What is Scientific in Life
September 23, 2008 at 10:32 pm | In Uncategorized | Leave a CommentTags: genesis, Mary Baker Eddy, Mind, scientific statement of being
Something you find at the closing of every Christian Science church service the world over, is the reading of Mary Baker Eddy’s, Scientific Statement of Being. I grew up listening to this, repeating it, and praying with it. It is just lovely. This is how it goes:
“There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind, and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth. Matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal. Matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore, man is not material, he is spiritual.” (page 468 in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures).
This statement attacks any claim that matter can be anything to fear. That matter can harm, hurt, destroy, create or express. Spirit is the opposite of matter, and Spirit is God, the All-in-all. Therefore, matter is nothing. Mary Baker Eddy’s textbook of Christian Science, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, unfolds throughout, the meaning and relevance of the Scientific Statement of Being. It is the summary of that entire textbook of over 600 pages.
Although, I was healed on various occasions through praying using this passage by the discoverer, founder, demonstrator, and leader of Christian Science, I went through periods in which I felt that the Scientific Statement of Being was just nice words. This was until not too many years ago, I found how important it is, and how so many others were healed by this statement. Of all that Mrs. Eddy said, her divinely revealed Scientific Statement of Being is at the highest of her thinking. It is reality summed up in a few simple words, but wors that have to be seen from a spiritual starting-point in order for the message to be understood. That is why Mrs Eddy wrote so many pages. All these pages in her writings explain the Science of being and how it is expressed and demonstrated.
Every page of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures explains away matter, and sheds light on Spirit, good, God. The mortal senses would be offended by the statement of true being, and would attack anything opposing the supremacy of a material nature and kingdom. However, Genesis 1 in the Bible supports the claim in the Scientific Statement of Being that says, “All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation.” In Genesis first chapter, Mind, the Creator, made all and made all good. No evil or matter appears. All appears as an idea of God, an expression of infinite intelligence, or Mind. My two companions are the first chapter of Genesis and the Scientific Statement of Being. Genesis can only be understood spiritually, not materially.
State the Case Regarding Matter
August 26, 2008 at 1:03 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a CommentTags: Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, matter, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Spirit
We have ever since the beginning of mortal history, come to accept everything around us as matter. We are on the same level in believing that matter holds all issues of life, fulfills our substance, gives us pleasure, as well as pain, constitutes our workings, functionings, successes, and reality. However, throughout history, there have been a few wise thinkers who found that there is something beyond matter that should be considered. They found a higher reality, and dedicated their activities to following divine Spirit where all substance, reality, good, truth are found to be spiritual, not material.
In her book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy explains matter, and Spirit in scientific detail. After reading this book we cannot help but see matter and reality in a different light: the light of spirituality, which Mary Baker Eddy, Jesus, and many others have explained and demonstrated.
On page 468 of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy says that, “There is no life, truth, intellegence nor substance in matter.” The entire book unfolds the meaning, and issues with this statement, as well as how to demonstrate this in our everyday lives. Many have been healed from physical, emotional, financial, familial, and sinful discomforts by contemplating the profound meaning of this profound statement.
Let us think in light of Mary Baker Eddy’s book. If Spirit is All, then matter must be the suppositional opposite, and unreal. If Spirit is All, matter cannot have substance, since there is nothing beyond or outside of All. If Spirit is All, and Spirit is God, and God is good, then matter cannot be unlike good, and become evil, sick, diseased, limited, diminished, exhausted, depleted, because, there is no matter. All is Spirit. Spirit is our substance, reality, good, strength, understanding, being, life, and the truth of who we are and reflect. Why? Why do I believe this? Because of logic. Spirit is God, and God is all, and all must be spiritual. Where does that put matter and all the many issues surrounding matter? It puts it nowhere, nothing, no issue, no person, no reality. There simply is no matter.
