[DIVINE LOVE] is my shepherd; I shall not want.
[LOVE] maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
[LOVE] leadeth me beside the still waters.
[LOVE] restoreth my soul [spiritual sense]:
[LOVE] leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for [LOVE] is with me;
[LOVE'S] rod and [LOVE'S] staff they comfort me.
[LOVE] prepareth a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
[LOVE] anointeth my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house [the consciousness] of [LOVE] for ever.
Showing posts with label The Apocalypse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Apocalypse. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Day 287: 23rd Psalm
Monday, October 17, 2011
Day 286: Transform through spiritually
The very circumstance, which your suffering sense deems wrathful and afflictive, Love can make an angel entertained unawares.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Day 285: You are the Blessed child of God
Accompanying this scientific consciousness was another revelation, even the declaration from heaven, supreme harmony, that God, the divine Principle of harmony, is ever with men, and they are His people. Thus man was no longer regarded as a miserable sinner, but as the blessed child of God.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Day 284: Revelation xii. 13-16
Many are willing to open the eyes of the people to the power of good resident in divine Mind, but they are not so willing to point out the evil in human thought, and expose evil's hidden mental ways of accomplishing iniquity.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Day 283: Revelation xii. 9-12
Innocence and Truth overcome guilt and error.
Self-abnegation, by which we lay down all for Truth, or Christ, in our warfare against error, is a rule in Christian Science.
He that touches the hem of Christ's robe and masters his mortal beliefs, animality, and hate, rejoices in the proof of healing,--in a sweet and certain sense that God is Love.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Day 282:Revelation xii. 5-8
As the children of Israel were guided triumphantly through the Red Sea, the dark ebbing and flowing tides of human fear,--as they were led through the wilderness, walking wearily through the great desert of human hopes, and anticipating the promised joy,--so shall the spiritual idea guide all right desires in their passage from sense to Soul, from a material sense of existence to the spiritual, up to the glory prepared for them who love God.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Day 281: Revelation xii. 2-4
Human sense may well marvel at discord, while, to a diviner sense, harmony is the real and discord the unreal. We may well be astonished at sin, sickness, and death. We may well be perplexed at human fear; and still more astounded at hatred, which lifts its hydra head, showing its horns in the many inventions of evil. But why should we stand aghast at nothingness? The great red dragon symbolizes a lie,—the belief that substance, life, and intelligence can be material. This dragon stands for the sum total of human error. The ten horns of the dragon typify the belief that matter has power of its own, and that by means of an evil mind in matter the Ten Commandments can be broken.
The serpent is perpetually close upon the heel of harmony.
In the Apocalypse, when nearing its doom, this evil increases and becomes the great red dragon, swollen with sin, inflamed with war against spirituality, and ripe for destruction. It is full of lust and hate, loathing the brightness of divine glory.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Day 280: Revelation xii
The great miracle, to human sense, is divine Love, and the grand necessity of existence is to gain the true idea of what constitutes the kingdom of heaven in man. This goal is never reached while we hate our neighbor or entertain a false estimate of anyone whom God has appointed to voice His Word.
The understanding of Truth and Love, the Principle which works out the ends of eternal good and destroys both faith in evil and the practice of evil, leads to the discernment of the divine idea.
As Elias presented the idea of the fatherhood of God, which Jesus afterwards manifested, so the Revelator completed this figure with woman, typifying the spiritual idea of God's motherhood.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Day 279: To the globe's remotest bound
The "still, small voice" of scientific thought reaches over continent and ocean to the globe's remotest bound.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Day 293: What is in a Name?
There are so many names in this reading. Places, people, God. It made me think how sometimes, after something bad has happened to a certain person or at a certain place, that the name is tainted in our thought. Any time we hear the name, even unrelated, we thing of that awful, sad event.
The thing I like about the dual definitions is that a person or place can be redeemed in our thought. That the negative connotation can be removed by looking toward the spiritual and away from the past.
I need a good online source for Bible Characters that is non-denominational. Do you use one you would recommend?
