Application GEMs to JOYFULLY CLAIM YOUR CHILDLIKE PLACE AS LOVE’S RADIANT IMAGE & EXPRESSION!
Monday, August 29th, 2022
By Warren Huff (with insights from Cobbey Crisler)
Click here to print PDF version
Application GEMs to JOYFULLY CLAIM YOUR CHILDLIKE PLACE AS LOVE’S RADIANT IMAGE & EXPRESSION!
Let God Expressed Meekly/Mightily in you sparkle brightly with new insights from Cobbey Crisler & others as inspired by The Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“MAN”
for August 29 – September 4, 2022
(Cobbey’s insights are shared with the blessing of Janet Crisler janetcrisler7@gmail.com)
by Warren Huff, CedarS Executive Director Emeritus, warren@cedarscamps.org
REFUSE TO ACCEPT THE FLESH AS THE CONTAINER OF YOUR INDIVIDUALITY!
Strve for freedom from the flesh according to Paul from Romans 8:16, 17/cit. B2 (+v. 5-9, 19-21):
“For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.” (plus, verse 6 bonus— “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” (cit. B12/Romans 6:6, KJV)
[Warren] The Contemporary English Version (CEV) translates this citation as “People who are ruled by their desires think only of themselves. Everyone who is ruled by the Holy Spirit thinks about spiritual things. If our minds are ruled by our desires, we will die. But if our minds are ruled by the Spirit, we will have life and peace.”
[Warren] The Living Bible (TLB) renders these verses: “Those who let themselves be controlled by their lower natures live only to please themselves, but those who follow after the Holy Spirit find themselves doing those things that please God. 6 Following after the Holy Spirit leads to life and peace, but following after the old nature leads to death.”
Cobbey Crisler writes about how Paul continues to develop this theme in Romans 8:9/cit. B12.
[Cobbey:] on Romans 8:9 “How many auditoriums would empty in ridicule if Paul stood before them today and announced, “You are not in the flesh”? That’s an invitation to laughter, isn’t it? “You are not in the flesh,” Paul said. Flesh is not the container, then, of our individuality. We [are encouraged to think that] we are [our bodies]. We’re proud of that “fact”. We have turned the glory into shame by thinking out from the basis of flesh. We suffer from the incurred problems of an evolution that traces itself back through dust-like levels, so that heredity becomes a problem in health. We take pride in those “designer-genes” that form our genetic code.
In the Bible it’s a case of choosing between Genesis or genetics. Genesis (1:1, 25) has us in the beginning created by God with dominion and in God’s image. So, flesh cannot be part of that image. Where are we seeing ourselves? “Adam, where art thou?” (Genesis 3:9)
Where are we instead of in the flesh according to Romans 8, Verse 9? We’re “in the spirit” That’s home, then. Do we really feel at home in the Spirit? To be inspired is to have Spirit within, literally, in Latin. Do we enjoy living in an inspired state? Everything moves aside. Everything is subordinated to that inspiration. “we’re in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwells in us.” …
EXERCISE YOUR SPIRITUAL SENSE MINDSET AS A CHILD OF GOD & FIND IT EASY & LIBERATING TO BE DIVINE!
Cobbey Crisler on citation B2/Romans 8:16, 17 & verses around it, plus Col. 3:2-4 & Hymn 370)
In Romans 8:16/Golden Text, Paul tells the Romans and us that “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.”
[In his comments on the following verse, Cobbey expands on this:] “Paul says in Romans 8:17 “We are joint heirs with Christ,” – inheritors of the divine being. We are sharers, “partakers of the divine nature.”(2nd Pet. 1:4)
[W.] So, let’s be Part-takers in God’s Cast of children — typecast to be spiritual – with a natural spiritual sense mindset!
(Cobbey on Colossians 3:2) Have you heard the modern expression mind-set? Verse 2 is almost that literally in Greek. “That our mind-set must be on things above.” Can we have an inner spiritual sense entertained that provides the divine reason for our being, even when we’re living on the earth at a human level if we “set our mind on things above, not on things of the earth”?
(Verse 3) “For ye are dead.” That’s exactly what the body is. If we are to be absent from the body, the body itself is now dead to our thought and our thought no longer responds to it. No longer worships it. The Greek word means to be away from something, to be separated from. “And your life,” we haven’t lost anything then. “Our life is,” or literally, “has been hidden with Christ in God.”
[Warren: Hymn 370 echoes this verse: “Hid with Christ in God, O gladness: / O the meekness and the might, / When the risen Christ has lifted / All our thoughts into the light, …”
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 370:2)
(Cobbey again on Verse 4,) “When Christ, [who is] our life, shall appear,” what about us? “We also will appear.”
“We will appear with him,” How? “In glory.” In imperishable radiance. That’s not an abstraction. It is supersensible, but it’s concrete being. It’s a sharing of the glorious liberty of the children who find it natural to be divine.”
