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Cherish GEMs that show YOU connected to the only power in the Universe!
insights from Cobbey Crisler, Ken Cooper and others from the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“Is the Universe, including Man, Evolved bt Atomic Force?”
shared by Warren Huff
CedarS Executive Director Emeritus warren@cedarscamps.org
NOW YOU CAN ALSO SEE on YouTube a KEN COOPER POEM, “Blessings”, as well as “Under His Shadow.” Both offerings bring extra inspiration to this week’s Bible Lesson.
[Ken wrote:] “The Golden Text this week can be seen as the forerunner of the first two lines of the Lord’s Prayer, – “Our Father which art in heaven – Our Father Mother God, all harmonious, Hallowed be Thy name – Adorable One” (SH 16:). It is establishing God in His rightful place, giving the starting point of all prayer and worship. The CEV translation of “Blessed be thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise” is “Praise his wonderful name, though he is greater than words can express.”, – i.e. “Adorable One”.
It also provides a link to The Sermon on the Mount, and the Beatitudes, for when we bless God we receive the blessings of God. A heart filled with praise for God is a pure heart. The theme of blessedness is “Love reflected in love”, the power of Love blessing all the actions of man.
When we lean on something we put our trust on what we rest upon. The more we lean, the greater the trust! The opening lines of our textbook “To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, today is big with blessings” (citation S32) cover the whole lesson. The poem “Blessings”, just today available with YouTube video, looks at just how much we lean, and what blessings ensue when we love God with a full commitment. When we love, we are expressing what God is, and we receive everything that God is, for God and man are one. The blessings that He unfolds are necessarily infinite, and they are unconditional. The universe is God’s creation. and is there for us all. We are God’s universe, and reflect the only power there is.
The Bible begins with Genesis, and ends with Revelation, everything in between is the unfoldment to human consciousness of Alpha and Omega. In Genesis 1:31(to 1st.) we read “And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good”. In Revelation 7:12 (blessing (to 1st.) we read “Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever.” (cit. B1)
In the monologue/poem “Under His Shadow” (set against music and sound), the story of Jesus calming the waves is shared. From out of nowhere (!) a storm arises that threatens the disciples but left Jesus untouched. Even though their ship was near sinking, the calmness of Jesus was soon made evident in the calmness of everything around him. The mighty storm was no more. “He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still” (cit. B14). All the forces of nature, which would attempt to supersede the power of God, were overcome with the authority of Jesus’ words “Peace be still” (see Mark 4:30-41). This “miracle” soon after the start of Jesus’ mission, made such an important point, that the control of everything is via the “Word”, that is, spiritual evolution, not material. Spiritual blessings are eternal, – and infinite. We can never be without them, are never without them. The disciples could not see this in the midst of the storm, but in the stillness of Jesus’ rebuttal of this wrong belief, peace was restored. We have the comfort that God removes all storms, all challenges, anything unlike Him.
What greater indication can we have of God’s infinite blessings, and man the recipient of all good!
Copies of the poems in color and B&W can be found at the top of this week’s metaphysical article and of this email. Ken’s full listing of YouTube videos is at https://www.youtube.com/c/KenGCooperPoetry/videos
Ken’s email is kengcooper@btinternet.com.”
EXPERIENCE NO WAITING, NO SIDE-EFFECTS OR AFTER-EFFECTS with GOD’S HEALING & PREVENTATIVE CARE!
Cobbey Crisler on Ps. 33:9, 11, between verses of citation B2)
[Cobbey:] “Psalm Chapter 33, Verse 9, we’ve already alluded to. The swiftness of God’s treatment.
It’s not a process, according to the Bible. It’s not recuperation. It’s not convalescence, or gradual recovery. “He spake, and it was [done].” In case we have had room in our thinking for a possibility of relapse, it is stated, “He commanded, and it stood fast.” No side effects, no after effects.
In Psalm 33, Verse 11, “The advice or counsel of the LORD stands” for how long? “For
ever.” What good is that, if we aren’t there forever to receive such advice? “The thoughts of his
heart to all generations.” What good are God’s thoughts unless those are the potions we are
supposed to be taking, imbibing, ingesting. God’s thoughts, His potions. Take them, eat them up,
drink them in. That makes the Bible a pharmacopoeia which is a word the dictionary says
describes “preparations issued by official authority and recognized as a standard.”
