The final section of the chapter titled “Christian Science Practice” in Science and Health (p. 430-442) is an allegory of a trial in which mortal man is first tried in the Court of Error and is found guilty of breaking the various health rules of mortality in his efforts to obey the Golden Rule by helping a sick friend.  The verdict given by this material court is death.  However, when the case is brought before the Court of Spirit after a vigorous appeal by Christian Science, the defendant is found innocent and is regenerated: “His form was erect and commanding, his countenance beaming with health and happiness.” (p. 442)

This allegory is a perfect illustration of how to give a Christian Science treatment.  Each and every element of the false accusations leveled at the defendant in the lower court are uncovered and mightily argued against, denounced, refuted, rebuked, and proven to be false by the defense attorney, Christian Science, and then the truth is argued for, affirmed, and stated with only the authority that the understanding of Spirit can bring.

So—here’s a question that I ask myself regularly, and perhaps you may need to, also.  Which side am I arguing for?  Spirit or matter?

Now, both you and I will probably answer “Spirit”!  But are we always sure that’s the case?

Are we really examining our thoughts closely in the light of Truth?

If we’ve accepted in any form the supposed claims and validity of material health rules/superstitions, dietary laws, medical diagnoses, physical symptoms and causes, eastern religions and philosophies, psychology, yoga, alternative medicines, or material substance and identity, then aren’t we arguing against God to the detriment of ourselves and those who need our help?

Each and every one of these has a concept of matter as their basis.  Each and every one of these would seek to distract and misdirect our attention and reliance from God as the only source of our or anyone else’s health and well-being.  Each and every one is enthroned in the lies of matter—regardless of how “convincing” their arguments seem to be.  No matter how “logical” or “reasonable” they appear.  No matter how “tangible” the effects seem to be.  They are all products of the material senses, of mortal mind, of which Mary Baker Eddy wrote:

The material senses originate and support all that is material, untrue, selfish, or debased. They would put soul into soil, life into limbo, and doom all things to decay. We must silence this lie of material sense with the truth of spiritual sense. We must cause the error to cease that brought the belief of sin and death and would efface the pure sense of omnipotence. (Science and Health, p. 318)

There you have it: The material senses are both the origin and the substantiation of evil whose intent is to deface all that is good and holy!  The claim of a power other than God.  A claim that we must put a stop to—that we must destroy!

In this week’s Bible Lesson, “Truth,” this citation appears:

We must not seek the immutable and immortal through the finite, mutable, and mortal, and so depend upon belief instead of demonstration, for this is fatal to a knowledge of Science. (SH 286)

Think of it!  Fatal to a knowledge of Christian Science and its demonstration!  We need to take these words seriously!

And if taking them seriously makes us uncomfortable or if we find ourselves avoiding deeply considering the meanings of the numerous warnings that Mrs. Eddy has written relative to taking a half-way position about the rules and morality of Christian Science or the various pitfalls and traps of mortal mind, then we can be sure that this reluctance isn’t coming from God.  It’s none other than the silent argument of mortal mind masquerading as our own thinking and deductions.

Let’s pray to be arguing against the beliefs of matter and for the reality of God and not the other way around!

Christian Scientists will no doubt immediately recognize these three words as part of Mary Baker Eddy’s answer to an important question she asked her last class.  In the reminiscences of Sue Harper Mims (We Knew Mary Baker Eddy: Expanded Edition, Vol. 1, p. 298), Mims wrote:

Then she asked us questions. One was, “What is the best way to do instantaneous healing?” Many arose. Some said, “Realize the ever-presence of good”; others, “Deny the claims of evil.” There were many answers, but when they had finished, she said, as I remember: “I will tell you the way to do it. It is to love! Just live love—be it—love, love, love. Do not know anything but Love. Be all love. There is nothing else. That will do the work. It will heal everything; it will raise the dead. Be nothing but love.”

It’s a remarkable and powerful statement and one that, without question, is critical to our healing work.  But too often we forget this wasn’t the whole of what transpired.

What? There’s more?

There certainly is!

