One of the things that I’ve always appreciated about Christian Science is the respect for the individual’s own right to think for themselves.  In fact, the second paragraph of Mary Baker Eddy’s most important work, Science and Health, begins with the sentence:

The time for thinkers has come.

What I’ve observed over the past 22 years since I became a Christian Scientist, is that in general most of its adherents follow the premise of allowing each individual’s prayers to lead them in the direction that God is revealing to them.  And it’s certainly been something that I’ve benefitted from during that time.

But the question arises: What do you do when you see a fellow church member—or for that matter, anyone—heading in a direction that would not be beneficial to them—a direction that in fact could harm them?

Well, the obvious answer for me is to pray.

What does God want me to do?  Is this simply a matter of my getting a clearer sense of God’s government of that individual—knowing that God will rectify whatever is unlike His wholly good and perfect will for that person?  Or is it in any way my duty—a basic Christian one at that—to at the very least alert that individual to the pitfalls that may be awaiting them?

Isn’t this a part of following the Second Great Commandment—of loving our neighbor as ourselves?  Isn’t this part of what Jesus meant when he said:

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them… (Matthew 7:12)

But is there a line to be drawn?

I’ve found it helpful to seriously consider and reflect on another statement by Mrs. Eddy (Science and Health, p.571):

Who is telling mankind of the foe in ambush? Is the informer one who sees the foe? If so, listen and be wise. Escape from evil, and designate those as unfaithful stewards who have seen the danger and yet have given no warning.

I know that I’ve been grateful for times when someone had the courage and compassion to inform me of something that might not be good for me or for my spiritual growth.

However, informing another of a fault is without a doubt a potentially sticky situation.  The other person could be offended by what you say and/or misinterpret or misunderstand your intentions.  Or you might not be seeing the whole picture clearly.  That’s why the necessity for prayer rather than relying on human viewpoints or opinions.  Immediately prior to the above quote, Eddy states:

It requires the spirit of our blessed Master to tell a man his faults, and so risk human displeasure for the sake of doing right and benefiting our race.

And that’s where spiritual discernment and spiritual courage come in.  The awareness to discern what the problem is, as well as the thought of the individual, and the courage to follow God’s impelling to heal and uplift our neighbor—to love them divinely enough to help open their eyes to the potential danger.

Other questions arise—questions that I think we all need to ask ourselves.

Is our desire to be supportive of our fellow Church members—a good and laudable one—sometimes causing us to not see the “foe in ambush”?   Are we thereby unintentionally surrendering our spiritual discernment and responsibility in a perhaps misguided concept of being uncritical at all costs—a concept that may likely result in our being caught up in the same hypnotic effect of the error that is overtaking them?

At this point, you may be asking if I’ve ever felt impelled to awaken others. Well, the simple answer is “yes.”  Has every response been well-received?  Honestly, no.  But I can say that in the vast majority of instances, folks have been grateful for being alerted to not continue down the proverbial primrose path.  Even those that balked walked away thinking things over from a different standpoint.

Spiritual discernment is meant to be used.  And it’s that God-given discernment combined with deep prayer that will lead us in the right direction.

No matter how you look at it, this is not an easy topic.  But it’s one that I think we need to come to terms with.

I don’t usually do this, but there’s always the first time.  Today I thought I’d do a follow-up to Wednesday’s post “Is Life a Debris Field?” by going a little deeper into the spiritual concepts that can wipe the slate clean of the mental debris that may be clouding our lives.

We’ve all made choices that haven’t been the best.  Some of them may have been downright detrimental to ourselves or to others.   Whatever they may have been, we don’t have to live under their shadow.  What do I mean by that?

As God’s children, we are made in the image and likeness of God—of Spirit—and are entirely spiritual.  However, the material senses would contradict the testimony of Spirit and argue that we’re a mixture of good and bad experiences instead.  But those matter-based senses simply can’t tell us anything real about our true identity.  Not for a moment.  Why?  Because, as Mary Baker Eddy stated in Science and Health (page 318):

The material senses originate and support all that is material, untrue, selfish, or debased.

