Day 290: Glossary Gems

583:10-585:8

God, who made all that was made and could not create an atom or an element the opposite of Himself

Mind measures time according to the good that is unfolded

2010

Day 128: Happiness

249:12-251:27

Mortal thoughts chase one another like snowflakes, and drift to the ground.

happiness is never the sport of circumstance.

Organization and time have nothing to do with Life.

Note: I took liberty of rewriting the second quote to be more to the point that I read from it.

2010

Day 333: 2 Views of Time

673:23-675:15

The testimony in this reading gave me an idea about time, which I’ve been praying about this year. The story is from a seventy-one year old man, and is about an injury that happened while outside cutting wood on his table saw in the winter. He uses the phrase,

I never lost an hour from the hurt.

When I think of time regarding a healing, I usually want the healing to be quick and take little time (don’t we all). So there is the first kind of time: spent working toward a healing in prayer. But he mentions a second time: lost from regular activities while praying. Of course, this quote came to mind:

No loss can occur from trusting God with our desires…[1:11]

I didn’t really connect these two ideas until this testimony. What a wonderful reading.

Day 327: The More Things Change

661:20-663:32

Two things I will keep in mind today:

a few minutes every day for about a week (total reading time before healing)

I am quite free from all those material laws

Day 313: In No Time at All

630:28-633:15

These two testimonies have something in common. Both testifiers read but a few pages of the book and experienced immediate healings. Both recognized the contents of the book as what they were looking for and that it explained Spiritual Truth.

My focus for today: time, or no time.

A side note: I appreciate the way Fruitage (and the book as a whole) is broken into bits so that I can find a bit of extra or combined meaning. I imagine that wasn’t an easy task but the people involved probably gained great insight into the book.

Day 297: Time of the Year

597:16-599:8

Both time and year are in the Glossary. I especially liked this thought about year:

space for repentance

Day 287: Place & Time

556:3-557:27

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:

1. the Word of Life, Truth, and Love
2. Christ, the spiritual idea of God
3. Christianity
4. Christian Science

Day 236: Life

467:1-469:6

I was out with the family last night, kids off playing, husband watching them, and I had a moment to stop and think about yesterday’s reading. I knew I marked only one phrase and it was about beliefs but I couldn’t remember the words idolatry and ritualism so I came up with all sorts of words like that. It turned out to be a very insightful and restful few minutes just think about human beliefs.

Today’s section is a great place for any one to learn about Christian Science, me included. The question What are the demands of Science of Soul? made me sit up and wander what I had missed in the previous 466 pages. I should probably have the answer memorized but I was happy to not be surprised.

The phrase I marked today is part of the answer for What is Life?:

Eternity, not time, expresses the thought of Life, and time is no part of eternity.

I’ve been praying about time lately so this was a nice thought to add to my thoughts.

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.