Mims continued:

Then there came up what was, to me, the most interesting question in the whole class. Someone said, “But, Mother, are we not to discriminate between good and evil?” She answered substantially as follows:

Ah, now you have asked me what is to me the hardest thing in Christian Science! Yes, you must see and denounce evil. The Bible tells us that Jesus was God’s chosen because he loved righteousness, but the Bible does not stop there. It says, “and hated iniquity”! So often have I longed to see and know only Love—only the good—but I have not dared. I must uncover and rebuke and hate iniquity.

See and denounce evil!  Love righteousness and hate iniquity as Jesus did!  These are strong words, but words that are absolutely essential to our continued understanding and fruitful practice of Christianly scientific healing.

It reminds me of the passage from Science and Health where Mrs. Eddy, while referring to Jesus, wrote (p. 52):

The “man of sorrows” best understood the nothingness of material life and intelligence and the mighty actuality of all-inclusive God, good. These were the two cardinal points of Mind-healing, or Christian Science, which armed him with Love.

Focusing solely on Love without uncovering and destroying evil is, clearly, only half the equation.  It’s not one or the other.  Remember, Mrs. Eddy told that final class how she longed to know only Love, but didn’t dare to do so—that she must uncover, rebuke, and hate iniquity (wickedness, unrighteousness, evil).

Shouldn’t we then be willing to courageously follow the path that our Leader blazed through the wilderness of matter to the freedom of Spirit and not be tempted into taking a shortcut suggested by mortal mind—no matter how pleasant or appealing that shortcut may seem?  A shortcut that would have us only look at the good while simultaneously abandoning both our requisite need and our ability to use our God-given spiritual discernment to strip evil of its disguises?

Can we really afford to allow error—in any form—to go undisturbed in its secret as well as blatant enslavement of humanity?

Then let’s make sure that we’re willing to be armed with the same two cardinal points of Love that our Master and Mrs. Eddy went into battle with—that divine sense of compassion which uncovered, rebuked, and destroyed evil while healing the sick, reforming the sinner, and demonstrating the way to transform the world!

OK.  What am I referring to?

Well, I’ll tell you.  It’s a specific page number in the Church Manual of The First Church of Christ, Scientist written by Mary Baker Eddy.  A page number that contains a By-Law that should have a profound significance to all who are students of Christian Science.

A By-Law that blesses and protects not only us, but those who are in need of our help.

Alertness to Duty. Sect. 6. It shall be the duty of every member of this Church to defend himself daily against aggressive mental suggestion, and not be made to forget nor to neglect his duty to God, to his Leader, and to mankind. By his works he shall be judged, — and justified or condemned.

Yes—alertness to our duties.  Duties that keep us safe from the onslaught of the suggestions of the carnal mind.  Duties to God to be God-like, to our Leader (Mary Baker Eddy) by following her as she followed the Christ, and duties to mankind by taking up the roles that our Master and Mrs. Eddy demonstrated and expected each of us to accomplish in healing the sick and reforming the sinner.  Roles that are for the salvation of mankind.

I find it interesting that Mrs. Eddy began the list of duties with our need to alertly defend our thought.  And of course, it’s completely logical isn’t it?  How else could we carry out our duty to God, to our Leader, and to mankind if error has successfully mesmerized us through aggressive mental suggestion into forgetting and neglecting those same obligations?

And by the way, aggressive doesn’t necessarily have to mean blatant or “in your face.”  No, it could also be the silent yet persistent argument that would attempt, for instance, to discourage, demoralize, distract, dissuade, embitter, or mislead us.

Now, perhaps you’ve thought that the daily reading of the Christian Science Lesson-Sermon is your protective work.  Or that you’re maxed-out and don’t have time to do anything else.  Maybe you’ve felt that to do specific daily work for your own protection is a form of selfishness—one that takes you away from helping others.

But given this By-Law, can we really believe that these or any similar thoughts are from God?  The same God that we are not to neglect or forget our duty to?  The same God that inspired Mrs. Eddy to write the Manual?