In other words, they have no connection to God.  They are both the source and the continuance of the false idea—of evil.

But what about those bad experiences?  Didn’t we have them or do them?

Well, it would certainly seem that way.  All we have to do is remember them.  And there’s the rub!  It’s in the act of recalling/reliving that the echoes of those negative experiences keep reverberating against our present condition—keep binding us in those chains of guilt, wrong actions, and false identity.

But if we hold to the spiritual premise of an all-good God and of His offspring as being comprised of only the qualities of God—in other words of an all-good man—then the outcome becomes quite different.  Mrs. Eddy also wrote:

The relations of God and man, divine Principle and idea, are indestructible in Science; and Science knows no lapse from nor return to harmony, but holds the divine order or spiritual law, in which God and all that He creates are perfect and eternal, to have remained unchanged in its eternal history. (Science and Health p.470)

And it’s that indestructible relationship which allows us—by God’s love—to see through the lies that would claim otherwise, and feel His ever-presence.  If we’ve learned the lessons that we needed to learn from our experiences—if we’ve repented and no longer would think or behave in those ways—then there simply is no longer a hold on us.  In fact, there never really was.  It was just obscuring our true identity as God’s beloved, whole and complete child.  It’s just as if a great boulder is no longer there to cast a shadow on us or to block our view of the light—of the allness of Spirit, of God.

St. Paul wrote in his Epistle to the Philippians (Ch. 3, verse 13-14):

13  Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,

14  I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

I find that as I press toward God’s high calling, seeking and striving for it in each aspect of my life, the debris is forgotten, is eliminated, is destroyed.  And it’s replaced by an increasing realization of freedom—a freedom that both feels and expresses the reality of God’s constant love for each of us.  A freedom that makes us better and more effective healers.

A freedom that blesses all!

Last weekend, my wife and I visited friends in Northern Maine.  Among our activities on those cold and windy days, we visited the memorial site of a B-52 bomber that had crashed in 1963 on Elephant Mountain near Greenville.  The site was in a remote area and we traveled for miles on dirt roads up the mountain side.

When we finally arrived, we saw the debris field—the remaining wreckage of this huge airplane scattered over a significant area of the woods.  It was remarkable how far and wide the evidence of this tragic accident was strewn.

Only two of the nine-member crew had survived the crash, and various organizations had banded together to preserve this area in tribute to the entire crew—a crew who were flying a training mission during the Cold War era.  It was a profound experience.

A couple of days later, I began thinking about the debris field—it’s enormity—and it’s continued effect on all who saw it.  I could see a parallel to each of our lives.

I had to ask how often do we unknowingly or otherwise carry around a “debris field” of wrong actions, misjudgments, failed relations, less than honorable behaviors, guilt—the list could go on and on—in our consciousness?  And how much does that adversely affect our present reactions, responses, and activities?

I know that in my own life I’ve done and experienced things that I’m not proud of.  But do we need to be plagued by these for the rest of our lives?  Do they need to wrongly color our perceptions and experiences?

Well—as I’ve learned through studying and applying the teachings of Christian Science, the answer to those questions is a definitive “No!”

I’ve seen that to the degree that I strive to live a more spiritual life—one that seeks to emulate the Master, Jesus, in all of his commandments (including to heal)—to that degree does the debris field get cleaned up.  The remnants get washed away.  The slate gets wiped clean.

And with that washing and wiping, which includes lessons learned, comes a freedom of greater joy, expression, and service to God in helping not only ourselves, but—of greater import—others to see and experience the truth that sets one free.  And that freedom is sourced in Love—in God.

Mary Baker Eddy wrote in Science and Health (page 323):

Willingness to become as a little child and to leave the old for the new, renders thought receptive of the advanced idea. Gladness to leave the false landmarks and joy to see them disappear, — this disposition helps to precipitate the ultimate harmony.