Try thinking for one hour on that statement, “There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter.” After that, go the next sentence, which is the next step in unfolding reality: “All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all.” Now we have to have something in place of matter if we claim there is no matter. We do. It is the allness, goodness, purity, reality, and condition of Spirit, God.
There is so much opportunity out there to demonstration Mary Baker Eddy’s works. We, as students of her writings, need to focus on the Scientific Statement of Being throughout our work days, and not just when we think we have the time. It needs to be our thinking structure and used in what ever setting we find ourselves in. We have a choice between immortal truth, or mortal error. We can choose between accepting Spirituality, or materiality. We can agree with either the first creation story in Genesis, in which God, Spirit made and evolved all, and made man in His spiritual image and likeness, or we can accept man as a miserable sinner, prone to all evil, limitations, illnesses, and disabilities.
Mary Baker Eddy shows that matter is apparent only to lead us to the perfect, harmonious reality of Spirit, inexhaustible good. Where there is truth, there has to be a lie to demonstrate that truth is true. Life cannot be understood as Life without the suppositonal opposite of Life, which is death. Spirit cannot be understood without knowing Spirit’s suppostional opposite, matter. Spirit and matter are eternal opposites. Both cannot be true, or real, because Spirit is All, since Spirit is God, good, and matter could not come forth from its opposite, Spirit.
Son Returning Home Filled with Life,Truth and Love
August 2, 2008 at 12:06 am | In Christian Science, love | Leave a CommentTags: Christian Science, love, son, Summer camp
Tomorrow will be a special day for my son, my wife and myself (and our dog). Our son has been at summer camp for the past two weeks, at Cedars Camp in the Ozarks. This is a Christian Science camp which offers so many fun activities, such as horseback riding, swimming, water slide, caving, art and crafts, canoeing, hymn sings, bible studies, and much more.
He will come back filled with the energy and goodness of Spirit, God. During the two weeks, he has been able to practice, and demonstrate spirituality in ways he never has. He has been able to see things the way God, good sees them, and to demonstrate the fundamentals of Christian Science on his own.
The fundamentals of Christian Science are:
1. God is good.
2. God is All.
3. God is Love.
4. Man (including woman, child) is the image and likeness of God, good.
5. There is no evil, since God is all good, and all Love.
Mary Baker Eddy says in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, on page 6, “God is Love, more than this we cannot ask, higher we cannot look, farther we cannot go.” That is my son’s and my favorite citation from that book. It means so much. God is Love. What is more than God? There is nothing higher, greater, better, farther, or more complete than Love. All of us, as the children of God, which everyone of us is, has to be so grateful, and give gratitude daily, and in every hour, for our inseparability, and unity with the Love that is God, the all good. When you think about it, good is allness of Love. God is good, and therefore, God is Love, and his image, expression, divine idea, is man, you and I.
So, my son will come back from this two week fun fill, spiritual adventure, with a higher spiritual sense of what God is, and what man is. This knowledge is healing, and declaring the Truth. The Truth heals, since Truth is the Love that is all. We cannot want anything outside of God, since God’s Love, goodness, and Truth is infinite. Nothing is bigger than All. Nothing works outside of good.
The foundation of our life, our freedom, our happiness, our supply, our employment, our finances, our friendships, our health, our strength, is God, Love, in which it is impossible to look higher, or go farther.
What is God’s Name if it is not Love
July 31, 2008 at 12:50 am | In Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, love | Leave a CommentTags: Christian Science, God, love, Mary Baker Eddy, Mind, Spirit, spirituality
I saw online someone asking a question, “What is God’s name?” This made me think of Pilate asking Jesus toward the end of Jesus’ life on earth, “What is Truth?” Mary Baker Eddy in her textbook that all Christian Scientists study, answers all throughout that book, the question of what God is, his nature, essence characteristics, lifestyle, aspects, foundation.
Mary Baker Eddy in her revelation of Christian Science, the science that proves Jesus’ words and healings, was led to write down seven names for God, and these seven are, “Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love.” These names say it all, they are more than names, or seven synonymous terms for God. They are God’s seven characteristics as my Christian Science teacher, Glenn Evans, once said. I cherish that very much.