[Voice from audience] Pharmacopoeia, which is a word that in its ordinary meaning without
uplifting it to what the Bible would require of the term anew would just simply be an
authority to which one would turn to know where the remedies all are.
Psalm 34:19. We have the therapeutic and the prophylactic. We have the healing and the preventive art. “Many of the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all. ” That’s the therapeutic power of God. But it goes even a step further in Verse 20, “He keepeth all his bones. ” That means “He guards or protects all his bones not one of them is broken. ” [It] is the prophylactic, the preventive, power of God’s therapy.
APPLY GOD’S PROMISE OF BEING UPHELD TO ALL WHO SERVE TO THE DELIGHT OF GOD’S SOUL! “Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.” (Isaiah 42:1, citation B11)
Cobbey Crisler on Isa. 42:1 (citation B11)) +verse 6
“Chapter 42:1 is a prophesy of a servant who should come, the “elect of God” who would have “the Spirit of God upon him.” [W: In Verse 6 there’s a shift from God calling this elect servant in the third person, to God calling YOU and holding your hand, and keeping YOU, to give YOU “for a covenant of the people, for a light to the Gentiles.” You will notice in Verse 7 – and in Isaiah 61:1 – what the assignment of this servant (YOU) would be, “To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, [and] them that sit in darkness out of the prison house (W: or out of a lockdown, shelter-in-place or quarantine).”
[Cobbey again:] “Isn’t it interesting that the prophet Isaiah foresees this prophesied individual in the terms of “a servant” when the Greek word most often in the New Testament for healing has the classical Greek meaning of “to serve.” You remember how Jesus defined his ministry in those terms, “I came not to be ministered unto but to minister” [Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45]. Healing is serving by definition in Greek. Serving whom? God and man.”
“Heal the Sick”: A Scriptural Record,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
[Warren:] These prophesies in Isaiah foretell the coming of Christ as God’s healing servant. But the verse in our Bible lesson also promises that YOU are the called this called and healing servant who will be upheld. That is a promise of protection that you can specifically affirm in your prayer walks and watches— not only for yourself, but also for all our brave workers in health care, law enforcement, food supply, election polling, and other essential lines of service. All the dear ones who seek to restore freedom and harmony to our communities, to our country, and to our whole world have been clad in Love’s complete protection as they (you, we) have “pictured this heaven and earth, inhabited by beings under the control of supreme wisdom” (SH 91:2).
Florence Nightingale, a famous wartime nurse in the Crimean war, was cited by Mary Baker Eddy as a great example of the endurance and immunity in the moment that God gives to all who provide care for and serve others. She wrote: “…Florence Nightingale and other philanthropists engaged in humane laborers have been able to undergo without sinking fatigues and exposures which ordinary people could not endure. The explanation lies in the support which they derive from the divine law, rising above the human. The spiritual demand, quelling the material, supplies energy and endurance surpassing all other aids, and forestalls the penalty which our beliefs would attach to our best deeds… Constant toil, deprivations, exposures, and all untoward conditions, if without sin, can be experienced without suffering. Whatever it is your duty to do, you can do without harm to yourself.” (Science & Health, p. 385:2)
[W:] Check out on JSH-online an excellent Journal podcast by Janet Horton, a retired US Army Chaplain. It gives context to the above passage by sharing a brief biography of Florence Nightingale and her tireless labors for the soldiers during the Crimean War. She also shares an example of the pulling together and protection that she and others in the Pentagon demonstrated when it was struck by the high-jacked aircraft on 9/11.
[W:] As I was praying to see as divinely protected all the world’s front-line, health care providers, including all dear Christian Science nurses—and all patients as well, I continued to read page 395 in the chapter, “Christian Science Practice.” I found especially helpful the paragraph with the marginal heading of “Mental Quackery.” There it says: “It is mental quackery to make disease a reality—to hold it (the coronavirus) as something to be seen and felt—and then to attempt its cure through Mind…. Mental practice, which holds disease as a reality, fastens disease on the patient and it may appear in a more alarming form.” (SH 395:21)
BE PATIENT & EVER READY, LIKE SIMEON, TO ACCEPT A NONPOLITICAL LAMB as the Comforter & Redeemer of all mankind, delivering lasting freedom from the inside out! Cobbey Crisler on Luke 2:25-32/cit. B12 on Simeon, + verses 36-38 on prophetess Anna
Cobbey on Simeon: “It says in Verse 25 that Simeon “was waiting for the consolation of Israel… That word “consolation” is very close, the same root, as the Greek word translated “comforter” by Jesus… He says in Verse 30, ‘Mine eyes have seen thy salvation.. Verse 32 says, ‘A light to lighten the Gentiles…’” The old prophet Simeon recognizes the Christ, even as an infant, as God’s answer to the prayers of Israel for a comforter and redeemer of all mankind.