So the question becomes—remembering what St. Paul wrote “…it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” (Phil 2:13)—Are we really willing to leave the old for the new and rejoice in the disappearance of those false landmarks—that debris field?

The results and blessings of doing so are nothing short of enormous!

These words were Jesus’ command to the mourners and onlookers after he raised Lazarus from the dead.  The full passage (John 11:44) reads:

And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin.  Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.

Obviously, the literal meaning of this command was to unbind the graveclothes that Lazarus was wrapped in.  But it recently became clear to me that Jesus’ eternal utterance was a command to human minds—to mortal thoughts—to let go of the wrong view of man.  The view that would claim that man—any of us, male or female—are mortal, material-based beings which are vulnerable and susceptible to sin, sickness, death.

Jesus was instead commanding not only those present, but all of us to recognize the real man.  The man that is immortal, pure, and whole.  The man that each of us really is.  The man that we have always been.

The man who is the reflection of the very living God.

Mary Baker Eddy exhorts her readers to:

Blot out the images of mortal thought and its beliefs in sickness and sin. Then, when thou art delivered to the judgment of Truth, Christ, the judge will say, “Thou art whole!” (Science and Health, p. 391)

The results of blotting out those images and those beliefs in sickness and sin—those lies—are nothing short of transformative.  Every aspect of our life changes for the better.  I’ve seen the effect time and again in my own life—transformations from illness to health, from poverty to means, from sadness to joy, and many more.

And the Master’s command and Eddy’s statement apply not only to how we view ourselves, but how we view everyone else.  They align with the 2^nd Great Commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves—to see them as they truly are, as God’s beloved, eternal child.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I have to remind myself from time to time to not buy into the false image—it’s so easy to let that wrong idea creep in during conversations or even in recollections.  But the healing rewards of staying vigilant at the door of our thought—to stay alert, to stay aware, and to only allow the image and likeness of our God to be present—far outweigh the effort expended.

Mrs. Eddy described Jesus’ unequalled success in healing in two succinct statements in Science and Health (p. 476)—statements which set the standard for all of us:

Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God’s own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick.

Profound yet simple ideas each of us can surely take to heart.

Today is Patriot’s Day in Massachusetts.  All kinds of celebrations and reenactments have been taking place for the past few days in my town and the neighboring towns of Lexington and Concord.  It is a day to commemorate the beginnings of the American Revolution in 1775 and the promise of freedom that it held for this country and ultimately the world.  A promise that has been borne out in many instances but which has sadly failed in others.

But this got me thinking about freedom and what its real essence is.  It goes far beyond any national or political doctrine.  It goes far beyond gender, race, creed, age, nationality, or ethnicity.

It is entirely spiritual.  And it is entirely of God.

While reading Mary Baker Eddy’s book No and Yes the other day, I was struck by this sentence (p. 45):

Truth cannot be stereotyped; it unfoldeth forever.

Now, you may ask why that had caught my attention so strongly.  Well, it caused me to think more deeply about how often we’re tempted to stereotype others and even ourselves.  If Eddy’s statement is true—and I am certain that it is—then each of us as children of God—of Truth—cannot in fact be stereotyped, cannot be limited, because we are the individual, unique creations of our Father-Mother God.  Creations that are forever unfolding.

Think of the freedom that the application of this idea in our lives can bring!

For example, we cannot be pigeon-holed into any form of a limited existence.  Eddy states on page 258 of the same book that:

God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis.

Likewise, we can’t be tempted to pigeon-hole others either.  As God’s ideas—as His/Her children—we can’t be made to see our brothers and sisters in any limited fashion either.  Spiritually, we can only see them as our Creator does—infinite and good in all ways.

And since this freedom—this limitlessness—is forever unfolding, it is forever opening to each of us new views—new vistas—of God, of ourselves, and of all creation.  And these inherently include the elimination of any sense of confinement of God-inspired/directed expression and activity.