The seven characteristics of God, should be our starting-point everyday, every hour of every day. All is God, and that should be where our thought dwell. Our thought should be reflecting the ligth of Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth and Love. These are healing words when understood, and each characteristic has an infinity of ideas the define, and explain each name, characteristic for God, good.
A statement by Mary Baker Eddy, and one of my favorite because it disciplines my thinking, and tells me how to begin anything. It says:
“The starting-point of divine Science is that God, Spirit is All-in-all, and that there is no other might nor mind,- that God is Love and therefore he is divine Principle.”
Think of the power, and glory in that spiritual truth. God is Spirit, and all, and Love, and Principle, and nothing else is. We begin with God, Spirit, all good, because God is All-in-all, and that is that. We begin with Good, the all-good, because he began with us, His image and likeness, as the book of Genesis in the Bible says.
After contemplating what God is, filling out consciousness with this spiritual food, we next acknowledge what God is not, and that removes sin, sickness, and even death. If God is Spirit, and All-in-all, and Spirit is not matter, than, the opposite of Spirit, which is matter, is not real. God alone is all, all that is real and eternal, and God is Spirit, not matter. He can’t be both sweet water and bitter. God is good, and good is Spirit, and Spirit is God, therefore, in syllogistic logic, there is no matter anywhere. The seven characteristics of God stated above eliminate any opportunity for matter, and the triad of sin, sickness, death, to be real. We have Spirit, and all good, all that is real, lasting, mighty, wonderful. We have God, and his image and likeness, spiritual, harmonious and perfect.
The last name for God, which Mary Baker Eddy gave in answering the question “What is Love”, is Love. God is Love. These are natural in all things. God is Love expressed as man, woman, child, animal, tree, sun, moon, seas, houses. God is doing one thing only: loving. God, good is loving eternally, infinitely, since God is Love. Love is the starting-point, my starting-point, and if you let it, your starting-point. It is only natural.
You can find so much about “Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love” by reading, and studying, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy. This book is a scientific and spiritual explanation of what God, good, is. I make it a part of my day to study this book, and get more familiar with the nature, and essence of Mind, good, Love.
When we are filled with God’s names, nature, essence as reflection, it is easy to start wtih God, and to be the starting-point that says that “there is no other might nor mind,” only God, Spirit, Mind, Love, Principle.
Pages and passages from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:
Page 275: 6-9; Page 465: 8-10
Love is the necessary ingredient
July 28, 2008 at 3:37 pm | In Uncategorized | Leave a CommentTags: God, God is Love, love, Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
A healthy soil needs oxygen. A successful campfire needs oxygen. The process of photosynthesis that takes place in the leaves of trees and other plants, produces oxygen in the air, that we all need. However, something else is needed to be the children of God, the All-in-all. That something Love.
Stronger, more vital, all-embracing, reaching out in all directions, manifesting itself as itself, as perfection, loveliness, goodness, glory, is Love, the Love that is God, good, All-in-all. The love of Love is always loving and manifesting, and the result is you and I. We are Love expressed, and therefore, we are Love’s divine, perfect idea now and forever. The oxygen in our air, the oxygen as God knows it to be, is Love. We breath Love, feel Love, and are constantly nourished and cared from by Love. It is Love, God, good that feeds, and comforts us.
To get anywhere or to do anything successfully, we need to harbor in thought the best concept ever. That concept is, God is Love. Not just words, but, God is Love is all true substance, all reality, all living, all activity, all power, all presence. We can’t go wrong by dwelling on that divine concept in consciousness. God is Love is divine Principle. Where God is Love is, and Love is the divine Principle ordering and governing the universe and all the many interactions in the universe, including earth.
