Day 66: Man's harmony

124:3-126:7

The first sentence I focused on is:

[1]Adhesion, [2] cohesion, and [3] attraction are properties of Mind.

I've linked up the dictionary for each of these three words. They are very nearly the same. I don't know why Mary Baker Eddy decided to list all three but I like to think she was throwing the largest circle of meaning possible by using all three instead of one. We reflect these properties so we adhere, cohere and attract each other.Something like that. Its a different way to discuss harmony with our body and harmony with others. 

The next sentence:

Neither organic inaction nor overaction is beyond God's control;

I always look up organic just to remember it meant our organs so long ago, not a farming style. So this sentence is also about harmony.

And the last sentence:

Reflecting God's government, man is self-governed.

This self-government was probably at this point of the page meant to be a physical self-government but I think it applies well to any part of man.

When I read these two pages, I underlined, then kept reading and I didn't get an overall theme for the pages - sometimes I do, but not today. I went back and studied these sentences for meaning and relationship. And then I saw the connection of harmony. I'm so glad someone thought up this journal idea of two pages a day. It helps me focus and not read too quickly or forget what I read.

Day 65: What caught your attention on this day in the Journal?

122:1-124:2

Some days, like today, I want to strip away most of Science & Health. I know Mary Baker Eddy's personal history. I know about her healing. I know the new testament -- sort of. I want to skip the beginning, and some of the middle ground of S&H and just get to it.

I appreciate MBE's clear writing. On pages like this, I don't have to struggle for meaning. I get it. But I struggle for a new thought or a changed thought or something I never noticed before. Or something to lean on, pray about, to change from belief to understanding.

Is there something on this page that grabbed you? Some word or sentence you underlined and wanted to come back to?

Day 64: God -- a restful Mind

119:25-121:32

These two pages make heavy use of the Sun and the Earth as an analogy of God and man.

The first thing that caught my attention was:

man, who is but a humble servant of the restful Mind

Mary Baker Eddy uses this in the same paragraph she talks about Earth orbiting the Sun. She uses imagery and symbolism, sometimes in ambiguous ways. I worry I take the imagery too far or not far enough. But a restful Mind. I don't care about the imagery. I just want to be part of that restful Mind. I wonder if this is like her usage of Divine Logic, a frequent topic which I never noticed before.

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 62: What or Who is God in Christian Science?

116:11-117:28

Mary Baker Eddy spends two pages talking about God, and at the very end Jesus. In her own writing, several words are italicized to differentiate them:

• corporeal
• incorporeal
• person
• personal
• Person (capital P)
• individuality
• One

These two sentences I underlined have to do with a physical challenge I'm working on healing right now:

... God is all, therefore matter is nothing beyond an image in mortal mind

Evidence drawn from the five physical senses relates solely to human reason...

Then a little bit later:

 Truth is a revelation.

So I think this is the third time MBE has made a direct connection (although in two different sentences) to Divine Logic is revelation. This time its worded slightly differently so it might not mean the same thing but I don't buy coincidence - I think this is planned to lead me somewhere.

The one thought that I come back to on the Divine Logic is revelation front - is revelation a synonym for understanding or seeing the future. I know in at least one instance, it meant the later but to me, I keep reading it as Divine Logic will give me understanding.

Day 61: Good is Mind

114:1-116:10

So technically yesterday's post included the quote "Good is Mind" but it didn't make sense until I read today's pages. The first sentence set it out for me:

Usage classes both evil and good together as mind.

In order to distinguish between God and mortal mind, Mary Baker Eddy is saying God is good. Good is Mind (from yesterday's post). So Divine Mind can only be good, never evil. And man, as reflecting God can never reflect an evil Mind or have an evil mind. Evil makes it very black and white. I can think of a lot other words to get the idea across: mind is not sad, mind is not feeling pain, mind is not angry - on and on. So now I have some context for Good is Mind and I like it. I think that might be a possible nickname for the chapter: Good Mind.

I did have to look up solecism. I've probably looked it up before.

The sentence I marked and want to think about more is:

Science shows that what is termed matter is but a subjective state of what is termed by the author mortal mind.

Day 60: The School of Christian Science

112:3-113:32

In today's two pages, Mary Baker Eddy discusses the various schools of Christian Science and explains there is only one school. This was an issue in her time but not so much ours. Most offshoot groups don't want to use the same words. I can't tell you how many times people have asked "Oh, that's the Tom Cruise religion, right?" No. Totally different.

MBE mentions how CS has rules and laws and the demonstration of those. Any idea that departs for those rules is just human opinion - and not a demonstrable rule. But before she gets bogged down, she says:

The vital part, the heart and soul of Christian Science, is Love.

Then she states the four propositions of CS:

1. God is All-in-All.
2. God is good. Good is Mind. 
3. God, Spirit, being all, nothing is matter. 
4. Life, God, omnipotent good, deny[:] death, evil, sin, disease. --Disease, sin, evil, death, deny [:] good, omnipotent God, Life.

I added the colons because sometimes I get lost in the meaning of a sentence only due to its grammatical make up. This helps me understand how I think I should read it.


I think the most interesting item in the list, the one I wonder exactly what MBE meant, is Good is Mind. The others I get. Mind is a syn for God but why Mind? Why not one of the other seven synonyms? I think there might be something more here that I'm missing.


I don't think its something superficial like she's discussing schools of thought so she used Mind to tie back to school as opposed to Principle which would tie back to rule or law. I think there is something more there. But what?


I have a challenging day ahead of me on the personal front. Mulling this over will give me something to think about -- more than a distraction -- almost a lifeboat. Good is Mind. That's where I'll be today.