(bonus verses from Romans 8)
In Verse 19 would you agree with Paul that “the earnest expectation of the whole human race is waiting for this manifestation of the sons of God”? That it could be manifested, this sense of glory?
“Verse 21 mentions “the creature itself.” Look what is going to happen to the human body as the result of the evangelization of our mentality. As our mentality becomes more and more like God, the human body, “the creature itself, also shall be delivered.” There’s freedom, freedom from “every ill that flesh is heir to,” as Shakespeare says. “Delivered from the slavery,” literally in Greek, “the bondage of corruption,” “the slavery of decay into,” literally, “the freedom of the children of God.” The divine mode of being, as one dictionary says glory is, “into the freedom of the glory of the divine mode of being, of the divine nature, of the radiant thought of the children of God.”
If (only) all our thoughts could be at the level of such radiance. We’ve seen light come out from a human expression. We’ve met people who radiate a sense of insight… That’s in the fleshly. That’s simply an outward manifestation of what’s going on within. More should be going on within. And we’re spending most of our time trying to dress the without.”
“Glory: Divine Nature in The Bible,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
AWAKE from the ADAM DREAM to SALVATION from SIN, DISEASE & DEATH!
Cobbey Crisler on Genesis 1 (citation B5) & Genesis 2
Can we change choices if we have made the wrong ones? Do you find the Bible filled with this choice-making? How does it open, for instance?
Genesis 1 (cit. B5) and Genesis 2 are clearly a choice, aren’t they? They contradict each other. We really cannot live with both although most of us are undoubtedly trying. The necessity to make a decision, important decision, relates back to how the pioneer Christian made his decision. Whether he himself has that rock beneath him, as we said, before he made any rules. Or whether he, too, vacillated and was dualistic, and was pulled to and fro, according to the motion of Satan in the Book of Job (Job 1:7; 2:2).
… Jesus, prior to going to Gethsemane, as you recall, sang hymns [Matthew 26:30], prayed with his disciples [Matthew 26:35, 42, 44] and for them, as well as for those who were to believe on him through the words of his disciples.
I’m not sure one could point to a more meaningful event in history than when Jesus, about to suffer the cruelty of Gethsemane and Calvary, spends his last moments praying for us whom he had never known physically, for those who believe on his disciples through their words.
… This Adam-problem is something that is not limited to the discussion in Genesis. We find it referred to and alluded to throughout the Bible, as if it represents in symbols the human problem. One Bible commentator in discussing the choice between the Adam-man and the Christ-man, represented by Jesus, indicates that the way these terms are used in the New Testament especially, it looks like the intent is that each one, Adam and Jesus, are representatives of an entirely different human race. They are completely opposite. Humanhood following Jesus is ending up at a destination completely opposed to the destination of the Adam followers. There may be something in humanhood we have barely glimpsed, if at all.
Jesus found what humanhood could be when the Divine was behind it every step of the way. There is nothing in Jesus’ humanhood that could stop the Divine from manifesting itself on earth as in heaven. This may be our decision we’re talking about.
Jesus refused to allow anything to obstruct the divine will from operating on earth. Look what he was able to do with his own humanhood as well as with the humanhood of others as a result. He could take his fragile, one would think, human frame, anatomically speaking, through what was apparently at least the sound barrier, if not the light barrier. In no way did his body hamper him when he walked above the water.
He therefore had dominion, obviously, over what we call a law of gravity. Yet when he subdued gravity through this sense of dominion, gravity had no control over the dominion-man. Notice he was not like our astronauts, weightless as the result of negating gravity. He was still in absolute control of every aspect of his being and progressing toward his destination. He didn’t have to do it step-by-step because we hear that when he set foot in the boat instantly, not only Jesus, but the comprehension of Jesus could embrace his disciples plus boat, and get all of them through what we feel today, technologically would require heat-resistant metal, crash helmets, oxygen masks, or whatever else in order to preserve the human frame, and to get it through such stresses and pressures and tensions. Jesus was used to the pressure of Gethsemane, the olive press. He did not fear what flesh could do to him, obviously…
…If our thesis as presented is accurate, that the implication of Paul’s statement [I Corinthians 15:22/Science & Health 545:31] “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. [W: The fables of Eden at the base of CedarS Time Travelers Trail are overcome by the facts of Gethsemane at the top.]
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.
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; 1 Peter 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 others 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.
… Let’s now turn to Mark’s version of the event. Something no other Gospel records.