Reading the Lesson-Sermon is absolutely wonderful and needed, but let’s not confuse it with specific Christianly scientific treatment—treatment that becomes aware of the machinations of error and handles them.  And who said that such treatment is necessarily time-consuming?  Furthermore, how could it possibly be selfish if you’re able to be more effective in your healing work as a result of your thought having greater clarity and understanding?

In the reminiscences of John C. Lathrop (We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, Expanded Edition, Vol. 1), Lathrop wrote that after explaining to him that to watch was to become conscious of one’s danger, Mrs. Eddy said:

Christian Scientists read their literature, go to church, to church meetings, and still may be tumbled over; that is not watching, they are merely marching up and down the breastworks. (p. 262)

So, let’s see.  We’ve got two choices on this issue before us:

1) Merely marching up and down the breastworks, or

2) Giving ourselves daily treatments so that we are able to remain alert and carry out our duties.

Which box will you tick off?

Here it is, Christmas Eve Day, and much of our society is preparing for Christmas festivities—visiting family, gathering around meals, attending church services, and exchanging gifts.

And as pleasant as those activities and gifts can be, let’s not be swept up by them and forget that there are gifts far greater than these—gifts “…where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt…” (Matt. 6:20)

What are those?

The spiritual, imperishable, unassailable, immutable gift that Mary Baker Eddy brought to the world through her discovery and founding of Christian Science—the Comforter that Jesus foretold.

In the Preface to Science and Health (p. vii), she wrote:

The time for thinkers has come.

What a simple and direct statement!

Yet, it’s a statement that’s not only a spiritual observation, but, perhaps of greater import, is a command to each of us to think—to use the gifts of spiritual discernment, perception, and judgment that we all have been endowed with by our Maker.

Why are these so important?

Because they are gifts that lead us into more fully understanding what Christian Science is and what it isn’t.  Gifts whose absence would make it impossible to have the spiritual clarity so necessary to be the healers that God has anointed and appointed each of us to be.  Gifts that enable us to both become aware of and see through the lies of mortal existence and then bear witness to the real individual who is made in the image and likeness of God.  To the truth of being!

As Mrs. Eddy stated:

The Christlike understanding of scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea, — perfect God and perfect man, — as the basis of thought and demonstration. (Science and Health, p. 259)

And it’s that Christlike understanding—that precious gift—which allows us to heal the sick and reform the sinner.  The gifts that bring salvation to a world so deeply and obviously in need of Christian Science.

And could any gift be greater than these?

Think about it.

Let me preface this post by saying that it’s unusually long for a blog, but given its topic, I hope you’ll hang in there until the conclusion.

Recently, I’ve been seeing an increase in online discussions on Christian Science about how Eastern religious systems and practices are similar and/or complementary to Christian Science.  One commenter had even gone so far as to say that any objections that Mary Baker Eddy had to Buddhist, Hindu, and other pagan and pantheistic philosophies were a result of her ignorance of the “true” nature of those systems.

For any thinking Christian Scientist, alarm bells should be ringing!

From all that we know of Mrs. Eddy, she was exceptionally detail-oriented, very well-read, examined all of the systems of her time, proved what she taught through first demonstrating it, and of greatest import, was the person who was inspired by God—not by mortal mind—to bring the Science of Christ to the world for humanity’s salvation.

Having been involved for 20 years in the in-depth study of and adherence to various Eastern and Western systems of esoterica prior to my first encounter with Christian Science, I can attest to the vast differences between these—the former being mortal mind’s aping of spirituality and God, and the latter being the Holy Comforter.

Put plainly: There are no similarities!

To search for such comparisons is a dangerous road that undermines the very fabric of demonstrating the blessings of Christian Science—of being able to be healed and having the ability to heal others.

Mrs. Eddy wrote in Science and Health (p. 464):

Adulterating Christian Science, makes it void.

Can it be any clearer than that!

Now, why then would some of our members—both young and old—try to make such false comparisons when the price to be paid is so great?

They simply are unaware that they’re being wrongly influenced.

By what?

By those very systems of Eastern thought they advocate!   Whenever Christian Science was mentioned or written about during the time I was engaged in those philosophies, it was spoken of as not only being similar to, but also virtually being the same.

