Tell the Truth

Archive for May, 2009

“The muddy river-bed must be stirred in order to purify the stream.” Science and Health, 540:9–11

Negative, mortal thoughts, fears, etc., come up only for us to purify the stream of our consciousness. We have to work our way past them, realigning our thoughts with the Truth of God. This is the process of bringing our thoughts captive to Christ.

Several years ago, I recorded on this blog my move from the Unity church to the Christian Science church. It was a move that I knew God was leading me to take and it was full of emotional challenges and growth in grace.

Lately, I’ve wrestled with another decision—that of moving my church participation from my local Christian Science church to the Plainfield Christian Science Church, Independent. 

Over the last year, I’ve sought two things: spiritual growth and healing. I worked closely with a practitioner from my local church—a wonderful woman who really encouraged me and prayed daily for me. I’ve been very interested in becoming a reader, and she, being a reader herself, and I weekly sent lessons back and forth between us. Over a period of 6 months, I wrote two years of weekly lessons. The readers are being elected in November, and it seemed as though I was being “primed” for it.

I had numerous “heart attacks” this past year—a strong feeling of pressure in my chest, sometimes debilitating. She was able to pull me out of each episode quickly, and they have since tapered off. I’ve also suffered from not sleeping through the night, primarily because of chronic sinus problems; and I’ve developed diabetes(?), as well. The chronic sinusitis remains with me; and the diabetes, if that’s what it is, which shows up as constant foot pain has not abated.

I talked with my teacher, a wonderful woman and asked if I should change practitioners. She asked me if I was growing spiritually. I had to think about it, and eventually admitted that, no, I wasn’t—at least not like I wanted. I was learning how to be a reader, and I was being pulled through these heart attacks, but that spiritually, I was treading water. Finally, in March, I decided I needed to make a change. I looked back at my records and saw that I began working with my current practitioner on April 1st of last year, and I told her that I would find a new practitioner at the end of March—that was a full year.

As I thought about another practitioner, I, of course, thought about my teacher, but being a teacher is a very time consuming thing and I was hesitant to call her for that reason, feeling that I needed more attention than perhaps she could give me. I thought of practitioners I’ve had in the past, and remembered the practitioners at Plainfield. There are currently two, one from whom I’d received a healing of a deteriorated disk in my neck, and another who as been one of the readers there for years and whom I’ve long admired as a Scientist.

I called one and asked if he would be willing to work with me. He said yes. My experience has been good. He confronts my thinking patterns and pushes me to operate out of principle. Needless to say, I’m growing. This is what I’ve been wanting. Over these past weeks, I’ve felt a surge in spiritual growth. The practitioner told me that the most important thing for me was to have a change of base in my thinking, and that has been his focus with me. He’s got me out of my intellect, which he called my “Achilles heel”, and into the spirit of Christian Science. Am I facing a problem? Put God into it. Am I wrestling with a decision? Put God into it.

I used to read the lesson and make long lists of statements from it. Look for connections between the readings. Read many of the the Bible readings in eight or more translations. My notes ran six or more pages of printed notes. I was struggling to gain understanding and a more complete knowledge of Christian Science. This past week, while reading the Plainfield Sunday lesson (Yes, they have their own lessons), I caught myself doing it again, and thought, you’re back in the intellect. It’s not enough to approach the lesson in that way, I need to get my heart into it. I stopped and began looking for what God was telling me.

Plainfield also has an adult Sunday School class before their Sunday morning service and I called in to participate to see what it was like. What I found was it was a wonderful learning experience. Unfortunately, my local church is so bound by tradition that it can’t do something like this on their own authority.

My motivation from the very beginning has been about learning and practicing Christian Science—demonstrating it. When I compare my experience in my local church with what I’ve been getting from Plainfield and ask myself, where is the growth? I can’t help but recognize that it is in Plainfield, and that has to be where I belong.

In Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy, in her definition on church says, “The Church is that institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race, rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas and the demonstration of divine Science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick.” I feel that I’m being spiritually elevated at Plainfield, and that my understanding is rising to the apprehension of spiritual ideas.

Plainfield is my church, not because I’ve made a human decision, or have “joined the club” (I’m not a member, yet), but because it is fulfilling the definition of church for me. I’m fond of the members of my local church, but as A Rule for Motives and Acts instruct us, “Neither animosity nor mere personal attachment should impel the motives or acts of the members of The Mother Church.” I have to put God first. Neither personal animosity nor attachments are directing my footsteps in this move, but only love for Christian Science and a desire to follow God’s direction—and I do feel this is God’s direction for me.