Mark 14:36 “Jesus says, Abba, Father, all things [are] possible unto thee.” He’s praying his own Lord’s Prayer, showing that this is not a prayer that he doesn’t participate in himself. “Abba,” as some of you may know if behind every use of Jesus’ word “Father” in the gospels. “Abba” is the Aramaic word. No other religious thinker or writer before his time had ever used “Abba” for God. “Abba” is a child’s word. [W: See Responsive Reading use by Paul to the Galatians (4:6)] Abba is “Daddy.” It’s one of the first two words that a Hebrew and an Arab child learns today. “Abba, Imma [Daddy, Mama or Mommy]” [SEE “CHILDREN OF GOD” in the GOLDEN TEXT and note that in the Responsive Reading there are 14 OTHER MENTIONS OF “CHILDREN” (or child or son(s) or Father or heir(s). At least some of these words or “daughter” or “Mother” are mentioned in every section and occur more than 40 times in Sections 1 thru 6 this week!]
[Cobbey continues:] “When Jesus told us we could not enter in to the kingdom of heaven without becoming as a little child, he obviously meant we cannot say the Lord’s Prayer effectively without becoming a little child. It’s an infant’s reliance on God and Jesus goes to his Father as a little child in Gethsemane. When we’re making our Gethsemane decisions, we had better follow the example and remember “Abba,”
Mark 14:35 “He states, the spirit truly [is] ready, but the flesh [is] weak.”
Let’s go to Luke’s version.
Luke 22:42 Luke tells us a few other things. As a matter of fact, [this is] probably the most well-known expression of the Gethsemane Decision where Jesus says, “Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.” Remember if the opening line of the Lord’s Prayer is recalled by “Abba,” Our Father, “Abba” being the original behind it.
[Luke 11:1,2] “Look at “Thy will be done” in the Lord’s Prayer. Why is it there? The prayer that Jesus himself gave us in response to the question, “Lord, teach us to pray.”
[Matthew 6:9] “After this manner therefore pray ye.” “Abba.” Immediately be a little child and be sure you’re committed to God’s will being done.
“Look at that discipline requiring human thought to conform and yield to the divine when all outlines and barriers around mentality as we have become accustomed to it fall away and we find no limitations to thought or mind at all if we are the image of the mind of God. “Not my will but thine be done” is an example of Jesus using his own prayer in Gethsemane. If that Lord’s Prayer can carry one through Gethsemane, it can carry one through anything. …
“Gethsemane is the press, the oil press. Like Jesus, we must have oil within us. The pressure is still on. If Gethsemane is the press, can we say and be backed up by Scripture, that not my will but thine be done is the oil? If so, that’s the Christ-oil. The word Christ is based upon the Greek word for oil. That’s what poured out of Jesus’ experience at Gethsemane. What is it designed to do? To anoint, to heal, to feed, to cleanse. If the pressure of Gethsemane is upon us, what is oil designed to do? Do we find in our character anything unlike that Christ-anointed example? Is that human will that needs to be crushed out forever?
“We think we’re in an oil crisis today. The pressure is on. But Gethsemane’s purpose has a divine result regardless of what the world can bring to bear upon you and me, Jesus could say in part of that hymn that he sang before Gethsemane which is locatable in the later psalms, is still sung today at Passover, that he needed not to fear what man or flesh could do. Out of that experience flowed the oil that is still blessing us, is still being utilized. We’re not in an oil crisis today if we’re in the way with Jesus. We maybe at a “parting of the ways,” the meaning of the word crisis. We may be challenged regularly and often to make our right decisions, our right choice, our Gethsemane decision.
Then, the result of no longer bowing down to a human will, no longer seeing within us any domination by others through their human will, but filled with the Holy Ghost’s own message, the angel that strengthens Jesus at that moment, according to Luke. That angel awaits to strengthen us today.
The world with its creaky joints awaits, needs, yearns, for more Christ oil to be poured from the thoughts and lives of those who have made the decision, are continuing to make the decision, and are moving from Gethsemane at the base of the Mount of Olives to the summit of the Mount of Olives where Jesus himself ascended. We never have to budge from that mount. It represents both cross and crown, both problem and solution. And therefore, that oil which negates the experience of the cross and delivers the crown shows us that those two symbols, as precious as they are in Scripture, are inseparable. If the cross represents the problem, and the crown the solution, then intertwined they deliver that simple message to me, problem solved. That is the result of the Gethsemane decision.”
“The Gethsemane Decision,” a talk by B. Cobbey Crisler**
FIND YOUR DOMINION-MAN HEALING IN A SIMPLE POEM THAT DEBUNKS THE FABLE OF A DUST-MAN ORIGIN! (at the bottom of the online version is a Download doc for reprinting)
GENESIS 1 OR GENESIS 2
By Woodruff Smith
Where did it begin this idea called you?
In Genesis 1, or Genesis 2?
Which one of these concepts
Will prove to be true?
If you know what is what,
Do you know who is who?
In Genesis 1 in the 26th verse
There’s a man with never a taint’ of a curse.
But in Genesis 2 in verse number seven
There’s a dust man conceived…
He’ll never see heaven.