But why would such claims be made?

In an attempt to validate and bolster the view that all of these systems (in which they included Christian Science) were the universal coming of the New Millennium—a Millennium in which each of these disparate strands of “spiritual” journeys and paths would eventually mingle to bring about the spiritual government of the world.

On the surface this may sound desirable and even a goal to be sought after.

But that’s on the surface.  Contrary to such a claim, it was nothing other than a subtle attempt by the carnal mind to mask the uniqueness of the Science of Christ by obscuring it in the fog—the mist of Genesis II—of these “isms.”

Mary Baker Eddy stated in her book The First Church of Christ of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany, p. 119:

Think not that Christian Science tends towards Buddhism or any other “ism.” Per contra, Christian Science destroys such tendency.

Think about it.  If Christian Science—the Science of being, the Science of divine metaphysical healing—destroys such tendency—and it does—can there be any real good in such systems since God, good, would never eradicate an iota of good?

Let me tell you about a radio interview that I had several years back that I think will illustrate these points.

I was one of two guests on a live 2-hour radio program.  The other guest was a former gynecologist who had become a nationally known practitioner of Siberian Shamanism.  The host, who conducted the non-stop back and forth discussion, had been a psychotherapist who had entered into New Age studies and had become a counselor and teacher of various energy-beliefs about the brain and chakras.  It was interesting to say the least!

Whenever I spoke about Christian Science and Christian Science prayer/treatment, the two of them would immediately respond that they do the same—even though the shaman had been talking about incense, sound therapy, incantations, and other very strange materially based rituals.  No matter what I said, they kept insisting on the same claim.  And whatever the shaman said, the host, who had been a patient of hers, fawned over.  To say that I was praying like mad to break this aggressive mesmerism would be an understatement!  Remember, it was not just the three of us—there was an entire audience out there in radio-land, too!

It came to me to relate a healing that I had in Christian Science of what appeared to be a cancerous growth in one of my eyelids.  As I spoke of my feeling and awareness of the all-encompassing presence of divine Love, of God, at the moment of that healing—and I felt that same power right while describing it to them—the host began to openly weep, so touched was her thought by the presence of the Christ.  From that point on, she no longer hung on every word of the shaman.  Instead she earnestly wanted to understand more about Christian Science.  She wanted more of that “cup of cold water” that Mrs. Eddy wrote about.  She was getting a deeper glimpse into the uniqueness of Christian Science!

Now do I believe that either of these individuals was consciously trying to undermine Christian Science?  I don’t think so, but that’s exactly the point.  They were mesmerized to such a degree by their beliefs that they simply couldn’t initially see the difference.  Yet that mesmerism—that blindness—was nonetheless extremely aggressive and convincing to them.

And this, dear friends, is something we can’t afford to ignore: namely, that those repetitive assertions of similarity would try to mesmerically influence Christian Scientists into accepting them.

Consider this: Billions of inhabitants on our planet are adherents to these various systems, each person living their life under the dictates of those philosophies, each expending considerable mental energy in their meditations and prayers which flood world thought with these false, yet no doubt heart-felt hypotheses and superstitions.

Could we actually be made to believe that if we’re not alert—if we’re not prayerfully standing sentinel at the door of thought—we wouldn’t be adversely affected by these silent suggestions of mortal thought towards those tendencies—the tendencies that Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, warned us about.  Of this we can be certain: There was no naiveté, blindness, or ignorance on her part.

And do we really want to take the position that the very claims made by some as to the supposed similarities, etc. are not the effect of such wrongful influences—contrary to Mary Baker Eddy’s writings?   Isn’t that exactly how mortal mind works—convincing us that its conclusions and observations are our own?

For those who would point to the ascending popularity of these various religions as a proof of a leavening of thought by the advent of Christian Science, I would ask: How can systems of thought which have preceded the founding of Christian Science by millennia and which are continuing to promote the same false concepts of God and man—concepts which continue to keep their devotees enslaved in those doctrines—have been leavened?  Where is the proof?  How can bread that has already been baked be leavened?  Isn’t this really animal magnetism’s hostility to the Christ being voiced in the popular thought instead?