The book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, discusses in scientific, but simple detail, the allness of Love. The author of that book after studying the Bible for years, was spiritually awakened to name God as Love, which is in keeping with the Bible teachings. All through the bible we can read about Love’s healings of all types, and Loves triumph over mortal beliefs. God is Love is explained in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures to give us a better understanding of what God is and Love is, how to apply the concept, God is Love in daily activities.
Since God is all, and God is Love, all is Love, and all is good. Love is perfection, since God is perfect, and therefore, all is perfection, in my experience, and your experience. The Love of God is infinite, eternal, perfect, and perfectly expressing its divine idea, man, woman, and the universe. All is perfect and good in Love. On page 275 of Mary Baker Eddy book, she says, “The starting-point of divine science is that God, Spirit is All-in all, and there is no other might nor mind. That God is Love, and therefore, he is divine Principle.”
The Principle that God is, and which governs man, you and I, is Love. Love does not need material elements such as oxygen. Love just needs Love, and to express Love. All is Love.
Mary Baker Eddy speaks about Life and Abundance
July 23, 2008 at 8:14 pm | In Uncategorized | Leave a CommentTags: abundance, Life, Mary Baker Eddy, Recapitulation, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
Mary Baker Eddy discusses all human issues, including the issue of lack, not having enough, a famine of good things. She discusses this and God’s nature of goodness in her textbook, one that Christian Scientists the world over use and honor: Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.
In her chapter, Recapitulation, there is a question, “What is Life?” This chapter is filled with questions and answers that Mary Baker Eddy used with her students to teach them the healing truths of Christian Science, and to this day, Christian Scientists going through Class Instruction in Christian Science healing practice, get to learn this chapter inside and out, as it is the foundation of the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy.
Going back to the question, “What is Life?” on page 469, the answer reads as follows:
“Life is divine Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit. LIfe is without beginning and without end. Eternity, not time, expresses the thought of Life, and time is no part of eternity. One ceases in proportion as the other is recognized. Time is finite; eternity is forever infinite. Life is neither in nor of matter. What is termed matter is unknown to Spirit, which includes in itself all substance and is Life eternal.”
The definition goes on for a few more sentences. Mary Baker Eddy grasps very well the nature of God as Life. She uses seven synonyms to describe the nature of God, and each is capitalized to give it importance. Underneath each name for God can be listed innumerable qualities for each name or synonym. The seven are: MInd, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love.
Her book is a study of these seven terms, names,synonyms, characteristics for God, and helps us see that God is not just a word, but has profound meaning and practicality. By itself, God means nothing, so we need a scientific explanation, and this explanation is found in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.
When I think of Life from a spiritual perspective I like to think of infinite abundance, infinite supply, infinite nourishment. Life is used in the bible as father, fatherhood, origin, abundant good. Life’s idea or image is man and the universe. Therefore, in a scientific, and spiritual perspective, man has abundance since God is Life, and God is all, and God is good. This, I am so grateful for, and shouldn’t we all be. God, our Father, Creator, has given us abundant good, and we don’t always see it or feel it. We see lack, impoverishment, missing abundance. Yet, if we see as God sees, we can only see everything made by God as good, perfect, and harmonious. The Holy Bible will reinforce this idea. Genesis says that “God saw everything that he made and behold it was very good.” That has always been one of the favorite bible versus among Christian Scientists.
One way to understand better, the idea of life, which is abundance, is by replacing the words, “Life,” and “eternity,” in the answer to Mary Baker Eddy’s question, “What is Life?” Then, we can reread it understanding that time, beginning, ending, finiteness and matter have nothing to do with abundance, the abundance of God, all-living Life.
The Life of abundance has always been our Life, our abundance. God has made us in the image and likeness of abundance, and really, the statement that man is image and likeness, which comes from the bible book of Genesis, is saying that man has everything that God has, which is infinity. The statement could have said that the universe, all animals, geological formations, the seas, and man, are the image and likeness. However, no where in the bible is anything stated as the image and likeness of God, except for man. This must make us feel special, as God’s perfect child. Man is the highest idea of God, and so is never without infinite good, infinite supply, infinte ideas of Mind, the one good, all-creative Mind, God.