Such a recognition enables us to begin to see right through the caricatures that a limited, mortal and material sense of life is always trying to get us to accept.  Caricatures which would attempt to have us worship matter and thereby break the First Commandment—to acquiesce to the lie that there are gods many, instead of the healing, all-encompassing truth that there is only one God, only one power, only one existence.

And it is a recognition of freedom that knows no boundaries.

Just a few ideas to munch on this Monday!

It’s often tempting when we’re trying to solve a problem in our lives—whether it’s physical, emotional, financial, or whatever—to start looking around for what we might have done wrong, or what might be wrong in our thinking.  In other words, something that needs changing.  And there’s nothing wrong with changing wrong thinking.  We need to do that in order to grow.

But the problem is that it’s very easy to get lost in a maze—a downward spiraling one at that—of searching for one wrong thought after another, particularly if we’re looking at things from a limited, human perspective rather than how God sees us.  And that maze can end up being amazingly hypnotic—to the extent that it can be difficult to see our way out.

I’ve often found Jesus’ parable of the woman who lost one of her ten coins, and then lit a candle and swept her house diligently until she found it (Luke 15:8,9), to be a very useful one.  There’s nothing in that parable that would indicate that the woman spent time being distracted or fascinated by the dust—or more likely, dirt—on her floor.  She kept a light shining as she searched for her treasure until she found it.

And this is where Jesus’ command to “…seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” comes in.  It’s explicit that we must be first looking for the kingdom of God—the kingdom which the Master also told us is within us.  By doing so, we’re keeping our focus where it needs to be.  We’re not getting lost in the captivation of wrong thinking.  We’re not giving in to seeing our lives as a series of time-related events—some good, some bad—proceeding from point A to point B.

Instead, we’re starting at the foundation of all healing in Christian Science as Mary Baker Eddy states in her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (p. 259):

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.

Many years ago, when relatively new to the study of Christian Science, I called a Christian Science practitioner for help with some physical ailment I was dealing with.  For twenty years previously, I had been deeply following a Western/Eastern philosophy which stressed the need of continuously examining one’s thought—but all from a negative basis of expecting to find wrong.  When I told this man that I had scoured my thinking for what could have been causing the problem—all to no avail—he said to me “Ken, don’t look for the devil within.  Look for the Christ within.”

I have to tell you this was a revolutionary concept that I had never considered before.  It turned the entire earlier process upside down.  I did what he recommended and found that by looking for the Christ, I was immediately healed of the problem by getting a truer sense of who I was as God’s beloved child, while at the same time also seeing very clearly what needed to change in my thinking—simply by virtue of it being so unlike the qualities of the Christ.

In his letter to the Philippians (Ch. 3), Paul wrote:

13  Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,

14  I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

15  Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.

And there it is.  God shall reveal anything to us that needs correction.  But it comes about naturally by keeping our thought on that prize—the Christ–and seeking the kingdom of God first. The kingdom that is freedom!

The other morning I was prayerfully pondering why it appears that occasionally just before a spiritual breakthrough of some sort, there seems to be a period of intense resistance to that leap in progress.  At least that’s what’s happened from time to time in my life—and perhaps it has in yours, too.

Suddenly, I clearly realized that—in quasi-biblical phraseology—“Goodness begets blessings.  Goodness does not beget punishment!”  What immediately followed that realization was the awareness that the mortal, old, and oft-repeated adage, “No good deed goes unpunished,” was exactly what was at the root of the phenomenon of a good work being preceded or followed by a penalty.  And, as is consistently the case with materially-based “wisdom,” the adage was nothing more than a fallacy—a cynical one at that!—which would attempt to keep any of us from achieving the good that God has for us to do.

And it doesn’t matter one stitch what the pattern was in the past, because that pattern has no divine authority.  The only pattern that could ever really be going on—the only pattern that could ever have authority—was the spiritual one that Mary Baker Eddy referred to in Science and Health as “…the cycles of divine light.” (p. 135).

