 I just got back from the Holy Land. Could you suggest a prayer/treatment for the that precious part of our world? There is a daily prayer in Christian Science that when prayed faithfully and thoughtfully is capable of transforming the world. It goes, “’Thy kingdom come;' let the reign of divine Truth, Life, and Love be established in me, and rule out of me all sin; and may Thy Word enrich the affections of all mankind, and govern them!" (Eddy, Church Manual, 41) To be effective, prayer must be more than an autopilot repetition of someone's ideas. It should and can take you deep into the kingdom of God, deep into the inner sanctum of divine harmony, of Truth, where true power resides. Pray deeply for yourself and for your world – the whole world. Cleanse yourself of all sin and you will see the Word - the Christ-understanding of God and His creation - transform the universe. Your love and prayer can change the world if you discover the kingdom of God within you, and within all.  How do you explain CS in a sentence or two to someone who asks about it? I want to give it justice and explain it truthfully. Honestly, it is different each time. A pat answer is no more meaningful than a mindlessly repeated prayer. If the question scares you – if you are nervous about talking about what Christian Science means to you, I can recommend something that has helped me. When I first became a lecturer, I was afraid of being asked a bunch of different questions. This crippled my ability to communicate well to a certain extent. So I took that fear head-on and wrote each question I was afraid of on post-it notes. Each week I had a different question posted on the mirror, and while brushing my teeth, I thought through what my answer would be for that day, each day of the week. The exercise was helpful because it got me to uncover and handle what I was afraid of in each question. And I never formulated a pat response, because I challenged myself to have a different answer each day. Then with a new week, I put up a new question. In the end I discovered that those fears had less to do with the questions, and more to do with my trust in divine Mind to unfold meaningful answers within me. Mind that is God knows all, and we can always reflect Mind’s perfect knowing and sharing. Another tip: Go to Christian Science lectures and listen to the varied ways Christian Science is described. In the webinar that you heard, I summed up Christian Science briefly. Go back and check it out at the four-minute mark. There are other places later on where I explain it simply again.  How does Mind master the corporeal senses. I read this in Science and Health. How can Spirit deal with something material? Sometimes certain phrases catch our attention to the exclusion of the context surrounding it. It’s not a bad thing if the phrase is used to take us back into the original text to find the answer, rather than being examined out of context and creating confusion and doubt. As is most often the case, the answer to your question is in the context surrounding the phrase. Here is the passage to which you are referring. I italicized the answer to your question of “how” – an emphasis that does not appear in the original text: “The body seems to be self-acting, only because mortal mind is ignorant of itself, of its own actions, and of their results, — ignorant that the predisposing, remote, and exciting cause of all bad effects is a law of so-called mortal mind, not of matter. Mind is the master of the corporeal senses, and can conquer sickness, sin, and death. Exercise this God-given authority. Take possession of your body, and govern its feeling and action. Rise in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike good. God has made man capable of this, and nothing can vitiate the ability and power divinely bestowed on man. “Be firm in your understanding that the divine Mind governs, and that in Science man reflects God’s government. Have no fear that matter can ache, swell, and be inflamed as the result of a law of any kind, when it is self-evident that matter can have no pain nor inflammation. Your body would suffer no more from tension or wounds than the trunk of a tree which you gash or the electric wire which you stretch, were it not for mortal mind.” Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, 393:4-24 During "Christian Science. What it is and how it heals" webinars, some questions I get to and others don't catch my attention until the hour is past. This "What say you?" series will address some of the leftover questions. These remarks are not meant to be exhaustive, but should merely serve as thought-starters for your own further research. One way to think more deeply about these questions is to ask yourself: "How might I answer?"
 Lectures naturally evolve over time. With spiritual growth, differences in mental climate, changing world events, and varying audiences, a lecture message can tighten, expand, and even shoot off in an all new direction.
I recently lectured in Pueblo, Colorado on the subject of "Finding God, Finding Health." Please find here a video replay link, available to you until early February. This lecture goes one hour, followed by a live QA session. I don't film QAs anymore, except during webinars, so you may want to see this while you can.  What do different faiths say about what we should think and do about violence? Can violence or its mental and physical effects be healed? How can victims of violence be helped? These questions were explored by distinguished speakers and community leaders of different faiths on Friday, October 30th, 2015 at First Church of Christ, Scientist, New York. This replay link is available through February 15, 2016.
Many thanks to Second Church of Christ, Scientist, Phoenix and First Church of Christ Scientist, Tempe, for bringing this webinar to you. Recorded on December 12, 2015, the video is available for viewing online until March 15, 2016.