Our Most Important Questions Answered by Mary Baker Eddy
July 21, 2008 at 9:02 pm | In Christian Science, system | Leave a CommentTags: God, Life, love, Mary Baker Eddy, Mind, Principle, Recapitulation, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Soul, Spirit, truth
In the chapter called Recapitulation, Mary Baker Eddy’s book, Science and Health with Key to the Scripures, we find a series of questions and answeres starting with the most basic and important out the universe, to the more human, and local. The first question she asks is, “What is God?” This is the fundamental question.
Mary Baker Eddy’s books and many of her articles discuss the nature, essence and meaning of God from a purely scientific perspective. She names God as Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love, and these seven names symbolize completeness, since seven in the Bible is the symbol for completeness. These seven synonymous terms for God include All-in-all, all there is to man, and the universe. All things are included in these seven.
When we make them a constant companion in thought, we see healings and Truth’s revelation of health and harmony. We see God present everywhere. The “I” is saying, “I am Mind, and I see as Mind sees. I am Spirit, and I see spiritually all the goodness around me, infinity. I am Soul, and I see joy, and spiritual understanding. I am Principle. Harmony is all. All is harmony: harmonious Principle, and harmonious idea. I am Life, and I see my idea man, living, and being, harmonious, and perfect. I am Truth, and I see the ideal of all, the real and eternal. I am Love, and I see only the infinite abundance of perfection.
Other questions in this chapter include: “What is the Scientific Statement of Being?” The answer to that question is so profound, and should be our daily prayer. It is the foundation of life. It starts off like this:
“There is no life, truth, intelligence or substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God, is All-in-all.”
Isn’t that a revolutionary statement to the mortal, erring senses that influence us. The first about matter just throws matter out the window. the second establishes what is already established in Genesis 1 in the Bible: God, the Creator, and his perfect, good creation.
Take time to ponder the many questions and answers in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. The answers are healings, praise, prayers, truthful affirmation of the infinite good, which is Mind, Spirit, God.
Infinite Love Sustains Us
July 19, 2008 at 10:59 pm | In Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, Mind, Spirit, love | Leave a CommentTags: Christian Science, God's creation, infinite Love, love, Mary Baker Eddy, Mind, Spirit
Mary Baker Eddy in her classic work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, writes on page 567, “To infinite ever-present Love, all is Love, and there is no error, sin, sickness and death.”
To God, who is infinite Love, all is Love, and that is all that God can see. God, Love only sees loveliness, and perfection in everything. The book of Genesis says that “God saw everything he had made, and behold it was very good.” Now that is not just good, but it says, “very good.” I interpret “very good” as Loveliness, and perfection. God could not see anything less than loveliness and perfection in everyone and everything, since he is the potter who formed the clay, the Creator who created all ideas in the Mind of Love. God is the Father-Mother of the universe, and his Kingdom is here right now, as Jesus even stated, in the phrase, “Thy kingdom come,” and “behold, the kingdom of God is at hand.”
If God is the Father and King of his infinite, perfect kingdom, that we are the sons and daughters of God, the King, and therefore, we have everything our father, the King has in his kingdom. Our blessings are wealth, and running over. We are the sons and daughters of the King, and our King is divine Love, infinite good, the perfect Creator, all-knowing, and all-seeing Mind.
Christian Science teaches all this, and makes this practical on a daily basis.
Mary Baker Eddy has a chapter in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, devoted to the Bible book, Genesis. That chapter is very important to study in light of the biblical seven days of creation, which are seven days of thought. In that chapter we learn that each day of creation is identified by one of the seven names for God that Mary Baker Eddy teaches: MInd, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love. Together these seven names, and the seven days of creation represent the idea of perfection and completeness. Seven is seen in a number of places in the Bible under this meaning. When we see ourselves as God’s creation, having all that God has as his image and likeness, or his reflection, we see our completeness, wholeness, loveliness and perfection, and behold, we were made “very good.”