Most Jews were praying for and expecting their liberator would be one who would militarily free Israel from occupation by foreigners. They were looking for a political lion, but God sent them what they really needed, a non-political lamb—one who would give them lasting freedom (from the inside out)—no matter the political circumstances. [Are we always open to the solutions God provides, even when they don’t take the forms we expect?]
Bonus postlude from Cobbey on Anna: “In Verse 36 we find a woman, Anna, as well, not only a prophet, but a prophetess. Luke is telling us something here. The access to inspiration is equal. It doesn’t matter if you’re male or female. The ability to prophesy, the access to God, is direct. The woman doesn’t have to go through anyone in order to get to God, even though the whole Judaic ecclesiastical structure was built that way.”
“Luke the Researcher,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
”IN CHRIST BE MADE ALIVE!” Cobbey Crisler on I Corinthians 15:22/cit. B13
[Cobbey:] “…If our thesis as presented is accurate, that the implication of Paul’s statement in I Corinthians 15:22/cit. B13: “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” presents problem and solution, or remedy, then one of the greatest research jobs awaiting all of us is to get back into that problem called Adam which we’re all wrestling with.
Just make a list of everything you detect that Adam did wrong mentally and physically. Because, if it is true that Jesus’ mission was to remedy the Adam man and wipe that alternative off the face of man’s consciousness, then everything that Adam did wrong which was upside down Jesus is going to put right side up and prove that man is upright. Many things may occur to you, for instance in the initial phases of such a list which we could just touch upon. Adam’s problem occurred in what environment? The garden of Eden. Where did Jesus face down and confront that Adam-problem? The Garden of Gethsemane. Is this a coincidence? Is Gethsemane intended to be the remedy for the problems of Eden in our own thinking? I love in that context to remember Isaiah’s words [Isaiah 1:29] when he says, “Ye shall be confounded for the gardens ye have chosen.” Eden, Gethsemane.
Adam’s problem, though, is probably symbolized most graphically by what? He had been told not to do something, what was it? “Not to eat of that tree” [Genesis 3:3]. Instead he went and did it. The disobedience, doing one’s own will, would have to be totally remedied right up with the same even greater peak pressure on a humanhood that had just announced to the world that the way to get out of this Adam-mess is to yield to God’s will regardless of the pressure upon you, so [it’s] doing God’s will versus doing one’s own will. (“Jesus presented the ideal man… By his obedience to God he demonstrated more spiritually than all others the Principle of being.” (cit. S7/25:16)
The tree of knowledge of good and evil. You know that the New Testament refers several times to the cross as the tree, that they nailed Jesus to the tree [Acts 13:29; 1Peter 2:24]. Interesting symbolism. The attempt to nail Jesus as if he were one more in the dying race of Adam, to be nailed to death, and that’s the termination and the end of anything that he would offer man radically as salvation. Jesus could not be nailed on the cross any more than God’s man could be nailed on the cross, and thus his theology was exemplified.
Do you remember, – just things like this to show you how much fun this work can be as well – part of the curse on Adam [Genesis 3:17,18] was that thorns will be brought forth unto him. Did Jesus have to face Adam’s thorns on that weekend?
“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread…dust thou [art], and unto dust shalt thou return” [Genesis 3:19]. The grave was the pressure of the dust he was to return to. There are many other details showing the complete reversal of the Adam. It’s as if the highest sense of mind on earth, which had relinquished its right to mind except by reflection, is turning everything right side up just as we do visually. That topic is far from being exhausted. In fact, what can exhaust an infinite reservoir? It’s one thing about supply in the Bible. It’s never consumed. Therefore, there are no consumers.
We’re going to review the actual events of the Gethsemane experience and see some of the differences. What Jesus faced, what he was remedying, why he was there and see that we must, just for gratitude’s sake alone, have a stake in that Gethsemane, pioneer work. But then we must take it beyond this. We must go and do likewise.