Now lest anyone be confused here, let me state that I am not calling into question individuals, but rather the systems of thought which are the antithesis of Christian Science, which have proved for thousands of years to be destructive in so many ways, and which are exerting a wrongful influence.

Let me conclude with a passage from the reminiscences of Clara M. S. Shannon about Mrs. Eddy (We Knew Mary Baker Eddy-Expanded Edition, Vol. 2, p. 216):

She saw how error was trying subtly, through mental suggestion, to reach the thoughts of her students and other Scientists, and she saw how necessary it was to open their eyes to what was being done, and one of the things she wanted to impress on them was the necessity to study Science and Health daily and thoroughly and to abide in the truth in that book.

Clearly, advice that we each need to take seriously—if we don’t want to lose our way!

“Prayed up” is an expression that I’ve heard for years from a variety of Christian Scientists on numerous occasions.  It’s often used in a phrase such as: “I was so grateful that I was all prayed up because things went so well at the meeting, etc.”

And perhaps, it’s one that you’ve used yourself from time to time.

But did you know that try as you might, you’re not going to find that phrase in any of Mary Baker Eddy’s writings.

Why?

Because it flies in the face of the Apostle Paul’s inspired admonition to “Pray without ceasing.” (I Thessalonians 5:17)

How so?

Because being “prayed up” indicates a finite sense of prayer—like topping off your gas tank in your car before a trip.  Or a bank account of prayer in which you make deposits and withdrawals.

It, however, is not unceasing prayer!

“But,” you might be thinking, “Paul’s injunction is not really practical today in our modern, fast-paced world with so many things vying for our time and attention.  How could we expect to even begin to accomplish such a demand?”

Well, by striving to keep our thought focused on God—what He knows to be true about each and every one of us.  By listening to the “still small voice”—the voice of divine Love—directing our every thought and action.  By being obedient to what infinite Principle is imparting to us.

By realizing that there is only One Mind—God—not many minds.

And doing so is eminently practical.  I’ve seen time and again how consistently endeavoring to realize and express the allness of God and applying the truths of Christian Science in my daily activities has brought healing to my life and to those who have needed my help.

On pages 4 and 15 respectively of Science and Health you’ll find these two statements:

The habitual struggle to be always good is unceasing prayer.

AND

Self-forgetfulness, purity, and affection are constant prayers.

There it is!  The author has shown us exactly how to pray without ceasing!

But could this in any conceivable way mean that we don’t need to regularly pray and give treatments?  Of course not, but it does mean that we certainly can achieve what Paul, Mrs. Eddy—and of greatest import—God requires of us.

If we want to be the healers that God has ordained, anointed, and appointed us to be, then we dare not accept those arguments that the carnal mind presents to us about the impracticality and impossibility of actually being able to pray without ceasing.

In her Miscellaneous Writings (p.356), Mrs. Eddy stated:

Cherish humility, “watch,” and “pray without ceasing,” or you will miss the way of Truth and Love.

And that’s a way not to be missed!

Let’s suppose you’re a gardener—maybe you are!—and have worked to cultivate a lovely and productive garden.  But unbeknownst to you, the wind has blown some small seeds of a particularly aggressive weed into the soil.  Would you expect that those seeds wouldn’t begin the germinating process?  A process that would eventually lead into the full growth of a plant that could dominate your garden, destroying and choking the plants that you valued and had taken so much care to nurture?

And let’s say that you were aware—to whatever degree—of those seeds having come into the fertile soil, would you pretend they weren’t there or think that nothing would come of them?  Obviously, you’d busily get about removing them regardless of the state of germination they were in.  At least if you wanted a fruitful harvest!

Then why would any of us knowingly allow the seeds of error to sit around in our consciousness?  Why would we naively think that they can go unattended—that somehow if they’re not blatantly destructive and immediately threatening, they would just sit there benignly doing nothing?  Not germinating.  Not sending their roots deep into our thought adversely affecting our experience.  Why would we agree or acquiesce to such a fallacy?