12/14/2015 "Failure to heal." What say you? Has as an attendee at your lectures ever asked you if you ever had a failure in healing, and why did that failure occur? Yes, I was asked that at a recent lecture. And interestingly I had just had a case that taught me a valuable lesson. While visiting a family member, she had asked me to treat her for a migraine. I agreed to take the case, but I remained physically there with her in the same room as I tried to pray. Distracted and mesmerized by her suffering, praying was difficult as I focused more on her symptoms rather than God’s law as I prayed. Effective healing prayer involves starting with the truth about God and His creation and working out from a spiritual premise, rather than starting with disease and the symptoms of disease and working up to a spiritual answer. (Read an article I recently had published on this important subject.) Although I felt great compassion and wanted to be helpful by remaining by her side, I was so drawn into the problem that my prayer treatment never got off the ground, and I failed to heal the case. Had I simply left the room, I might have had a better possibility of treating from the right basis. But my personal sense of attachment to the patient held me there, kept me floundering over the fluctuating phenomena of material symptoms, and rendered my prayers quite ineffective. Under the heading of “Steadfast and calm trust,” Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy offers helpful instruction for effective healing prayer, “When the illusion of sickness or sin tempts you, cling steadfastly to God and His idea. Allow nothing but His likeness to abide in your thought. Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and calm trust, that the recognition of life harmonious — as Life eternally is — can destroy any painful sense of, or belief in, that which Life is not. Let Christian Science, instead of corporeal sense, support your understanding of being, and this understanding will supplant error with Truth, replace mortality with immortality, and silence discord with harmony." (495)  This instruction was helpful two weeks later when I received a call from this same family member asking me to heal her of another physical problem. Aware that I had been tripped up by a sympathetic focus on symptoms, I was alert to turn and cling steadfastly to the truth of God and of God's perfect image and likeness. This time my prayer was quick, incisive, inspired, full of authority, and overflowing with a pure faith and confidence in good as the only power. I felt the power and presence of Christ – the true idea of God and man – wrapping us both in God’s care. And she was quickly healed. The problem in the first case wasn’t my physical proximity so much as my lack of spiritual focus. I needed to do what was necessary to get and to keep that spiritual focus on God and His law. This was where I failed. When accepting a case to heal, practitioners should pray for themselves that no sin (no distraction, personal sense, fatigue, pity, human will, personal opinions, dishonesty, pride, ignorance, malice, etc) enter into and disrupt their cases through their own thoughts and lives. Patients deserve the best, most effective, care that we can give. I am grateful for the lesson. Not surprisingly, a quick search through my blog posts shows I have written a lot on the subject of getting unstuck when a case isn't being healed. For further thought on the subject, you may wish to read one or more of these: During "Christian Science. What it is and how it heals" webinars, some questions I get to and others don't catch my attention until the hour is past. This "What say you?" series will address some of the leftover questions. These remarks are not meant to be exhaustive, but should merely serve as thought-starters for your own further research. One way to think more deeply about these questions is to ask yourself: "How might I answer?"
 Have you read the Bible cover to cover? Yes, I have. But remember, the Bible is a library, not a book. It is a collection of books under one binding. Although I once did read it through in the order of the books, that isn’t how I usually go through it now. I tend to go by subject heading. Like, I will study all the “letters” in the New Testament. Or I will study the Pentateuch – the first five books in the Hebrew Bible. Or the poetry – Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon. Or the Gospels. You see? Right now I have a pretty pink Bible that takes me through it in a year by pulling out Old Testament and New Testament passages, a Psalm and a Proverb each day. There are many ways to approach Bible reading - even online applications that may help you work your way through the books. The point is, many are thinking through ways to support your regular Bible reading. You have loads of options. So look around a bit and find an idea or resource that works well for you. I was an effective healer as a Christian Science practitioner before I ever read the whole Bible through. So don’t let the thought that you are behind in reading hold you up on helping yourself and others through your prayers. But regular Bible reading enriches one’s spiritual healing practice and life with insight and spiritual understanding.  Why did you become a practitioner? Were you called to do this? I recommend you read my ABOUT ME page to find out more about my personal call to Christian Science practice. During "Christian Science. What it is and how it heals" webinars, some questions I get to and others don't catch my attention until the hour is past. This "What say you?" series will address some of the leftover questions. These remarks are not meant to be exhaustive, but should merely serve as thought-starters for your own further research. One way to think more deeply about these questions is to ask yourself: "How might I answer?"