The local church has been most loving and supportive of me in this change. They believe that God will direct me as I pursue His will for my life. Can I do any less?

Laid on Thy altar, my Lord divine,
Accept my gift this day for Jesus’ sake;
I have no jewels to adorn Thy shrine,
Nor any world-famed sacrifice to make.

But here I bring within my trembling hand
This will of mine—a thing that seemeth small,
And only Thou, dear Lord, canst understand
How, when I yield Thee this, I yield mine all.

Hidden therein Thy searching eyes can see
Struggles of passions, visions of delight,
All that I love or am, or fain would be—
Deep loves, fond hopes, and longing infinite.

It had been wet with tears and dimmed with sighs,
Clinched in my grasp ‘til beauty it hath none.
Now, from Thy footstool, where it vanquished lies,
The prayer ascendeth, O may Thy will be done.

Take it, Oh Father, ere my courage fail;
And merge it so in Thine own will that e’en
If in some desperate hour my cries prevail
And Thou give back my gift, it may have been

So changed, so purified, so fair have grown,
So one with Thee, so filled with peace divine,
I may not know, or feel it as my own,
But gaining back my will, may find it Thine.

This poem, quoted in Christian Science, Its ‘Clear Correct Teaching” by Herbert Eustace, was originally published by Mrs. Eddy’s request in the Christian Science Journal of October 1900.

 My 242:5-7
                      Christian Science is absolute; it is neither
 6 behind the point of perfection nor advancing towards
   it; it is at this point and must be practised therefrom.

Just as mathematics is the same yesterday, today, and forever, never behind the point of perfection nor advancing towards it but always declaring two times two to be the same four, so the Science of being is intact and whole.

There is no advancing towards wholeness. It is already a fact: and just as mathematics is applied from the standpoint of absoluteness, so must Christian Science be applied from the same standpoint.

It does not bow down to human desire or weakness. Every thought must be brought into obedience to the truth of being.

Christian Science yields to nothing. It never changes. It stands as the perfection of all being, now and always. It reveals perpetual wholeness.

From Christian Science, Its “Clear Correct Teaching” by Herbert W. Eustace, C.S.B., page 14

Things have been up in the air at work. The project I’ve been working on for 9 years has recently been moved to another division. My contract is with the old division and there has been a move to reassign the support I provide to another contractor—who, by the way, knows nothing about the system and has no familiarity with the web programming language it’s written in.

In the mid-level bureaucratic turf wars, a flurry of decisions have been made: I would work on the project through the end of the fiscal year. I would work halftime on the project through the end of the year. I would work full time until the end of June, and then halftime through the end of the year. I would work full time until June. I would work halftime until June. I would begin discussions with the new contractor now to begin the transition. No, it’s too early to begin talks. And on, and on, and on, the fighting has been going on. The old division doesn’t want to fund me; and the new division doesn’t want to either. It has been very unsettling to all of us on the project.

I’m not concerned about having a job, but I’ve come to know and love this system and have had to pray my way through it.

As I prayed, I saw that on the surface it seemed as though the situation was in the hands of bureaucrats, but in fact, God was in control and He maintains and governs His creation; and that the final say-so was not man’s, but God’s. Each time I was confronted with the situation, I went back to knowing the Truth. God is in charge.

Yesterday I was told that the head of the company had stepped in and stopped the fighting. He said that the system was critical, and that support for it would remain with my contract. Does this mean that we would be supporting it next fiscal year as well? Yes. For the long-term.

It was a demonstration to me that life is not at the mercy of mortal mind, nor is it a casuality of infighting among bureaucrats. God is in charge! Yes. He. Is.

 74:13
   No correspondence nor communion can exist between
   persons in such opposite dreams as the belief of having
15 died and left a material body and the belief of still living
   in an organic, material body.

This is why going through the death process does not bring spiritual enlightenment. The materially-minded look back and say, “I used to be in a material body, but am no longer,” i.e., they still see life as having existed materially. They’re not instantly spiritually-minded, they’re just looking at life through the other side of the same material mirror.

 Ret 86:17
       A student desiring growth in the knowledge of Truth,
18 can and will obtain it by taking up his cross and following
   Truth. If he does this not, and another one undertakes to
   carry his burden and do his work, the duty will not be
21 accomplished. No one can save himself without God’s
   help, and God will help each man who performs his own
   part. After this manner and in no other way is every
24 man cared for and blessed. To the unwise helper our
 1 Master said, “Follow me; and let the dead bury their
   dead.”