The Joseph Story is a bedrock of Trust
July 19, 2008 at 3:27 pm | In Life, love | Leave a CommentTags: bible, coat of many colors, famine, God, Joseph, love, old testament, trust
One of my favorite bible stories is the story of Joseph in the Old Testament. Joseph symbolizes unfaltering trust in God. Never once, during that story, during all his trials, did he not trust his Creator, infinite Mind, infinite Good. He was always about doing the right thing, and Joseph embodies the right, the pure, the loving, the unshakable will to follow Principle, and to trust God, Good.
Remember, Joseph was the youngest son of the 12 sons of Jacob, and he was envied by his older brothers because of his closeness to their father, and the things their father did for Joseph that were not done for the older brothers. The father made Joseph a beautiful coat of many colors, a coat that had to have been product of a lot of hard work. The brothers set up a plan, or rather, a plot to remove Joseph from their presence, and the presence of their father. The destroyed his coat one day, threw him into a pit of limestone, left him to be sold into slavery, and lied to their father and said that a wild beast devoured Joseph, and tore his coat of many colors.
Joseph never once took out revenge towards his brothers or had any sense of hate. Joseph was always loving, and kind. This will be seen later in the story when Joseph has the job of providing for, and feeding the people of the lands of Pharaoh, with food, particularly corn, during the seven years of famine that came about. Joseph’s father, who had no idea of Joseph’s position as the right hand man of Pharaoh, and the one in charge of the food supply, sent his sons to Egypt to purchase food, since the famine was impacting all the world around Egypt. Joseph loving supplied his brothers with corn, and filled their bags to overflowing, and also gave them their money back so that in reality, they received food for free. Joseph had the power to hurt his brothers and put them away for ever, but he loved them regardless of their animosity toward’s him, the loving Joseph.
This story is so filled with the abundance of Life, Truth and Love. Life expressed in that Joseph was not destroyed, the people were not destroyed during the horrible famine, and Joseph’s family were not harmed. Truth was expressed by the healing power of God’s lovingkindness, reflected in the care and affection shown by Joseph towards his brothers. He even cried after revealing him to them. They felt that divine Love that corrects every situation, and felt bad for what they did years ago to Joseph. They overcame their envy, their hate, and learned a lesson of love.
Mary Baker Eddy in her work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, gives the spiritual meaning of the bible character, Joseph. She says in the Glossary chapter, page 589, that Joseph, is “a higher sense of Truth rebuking mortal belief, or error, and showing the immortality and supremacy of Truth; pure affection blessing its enemies.”
Does that not fit the character Joseph. We too, can put on this Joseph thinking, being, character and express those qualities of affection, blessedness, truthfulness, and have a higher sense of Truth instead of a limiting human sense. Each bible character serves to lead us higher in our spiritual understanding. It is not so much the events of a story rather than the development of the main character in the story that is important.
The Ideas in the Leaves
November 18, 2007 at 2:52 am | In America, Americanism, Founders, trees | Leave a CommentTags: american, constitution, franklin, leaf, leaves
Think of all the leaves on all the trees on earth, and what if each leaf is a symbol for an idea. If the ideas are divine, they are endless, always unfolding to the receptive thought. The founding fathers of America entertained divine ideas when they created an unprecedented system of humane government, and a platform of human rights, protected by a constitution. All wrapped up in the American system, the tools established and brought forward, such as the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist papers, state constitutions, paved the way for the highest standard of living ever experienced on earth, the strongest economy on earth, many inventions to raise the standard of living for all populations on earth, a compassionate people, and many technological advances.
Each leaf, a mirror of perfection, proof of God’s good presence, an expression of continuation. The American system is like that, in its founding platform. It is either kept or lost. The platform remaind, but people decide whether they want it or reject it. The dark ages came and took away the earlier attempts at democracy and republicanism. Benjamin Franklin commented that the founders created a republic if the citizens can keep it.
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