Matthew 26:30 “When they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives.” A hymn before Gethsemane. That shows the value Jesus places on such an uplifting of thought through the conjoining of music and words. The meaning that is often conveyed even more deeply to us when we have that unity of soul expressed by thought in that manner.
Matthew 26:36 “Jesus comes to a place called Gethsemane,” the oil press.
“The Gethsemane Decision,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
GET OUT OF A LIMITED, MORTAL SHELL! NO EGG ORIGIN FOR YOU!
[Cobbey Crisler introductory comments on I Cor. 15:50:] “Another conclusion is coming through Paul’s receptivity. He presents two views, one with man within an egg origin, one out of an egg origin. A chicken takes 10,000 pecks to get out of its shell of limitation. Bible pioneers like Paul worked hard to get out of their limited, mortal shells and they communicated this to us. [Mary Baker Eddy says, “Mortals must emerge … They must peck open their shells with Christian Science…” (cit. S17/552:16-19)
I Corinthians 15, verse 50 “…flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.”
One might ask “Why are we trying to drag flesh along as if it’s a party?” [This relates to Mary Baker Eddy’s observation: “Being in sympathy with matter, the worldly man is at the beck and call of error, and will be attracted thitherward.” [S&H 21:25] Take up your bed and walk—Mind suddenly takes on the glow of our original glory.”
Transcribed from notes in the margins of Warren’s Bible from a talk given by Cobbey Crisler
FIND FRESH WAYS TO EXPRESS AND EXPERIENCE “GOD’S BEING …(OF) INFINITY, freedom, harmony and boundless bliss.” (SH 481:23) “Sing unto God a new song.” (Psalm 96:1) even “…a new song in … praise unto our God.” (Psalm 40:3) as outlined in the Bible Lesson this week, you and I will fully expect fun, fresh ways for God to supply answers to our every need. We are given examples of this in the way that even ravens supplied Elijah’s needs (I Kings 17:1-6) and in how Christ Jesus continues to give “living water” to us like he did to the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:7-26).
As our lives sing with new manifestations of “infinity, freedom, harmony, and boundless bliss,” (SH 481:23), all their supposed opposites will naturally be ruled out of us thereby enabling us to overcome: every lie of limitation; every seemingly enslaving habit; every thought of inharmony, division and strife; and every unhappiness arising from disappointed human will.
What a relief to know that it’s by God’s will and “amazing grace”— not by any of our own efforts, other than that of leaning on God — that we are given lives “big with blessings.” As Mary Baker Eddy has proven and promised: “To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings” (cit. S22, vii:1) What could be bigger blessings for us than daily demonstrations that the newness of Life in God is ALL-inclusive: “Behold, I make all things new!” (Revelation 21:5).
CHERISH UNIVERSAL HUMANITY—DO GOOD FOR ALL MANKIND WITH THE SPIRIT & KNOWLEDGE OF A “WALK TO EMMAUS”! Cobbey Crisler on Acts 10:38/cit. B20) (+ surrounding verses 34-40)
“Acts 10, verse 34, begins a lecture or sermon to the first group of Gentiles. And the opening statement that Peter makes is one that could be well considered by every denomination of Christianity today… Here Peter expressed his new view of God, that God is no respecter of persons, that God speaks to receptivity.
Acts 10:34 Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:
This new view of God, of course, leads to this next question: Should man as well be no respecter of persons? This is a tradition-shattering concept.
And Acts 10, verse 35, Peter summarizes it by saying “in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.” …
Then he begins to explain to Cornelius and the friends and acquaintances of Cornelius, the history of early Christianity. “The beginning of Christianity is traced from Galilee after John’s baptism, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth.” … Of course, that word “anointed” immediately identifies Jesus as the Messiah. This is a point that Peter is obviously going to get across to this Gentile audience that would need some instruction in this. (See below)
Acts 10:38 How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.
And you find in Acts 10, verse 43, he does that by stating that “all the prophets had given witness to the Messiah, namely Jesus.” …
As soon as Peter gets into this “Walked to Emmaus” approach, in other words the comprehension of Jesus’ role in the earlier scripture, we find in Acts 10, verse 44 that “the Holy Ghost falls on all the listeners.” …
It wasn’t Peter’s idea that this should happen; it’s at the Holy Ghost’s initiative. This is disturbing to some of those that came with Peter: Jewish Christians.