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Day 287: Place & Time
As I read this section, I thought about the classes I took yesterday (unrelated to C.S.). They were about being keenly aware of place and time -- how to put a reader into story place and time. One of the speaker’s advised the audience to be “ruthless in self-examination.” I thought how funny – that’s what I’m studying in Christian Science.
These pages are about getting beyond or without place and time. Holy habitation.
The discussion yesterday was about how the reader must perceive an opinion about place and time from the writer. This grounds the reader in the material story world. In order to drop the materiality in my own life, to reach higher, I need to drop the concept of place and time (and my opinion of it). Of course, the first place and time is home.
I need to work on home:
- the Word of Life, Truth, and Love
- Christ, the spiritual idea of God
- Christianity
- Christian Science
Friday, October 22, 2010
Day 286: Sackcloth
Think of this, dear reader, for it will lift the sackcloth from your eyes, and you will behold the soft-winged dove descending upon you. The very circumstance, which your suffering sense deems wrathful and afflictive, Love can make an angel entertained unawares.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Day 285: States and Stages
In this reading Mary Baker Eddy discusses the idea that your consciousness opens, loving and looking toward the spiritual. That this change in direction and movement away from material, reveals the new heaven and new earth.
These are not new ideas but are brought up over again and again in the book.
I thought how a state or stage has a duration. I may be here for a while. It’s funny how much I ask my children to listen to me repeatedly but I don’t ask myself to listen to God nearly enough.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Day 284 Sin chasing Mortal Man
The image of the dragon sending water to wash the woman away is an interesting image. Mary Baker Eddy spends this reading discussing reporting evil as well as good:
Many are willing to open the eyes of the people to the power of good resident in divine Mind, but they are not so willing to point out the evil in human thought, and expose evil’s hidden mental ways of accomplishing iniquity.
Then she advises:
Escape from evil, and designate those as unfaithful stewards who have seen the danger and yet have given no warning.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Day 283: Questions for the Audience
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?
Monday, October 18, 2010
Day 282: At War with an Idea
Mary Baker Eddy makes an interesting point at the end of this reading:
Against Love, the dragon warreth not long, for he is killed by the divine Principle. Truth and Love prevail against the dragon because the dragon cannot war with them.
The dragon is at war with Love but he is killed by divine Principle. Materiality cannot destroy an idea. There have certainly been, and still are plenty of dictators, tyrants, and politicians willing to disprove this.
The idea remains.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Day 281: The Subtle Serpent
The great red dragon in the Apocalypse and the talking snake in Genesis are compared in this reading. The great red dragon is scary and standing there waiting to be noticed in his massiveness while the talking snake is just a lowly, snake – almost avoidable.
Mary Bakery Eddy uses the word harmony twice in this reading. I can see how both the snake and the dragon are totally about disrupting harmony. If you get by the snake, there’s always the dragon. You won’t ever make it by him – so he wants you to think.
I marked the questions MBE poses at the top of 563 because when she writes out the issues like that, they seem silly, and I remember they’re silly. Which helps – when I see the dragon.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Day 280: Points to Remember
In this reading, Mary Baker Eddy noted a few points that I wanted to remember:
- the grand necessity of existence is to gain the true idea of what constitutes the kingdom of heaven in man
- without the correct sense of its highest visible idea, we can never understand the divine Principle
- Ignorance of the divine idea betrays at once a greater ignorance of the divine Principle of the idea – ignorance of Truth and Love.
- The understanding of Truth and Love…leads to the discernment of the divine idea.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Day 279: Sweet & Bitter
Today is the first day of the chapter, The Apocalypse. Not my favorite chapter. Mary Baker Eddy makes a point in this reading that when reading this book, at first it will taste sweet when it heals but the Truth, afterward, may be bitter.
I’m either not there yet or past that point. It seems like as I read the book now, I understand it differently every time and I’m having different challenges in my life to apply it to. The whole experience has mellowed into wanting to understand, then understanding.
Although, the farther into the book I get, I’m getting excited -- only because new ideas are jumping out of the text.
Are you in a sweet or bitter moment?
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