably a lot of truth to that statement.

The second thing:

Mortal existence is a dream; mortal existence has no real entity, but saith "It is I." Spirit is the Ego which never dreams, but understands all things; Spirit the one Ego which never errs, and is ever conscious; which never believes, but knows; which is never born and never dies.

This passage was already marked in the book when I got to this page. The page was also dog-eared. Ever conscious and understands all. I'll have to think more on that.

And lastly:

Is there any more reality in the waking dream of mortal existence than in the sleeping dream?

 No, I don't think so. But I think there is some freedom from materiality in dreams that is useful in a spiritual way. It almost as if shedding my waking state allows me to be brave in some areas of my spirituality. I don't know how to be more specific.

Day 63: God, man, and leaven walk into a bar

117:29-119:24

So my title is a little off. I feel like what I'm reading is impossible to write about other than to say - read that line - isn't it great - that line, right there?

Today's pages cover two topics. The first is Mary Baker Eddy explaining the leaven hid in three measures of meal. It sort of goes along and then on line 13 of page 118, MBE takes a turn. It sort of seems subtle, I had to read it several times. There is something in that paragraph screaming at me and I'm smiling like an idiot like I get it but there something underneath it, that I'm still working on.

The second issue or really a continuation of MBE's current explanation of God and man. She pulls another whammy on page 119, the paragraph starting on line 17. Sometimes I don't get what she is saying until she says what the opposite is. Then I get it.

I'm not sure what to take from these pages. I might have to read it several more times. Do you ever feel like that? As if it is to immense, to important.

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.