Yet I encounter quite a few folks—often life-long Christian Scientists—who have done just that.  They have thought it unimportant to attend to those seeds of error—even though on some level, even peripherally, they were aware of their presence.  They felt they weren’t worth the effort—that they wouldn’t have any negative effect or consequences in their lives.  That those errors would just sit there politely waiting perhaps to be called up someday to be dealt with.

But that’s not the nature of error.  It’s always destructive.  And it is always sending its noxious, silent fumes throughout our experience.  Are those vapors always immense or immediately obvious?  No, but therein lies the danger.  They are at work busily seeking to keep us mesmerized, to keep us apathetic.  To keep us from successfully healing ourselves and others to the degree that we’re truly capable of!

Now before anyone objects and says “But error’s not real and has no power to harm or act!” let me say that of course it isn’t real, yet it is undeniably destructive if we don’t handle it with the truth of scientific Christianity.  All we need do is look around and see what unhandled error—evil—has and is doing to humanity throughout the world.

So let’s say we recognize seeds that have been left alone—perhaps for decades—what can we do?  Is it too late?

The Apostle Paul wrote these words to Timothy:

Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. (II Tim 4:2)

In or out of season—immediately perceived or recognized after the fact—we can uproot these lies that would attempt to deface the tablet of our being.  That would attempt to keep us enslaved under error’s thrall.  We each and every one of us have been given by Almighty God the ability, dominion, and power to uproot and overthrow error in all of its forms.  And time—proximity to when we first recognized the error—does not enter into this as time is a fabrication of error to begin with, hence Paul’s instruction to be instant out of season, also.

We need to persevere in rooting out these seeds and weeds and not think that a meager attempt to deal with them will be sufficient.  We have to be thorough.

Mary Baker Eddy wrote in an article titled “Fidelity”:

The weeds of mortal mind are not always destroyed by the first uprooting; they reappear, like devastating witch-grass, to choke the coming clover. O stupid gardener! watch their reappearing, and tear them away from their native soil, until no seedling be left to propagate — and rot. (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 343)

I don’t know about you, but it seems like a good idea not to fall into that category of being a stupid gardener—and get to work instead!

The Christian Science Bible Lesson of a couple of weeks ago was on the subject “Doctrine of Atonement” and among the Bible passages cited was this from the Apostle Paul’s epistle to the Hebrews:

For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. (Heb 10:4)

Of course, Paul is speaking of the sacrifice of animals—a custom widely practiced throughout the ancient cultures of his time, and which continues even today in isolated pockets of our world.  A ritual sacrifice—a superstition—that in this case was designed to yearly remove the sins of a nation, but which Paul makes clear is an impossibility.

But as I thought about this, I began to wonder if we who profess to be Christian Scientists are in any way still thinking in these material terms of worshipping God.  Are we still seeking to use ritual as a means—albeit a self-deluded one—to grow spiritually or as a means to heal?  Are we substituting material thoughts and practices for the rejection of sin or disease, our heartfelt repentance, and subsequent reformation and regeneration?

What do I mean by that?

The carnal mind—mortal mind—would always seek to blind and mislead us in order to prevent us from spiritually rising higher.  Why?  Because such growth inevitably means our thought is moving away from the lies of error to a more spiritual understanding of the Allness of God.  An understanding that allows us to not only be healed, but of greater importance to heal others through the Science of the Christ.  An understanding that destroys the very belief of a supposed intelligence that claims to be in opposition to the omnipotence of the One Mind—God.

Now, one way error would seek to achieve such an end is to get us to read the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health, in a ritualistic, unthinking manner—a manner that includes a goodly portion of blind faith.  A manner that seeks to convince us that we’re making spiritual progress when in fact we’re not.

Does that sound surprising to you?

Think about it for a moment.

Have you ever felt like you’re just reading words when you study Science and Health, or for that matter, any of Mrs. Eddy’s other writings?  Or perhaps you’ve fallen into the trap of thinking that the words alone will bring healing—just by saying them repeatedly rather than by spiritually understanding them?  Or do you find yourself dutifully going through the motions of reading and subsequently feeling that you’ve fulfilled your obligations as a Christian Scientist?  If any of these are the case, then it’s likely that you’ve accepted the wrongful influence of ritualistic, blind faith thinking.