INTRODUCTION OF NEW BLOG SERIES: During "Christian Science. What it is and how it heals" webinars, some questions I get to and others don't catch my attention until the hour is past. This "What say you?" series will address some of the leftover questions. Keep in mind that these remarks are not meant to be exhaustive, but should merely serve as thought-starters for your own further research. One way to think more deeply about these questions is to ask yourself: "How might I answer?"  Do Christian Scientists use the same method for casting out demons as for healing the sick? The method for casting out demons – evils, errors – is the same as in healing sickness, because sickness is a component of demonic belief. The terms “devil" and "devils" (King James Bible), "demon" and "demons” (New International Bible) have many definitions and uses in the Bible. The Glossary of Bible terms of Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures brings together many of them: “Devil. Evil; a lie; error; neither corporeality nor mind; the opposite of Truth; a belief in sin, sickness, and death; animal magnetism or hypnotism; the lust of the flesh, which saith: ‘I am life and intelligence in matter. There is more than one mind, for I am mind, — a wicked mind, self-made or created by a tribal god and put into the opposite of mind, termed matter, thence to reproduce a mortal universe, including man, not after the image and likeness of Spirit, but after its own image.’” (584) Christ Jesus said, “These signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons.” (Mark 16:17 NIV). The King James Version uses the word “devils” for “demons” here. To heal in Christ’s name involves understanding and expressing the true Christ-nature as the reflection or manifestation of God, or Good. As one is roused through revelation, research, reason, prayer, and demonstration - from material beliefs about God, man, life and body, to understand Spirit and Spirit’s perfect, real and present creation, - errors in thought and practice are quite naturally cast out. Mary Baker Eddy wrote, "He who has named the name of Christ, who has virtually accepted the divine claims of Truth and Love in divine Science, is daily departing from evil; and all the wicked endeavors of suppositional demons can never change the current of that life from steadfastly flowing on to God, its divine source." (Miscellaneous Writings, 19)  If matter is just human thought, then what is something that is discovered? Example: a star that we didn't know existed until an astronomer discovered it? Did the astronomer's human mind create the star?
I like these kinds of questions because they indicate a desire to reason deeply. True, Science and Health explains that matter exists only in a supposititious mortal consciousness. “Supposititious” is an interesting word because it means “designed to deceive." Mortal consciousness – that is limited thinking – tends to fold in on itself, to implode, when spiritual reasoning pushes beyond the confines of deceptive mortal beliefs. How is the questioner seeing the star? Is it considered as a discovery of some previously existent matter form? Then, yes, he will one day have to admit that the material concept is self-created in a human, mortal consciousness, and therefore is limited and destructible. Science and Health explains, “Mortal mind sees what it believes as certainly as it believes what it sees. It feels, hears, and sees its own thoughts.” (86) Scientific discovery in material heavenly bodies is no more accurate, real, nor true than scientific discovery in material human bodies. Detailed examinations of matter in both cases mislead the scientist who doesn't understand that matter exists only in a supposititious mortal consciousness. Hence he is self-deceived. But does that mean we should flush all discovery within the vast and beautiful cosmos as if it means nothing? No. Spiritually considered, the cosmos and every element in it reflect the creativity and order of the divine universe, but not as chaotic, random matter. Even more, Spirit, the creator and source of all that is real, permanent and indestructible, maintains and reveals the identities of all Spirit's ideas,"from a blade of grass to a star, as distinct and eternal." (See Science and Health, 70) Mrs. Eddy makes precise, “To take all earth’s beauty into one gulp of vacuity and label beauty nothing, is ignorantly to caricature God’s creation, which is unjust to human sense and to the divine realism. In our immature sense of spiritual things, let us say of the beauties of the sensuous universe: “I love your promise; and shall know, some time, the spiritual reality and substance of form, light, and color, of what I now through you discern dimly; and knowing this, I shall be satisfied. Matter is a frail conception of mortal mind; and mortal mind is a poorer representative of the beauty, grandeur, and glory of the immortal Mind.” (Miscellaneous Writings, Eddy, 87) Stay tuned for more QAs on the blog.  Do you speak French or have friends who do? Would you like to know more about Christian Science healing? Then Tuesday's lecture is for you. Prefer English? Hope to see you Saturday.
Christian Science Society of Toulouse, France is sponsoring a webinar tomorrow, Tuesday, 8 December at 9pm Paris time / 3pm ET: "Christian Science. What it is and how it heals." The webinar including QA will be conducted entirely in French. You and your friends can sign up here: http://app.webinarjam.net/register/1716/87265cf6e3 If English is preferred language, the same webinar will be conducted for anglophones next Saturday, 12 December at 10am MT / noon ET / 6pm Paris time. This webinar is jointly sponsored by Second Church of Christ, Scientist, Phoenix and First Church of Christ, Scientist, Tempe. Following the same format, the webinar includes a presentation followed by QA. Here is your sign-up link for the English one: http://app.webinarjam.net/register/1716/7608673b89 |
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I have practiced Christian Science professionally in some form since 1979. But my journey with Christian Science started in a Sunday school where as a young child I was taught the Scriptures and some simple basics of Jesus' method of scientific Christian healing. A significant experience at the age of twelve opened my eyes to the great potential of this practice. After impaling my foot on a nail, I prayed the way I had learned in Sunday school. Within moments the pain stopped and healing began. By the next morning the wound had disappeared completely. Having experienced the great potential of Christian Science, there would be no turning back. |
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