Day 322: Telling a Story

650:28-652:23

The testimony today is a story about someone suffering, finding the book, then being healed. Whenever I give a testimony, you can be sure it isn’t as eloquent or well-crafted. Standing up at church, everyone turning to look while I speak, is scary. These testimonies are amazing for the literary quality as well as the detail, spiritual resolution, and healing. Without the craft of the story, the importance of it would diminish. I wonder if people were just better storytellers back then. Anyway, I’ve very grateful for the quality and the meaning of the testimonies.

Day 312: A Healing Story

628:27-630:27

This has to be the best testimony yet. It is so passionately and clearly stated.

Two of the thoughts in this testimony has that rang true were:

The healing was brought about by the earnest, conscientious seeking for the truth, as contained in the Bible and interpreted by our Leaded in our textbook, Science and Health.

And:

I have also learned that in living and loving is healing realized, and in reflecting divine Love I have the “signs following.”

Day 283: Questions for the Audience

567:14-569:28

The book of Revelation is almost completely unfamiliar to me. In reading this chapter, The Apocalypse, I don’t know what is going to happen next in the biblical text. This is the first chapter where I have had to read and re-read to figure out what is going on biblically and from Mary Baker Eddy’s explanation.

The point she makes that I was most unaware of, so far, is that Genesis and Revelation both start with true stories and then proceed with false stories. So just for clarification, where does the true Revelation story start and end? If you know, please comment below.

She comes back to two points that are interesting but have been a while since she mentioned:

• Self-abnegation is a rule in Christian Science
• He that [1] touches the hem of Christ’s robe and [2] masters his mortal beliefs, animality, and hate, rejoices in the proof of healing

What does she mean by touches the hem of Christ’s robe? Is the figurative interpretation that someone reaches out for Christ?

Day 271: The Purpose of 2 Stories

542:27-544:27

I didn’t think much about Christian Science Treatments or know the details until I took class instruction. That isn’t to say the information was secret; I just wasn’t interested in pursuing it. But now that I’m a few days back from annual association of class instruction, and it ended with example treatments, they are on my mind.

These two stories are so clearly different in every possible way. I’m sure there is a scholarly reason for including both, just as the four gospels recount the same stories of Jesus (sort of). But from a figurative perspective, a spiritual perspective, they appear to be parts of an original treatment.

There are two quotes in this reading that hit home for me.

…a material creation which followed the spiritual, – a creation so wholly apart from God’s, that Spirit had no participation in it.

And,

man exists because God exists

Day 266: Enmity between Man & Woman

533:5-535:5

When I read Genesis 3:15 in this section, I couldn’t believe it. I don’t read the second story much accept as it is used in the weekly bible lesson, so I didn’t remember the actual wording. Wow. Those are some powerful and hateful words to attribute to God. No wonder a God of Love isn’t universally accepted.

To me, this just clarifies that it is an erroneous story and the two stories combine to be the first treatment of man.

Day 264: Right & Wrong

529:13-531:7

The Adam and Eve story resonated with me, when I was a child, because it was so bucolic and wonderful, it sounded like living in a zoo. Then the story turns and the fun is gone and the kids get punished, and forever after the world will remember these two and how they broke the rules.

Now as an adult, I think what a horrid story to tell a child. And then to tell them it is true and that’s how the world started. What a miserable burden to place on them.

The last sentence in today’s reading says “mind and soul are both right and wrong.” That is how my days have felt, striving to do right but somehow I don’t. When I examine the microsecond where my good motives turned into bad results, I know what happened. I stopped listening and decided for myself what I would do. In that moment, I choose to rather be right and wrong instead of listen to Right.

Sometimes I wish God had a bullhorn.

Day 260: The 2nd Story in Genesis

521:18-523:13

There are 2 stories and they are very different. The first is abstract, vague, and wonderful. The second is specific, concrete, and error. Oddly, the second story is considered the story. I bet it’s the specificity and concreteness that people like, but the story is not happy in the end and people, loads of people, still subject women as an entire gender to crap based on what is written in that second story.

So I’m a first story person, obviously.

But I had a thought. Most of us create something in our lives and we want that creation (children, house, business, etc) to endure beyond us. We aren’t building temporary creations. But the second story is. The earth gets to stick around forever in the story but the people are disposable. I can’t imagine any being of love creating that.

Day 184: Mary Magdalene and the Pharisee

362-364:31
Today is the first chapter in Christian Science Practice. Mary Baker Eddy retells the story of Mary Magdalene and the story within that story of the debtors. Toward the end of the reading, MBE makes the point do we study Christian Science as the Pharisee who loved little or as Mary Magdalene did with a meekness.
I hate to say this but I feel as though I am somewhere in the middle, not where I want to be and not where I was.
How does anyone gain a deeper spiritual insight while still being of this world? And while being of this world, how do you not be in it?

Day 129: What they say: material sense versus Spirit

251:28-253:17

there is no cause to make you sick or sinful

Day 126: What time is it?

245:32-247:9

It's interesting that today's (or should I say yesterday's) reading is about time. Last night in bed I thought, now which of my daily tasks did I miss. I can feel it but I can't remember. I thought I must have done my journal but I couldn't remember the subject material. Then I knew I forgot. But I seem to be reading ahead without meaning to. So today's reading had already had a one over in my mind. But I can definitely see that I'm ready to cover more than one day's reading and catch up to where I should be. Not sure if it really matters but that's my goal.

So today is about time, chronology, age, and the resulting decline. I think as a CSer, giving up of time or chronology is hard because it had so much sentiment and nostalgia to it. My baby's birthday. Great grandma on another mother's day with the rest of the mothers. High school graduation. All the events marked in the family bible. Who wants to give these up?  Who wants to forget where we have been or what challenges we overcame?

But with all this focus on back there, I'm terrible at living in the moment, quieting the mind and listening. All that stuff back there is distracting and doesn't have much to do with my relationship to God. And the regrets from back there weight on me and I can't progress. This year I have had tremendous regrets about choices I've made in the past. I need to perhaps not forget it, but learn from it and put it back on the shelf and go on. Which I haven't done yet. 

The story of the woman and her teeth always gives me hope. The prior moment when she didn't have teeth didn't matter. It wasn't real. She was made whole and complete and she realized that state. She was in the moment, not as history saw her but as she was. 

 

Day 125: Age and Decay

243:16-245:31

The story in this reading is of the woman who never aged, waiting for her lover from youth to return. It is a beautiful story. I love Mary Baker Eddy's stories. She tells them well.

I didn't mark any passages because I have been thinking about age lately. I have small children and I have friends who are just past retirement. Most of the people I see are between the ages of thirty and fifty. So on a daily basis, I deal with three generations of people.

Society places a large importance on behavior, thinking, and speech based on age. Little kids can do all sorts of things adults can't do. Seniors, the same. So it is terrible hard for me to get away from the concept of age on any given day. Before kids, it seems like it was much easier to just be oblivious.

So I'm working on age. I want to respect the wisdom that comes with experience but ignore the material aspect of the effects of time passing. That's tricky.

What caught your eye?