And maybe you’ve had what appear to be “inspirations,” yet nothing changed in your thought which led to a practical reformation in your behavior, health, and well-being?  Isn’t that more of the same?

The list could go on and on, and I’m sure you could easily add to it!

But the point really is that we first need to be aware of this mortal mind phenomenon and then guard our thought accordingly.

Mrs. Eddy wrote:

Whatever materializes worship hinders man’s spiritual growth and keeps him from demonstrating his power over error. (Science and Health, p. 4)

The price to be paid for the bulls and goats is clearly too high!

JSH-Online has just made available my article “The Prodigal’s Brother” from The Christian Science Journal’s October 2013 edition at http://journal.christianscience.com/issues/2013/10/131-10/the-prodigal-s-brother

It approaches Jesus’ parable of “The Prodigal Son” from a different perspective.  I hope you enjoy it!

Most people would recognize those two words as Charlie Brown’s favorite exclamation!

But that’s not what this post is about—far from it!

As the prophet Isaiah stated:

Come now, and let us reason together…. (Isa 1:18)

Can there ever be “good grief”?  Is it really something that people who have lost loved ones need to pass through or, as psychiatry purports, has “5 stages” that are not only necessary but healthy?

How can such an overwhelming emotion that engulfs so many people during such a significant feeling of loss be a necessity or be healthy and good?

Yet, so many folks, including many Christian Scientists, unwittingly add to this negative emotional and all-consuming state of grief which a family member or friend may be undergoing, by expressing sympathy, fear, and shock.  In an attempt to respond at such times, they may offer old adages such as “Time will heal all.”  Or perhaps prophesy the length of time it will take their friend to adjust—or perhaps never adjust—to this new experience.  They might offer the myth that grief is natural and to be expected.  Or worse, express fear and concern for the person’s God-given ability to move forward in their life.

Outwardly they do these things in an attempt to be compassionate.

But is it really compassion, or is it actually something else?  Is it a form of unintentional mental malpractice against that individual—and ultimately against those expressing it?

You might ask how that could possibly be.  I understand the confusion.  We think that if we’re reaching out to the person, how could it be bad?  We’re trying to be loving…

But are we looking at this from a Christianly-scientific view?  Are we looking at it from the perspective of healing and of being a healer?

From that vantage point, grief and human sympathy take on a very dark hue—one that is clearly not what it appears to be on the surface.  They are mortal mental mechanisms that try to attach themselves to the person they’re directed at, while simultaneously falsely convincing the person expressing them that they are being loving.  And in so doing, it weighs down the thought of both people with an erroneous belief in the supposed reality of mortality.  It reinforces it and works against both parties’ health and well-being.

Why?

Because the belief of grief and human sympathy is opposed to the very demonstrations of Jesus Christ and Mary Baker Eddy—is opposed to eternal Life as an ever-present reality.  Remember, dear friends, that Jesus cast out all the mourners who were bewailing the death of Jairus’s daughter (Luke 8:49-56)—cast them out of consciousness so that he could raise her from the belief of death and demonstrate eternal Life.

Mrs. Eddy wrote:

Neither sympathy nor society should ever tempt us to cherish error in any form, and certainly we should not be error’s advocate. (Science and Health, p. 153)

By expressing grief and human sympathy we are in effect aligning our thinking and actions to fear and the utterly false belief that we, or anyone, could ever be separated from God—from Truth, Life, and Love which “…are a law of annihilation to everything unlike themselves, because they declare nothing except God.” (Science and Health, p.  243)

So rather than throwing our mental weight on the side of mortality—no matter how attractive, loving, and kind it seems to be—shouldn’t we be seeking instead to uplift thought by understanding the truth of being—by expressing real compassion via the true Comforter to our friends and family?

By loving them divinely?  By healing them?

As Science and Health states (p. 246):

Life is eternal. We should find this out, and begin the demonstration thereof.