And we will find it becomes even more disturbing to other elements in the church later on, for this is a departure. The question underlying this event is “Should the church be parochial or universal?” Is it simply a sect of Judaism or an outcome of Judaism, or is it the fulfillment of God’s will as expressed in prophecy with its ultimate mission to embrace universal humanity?”
“After the Master What? – The Book of Acts” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
MBE was one of her day’s BEST-KNOWN WOMEN & REVOLUTIONARY THINKERS!
MBE (Mary Baker Eddy) –like the “Notorious RBG” (Ruth Bader Ginsberg) in recent years —was a revolutionary thinker, way ahead of her time. She wrote and lived in a remarkable way with a profound, spiritual understanding that liberated humanity!**
For example, Mary Baker Eddy (MBE) wrote: “Fixing your gaze on the realities supernal, you will rise to the spiritual consciousness of being, even as the bird which has burst from the egg and preens its wings for a skyward flight” (S28, Science and Health 261:27). But in her day, researchers had not yet discovered and documented how “super-precocial” chicks of the “megapodes” came out of their eggs “completely independent…which hatch fully feathered, their eyes open and capable of flight.” [according to W’s Class Instruction notes]
Also see www.audubon.org/news/the-art-hatching-egg-explained (A video about Australian Brush Turkey chicks that illustrates this at https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Australian+Brush+Turkey&&view=detail&mid=D18F12E1C492D412064AD18F12E1C492D412064A&FORM=VRDGAR
**HERE’S ANOTHER “WAY AHEAD of HER TIME” EXAMPLE WRITTEN by Mary Baker Eddy: “The light of spiritual understanding gives gleams of the infinite only, even as nebulae indicate the immensity of space.” (Science and Health 509:18)
This is another example of how Mary Baker Eddy in her writing of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures was way ahead of her time in referring to this phenomenon that had not yet been discovered or explained scientifically. She could only do this by humbly, sincerely listening to her all-knowing, divine Mind.
A Christian Scientist friend of mine, Chuck Douglas, was an avid amateur astronomer and the Kansas City dad of CedarS staff friends, Charlie Douglas, Carol Douglas and Elaine Douglas Boudreaux). Chuck had the wisdom and the occasion to ask a professional astronomer what a woman author could have meant when she stated “even as nebulae indicate the immensity of space.” (509:18) The astronomer asked when this insightful observation was made and was amazed that Mary Baker Eddy wrote the first edition of Science & Health in 1875 and its last (418th) edition in 1906. He explained that it was not until 1929 when American astronomer, Edwin Hubble (who the Hubble Space Telescope is named after) was the first to describe the redshift phenomenon and tie it to an expanding universe and exploding stars (nebulae) as explained further at https://www.space.com/25732-redshift-blueshift.html in 1990 when the Hubble Space telescope was launch into its orbit around the earth astronomers’ able to see more distant nebulae and to measure the speed at which their exploding light was simultaneously moving towards observers at light speed in a blueshift spectrum of light and away from us at light speed in a redshift spectrum of light. If you download the amazing pictures of the red and blue light from Helix Nebulae (in the upper right part of thus GEM’s online version), imagine this and countless other nebulae expanding in opposite directions at the speed of light of 186,282 miles per second—with no end in sight! Now, that “indicates immensity”!
** ANOTHER ADVANCED STATEMENT by MARY BAKER EDDY CLOSES EVERY SUNDAY SERVICE:
Dr. Albert Einstein, when he was a professor at Princeton University, is said to have said privately of Mary Baker Eddy’s “Scientific Statement of Being” (SH 468:8-15): “That is the most profound statement ever uttered by mankind.” He is also said to have quipped to a research colleague, Christian Scientist, Dr. Underwood, “Had I known of the “Scientific Statement of Being” sooner, I could have developed my Theory of Relativity ten years sooner.”
Mary Baker Eddy said of her “Scientific Statement of Being”:
*“St. Paul said to the Athenians, ‘For in Him we live and move and have our being.’ This statement is in substance identical with my own: ‘There is no life, truth, substance, nor intelligence in matter.’ It is quite clear that this great verity has not yet been fully demonstrated, but it is nevertheless true. If Christian Science reiterates Paul’s teaching, we, as Christian Scientists, should give to the world convincing proof of the validity of this scientific statement of being. Having perceived, in advance of others, this scientific fact, we owe to ourselves and to the world a struggle for its demonstration.”
“Retrospection & Introspection,” p. 93: 17, Mary Baker Eddy’s quote & comment on Acts 17:28.