Those divine cycles can only bring blessings to us.  Can only bring freedom, joy, and true happiness.  Can only strengthen us spiritually.  Can only teach us to love God and our neighbor more divinely—more completely.  Divine cycles that can only cause us to be more compassionate Christians and more effective healers.

And what of those good deeds?

In the chapter “Prayer” from the same book, Mrs. Eddy wrote:

What we most need is the prayer of fervent desire for growth in grace, expressed in patience, meekness, love, and good deeds. (p. 4)

How could the very spiritual qualities and actions that any of us most need be harmful to us or incur a penalty of punishment or suffering?  They simply couldn’t!

Since God is good and good is God, good deeds are actually “God deeds” which incontrovertibly bless us and those who are their recipients.

What a freeing thought!

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about criticism.  It’s everywhere.  There’s a huge amount of it on the Internet, and then there are TV shows such as Iron Chef, American Idol, the endless variety of reality shows, news commentators arguing and attacking each other, candidates on the political trail, and on and on, all of which foster, encourage, and perpetuate it.

There’s no doubt that it’s in the air.  But is it right?  Is it Christian?

You might be thinking: “What’s wrong with criticism?  How else can we tell what’s right, or good, from what’s wrong and what’s to be avoided, denied, or condemned?”  Or you might cite the Master Christian, Jesus, and all of those that he apparently criticized such as the money changers in the Temple, or the Pharisees and Sadducees—the religious authorities of his time and culture.

But there is another way—spiritual discernment.

The differences between criticism and spiritual discernment are as distinct as night and day.

Being critical of others is actually finding fault with them.  It’s personal at its core.  It’s a “me versus them” mentality.  And it’s one that always brings about destruction in some form.  Ultimately, it seeks to injure the other individual while trying to bolster our own position—a position that, if we’re honest, is often founded on sand instead of on rock.  If we need that kind of bolstering, we should probably be turning that spotlight of inspection on our own lives to see what needs to be corrected.

Spiritual discernment, on the other hand, helps us to see with our God-given spiritual vision that which is actually true and real, and by comparison what is false and unreal.  We look at our fellow man and woman as God made them—perfect, whole, and indestructible—rather than seeing the false mortal view filled with faults and shortcomings.  We also begin to see ourselves from the same elevated vantage point.

Contrary to criticism, spiritual discernment aids us in fulfilling the requirements of the Two Great Commandments of Christianity: Love for God, and love for our neighbor.  We are honoring God’s creation for what it really is by seeing it as God actually made it—entirely spiritual, good, and complete.  And we’re loving our neighbor as we want to be loved—divinely.  In each case, we are helping to bring about healing by seeing the true picture.

So did Jesus really criticize?  I don’t think so.  His rebuke was always impersonal and spiritual.  He condemned the action, behavior, rigidity, materiality, and anti-spirituality that were being exhibited by those individuals—not to harm them, but to save them from their sins and diseases.   His motive was to bless, not to injure.

When writing about Jesus’ rebuke, Mary Baker Eddy stated (Science and Health, p. 30):

As the individual ideal of Truth, Christ Jesus came to rebuke rabbinical error and all sin, sickness, and death, — to point out the way of Truth and Life.

And later on p. 94, referring to the Master’s thought:

The effect of his Mind was always to heal and to save…

Many years ago, when I was relatively new to studying Christian Science, an experienced Christian Scientist told me that the act of engaging in criticism was in fact an admission to ourselves that we had failed to see the Christ in another individual.  Sobering words to say the least!  It was what I needed to hear at that time and something that I find I need to remind myself of to make sure that I’m using spiritual discernment rather than personal criticism to safely navigate the waters and shoals of daily life.

So, in the midst of what seems to be an atmosphere of incessant criticism and the temptation to criticize—because that’s what it surely is—I’ve found it really helpful to pull back, to be quiet, to use my God-endowed spiritual discernment and listen to what the “still small voice” is revealing about what is actually true and right.  It always reminds me to recognize that I—we—are all really planted in the realm of Spirit—in the kingdom of God.  And it always uplifts and blesses.