So, it really comes down
To which one you will claim,
What thou see’st thou be’st…
So, what is your name?
There they both stand.
Which one is you?
Is it immortal man one,
Or mortal man two?
If you’re immortal man
You know what you’re worth.
For according to law
You’ll inherit the earth.
But if you’re just a mortal
And made out of dust…
Is there anything to you
That’s worthy of trust?
No, the thing they call man
In Genesis 2
Is the dream of the dreamer.
It never was you.
So, know what you are.
Take your place in the sun,
You’re the immortal man
Of Genesis 1.
TESTIMONY OF HEALING
I gave a testimony one night in our Golden, Colorado church based on the ideas from a poem I really liked, which said, “Which of these men do you think of as you, Genesis One or Genesis Two?”
A couple of weeks later a businessman, not knowing I was behind him, probably, testified that he had heard a rather banal, trite testimony a couple of weeks ago from someone who recited that line, “Which of these men do you think of as you, Genesis One or Genesis Two?” and he thought it was so trivial, so lightweight.
He went to a business meeting in Atlanta, Georgia after that and was in a hotel room in the middle of the night, sound asleep with his wife beside him, when he had a massive heart attack.
He said he wasn’t naive, he knew what was happening, and he knew he was in a life-threatening situation. He was totally helpless, so helpless he could not even cry out to his wife for help, obviously could not call a practitioner, and he said for the first time in
his life he felt completely helpless. He tried to
repeat the Lord’s Prayer, the 23rd Psalm, the Scientific Statement of Being, but he couldn’t remember them, couldn’t put them together.
He felt totally mentally jumbled and then he recalled a very simplistic statement…”Which of these men do you think of as you, Genesis One or Genesis Two?” and he realized that it wasn’t so banal after all, that if he were a Genesis Two man he would probably not live through the night, but if he were a Genesis One man he could claim his dominion over the “things of the flesh.”
He did it. He said the pain lifted immediately and he felt whole and well. He decided the poem was OK after all.
–Lona lngwerson, CS
ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR ORIGIN as the DOMINION MAN, the CLIMAX OF SPIRIT’S CREATION — AS SPIRIT’S VERY GOOD IMAGE AND LIKENESS
transcribed from W’s notes on Cobbey Crisler talks on Genesis 1 (cit. B5):
“Genesis chapter 1 was written in response to the Hebrew people’s crisis of exile.
“Verse 2 attempts to explain how creation occurred as well as how a new beginning could occur out of the vacuity of nothingness of exile. To the post-exilic authors of Genesis 1 “the earth was without form and void” – or “Toe-who” and Boe-who” – the translated names of the Babylonian mythical leviathan-like, sea monster and their mythical behemoth-like, land monster. The modern day myth is that we evolved from the sea to be dry land creatures with a refined further way of animal thought and life. Human thought was dark much like “darkness on the face of the waters.” … Spirit is the root of the whole word inspiration… No advance can occur in life without inspiration—so “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”… This happens also when Jesus is baptized, coming “straightway out of the water,” as part of a divine announcement. He sees “the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon him.” (Matthew 3:16) Consequently, one recognizes that if Spirit represents the motive of his career, it’s an inspired career…
“It’s how the entire Bible begins (Genesis 1:2) because “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” It’s almost as if in Jesus’ baptism, we’re getting this genesis of God’s creation, that first chapter, applied on earth. The Spirit is moving on those waters in which Jesus is standing. There is a Spirit genesis here. Look at what happened in Genesis 1 in those brief verses when creation is depicted for us.”
Verse 3 (from a bumper sticker that Barry Huff enjoyed seeing) “The Big Bang theory: “Let there be light” and BANG! It happened!”) “Light (“or” in Hebrew, “phos” in Greek) was created before the stars… The motif here is that of the creation of the world by the WORD and a differentiation between the light and light-bearers.” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament
Verse 4 records the first Quality Control-check—“it was good.”
Application ideas:
“Any lack of originality is only a lack of knowledge about your true origin.”
Compare the development of any right idea in business or otherwise to the mental model of creation in Genesis 1:
Verse 3 = the dawning of the light or idea
Verses 4-6 = the analysis (compare and divide as on the first day)
Verses 7-10 = the decisive, solid manifestation of the idea (dry land appears)
Verses 11-12 = investment in the idea and its productivity
Verse 13 = exposing the idea to light universally, marketing it
Verse 14-31 = diversification (lights for seasons, living creatures multiplying, male & female)
Verse 2:1-3 = rest (not inertia, but success of the idea and its continuing yield)
DISCOVER THE INDIVISIBLE NATURE OF GOD’S CREATION from the end of Genesis 1 (citation B5) in notes from Cobbey Crisler talks as transcribed by Warren):
[Cobbey said:] “Searching the scriptures does require scuba diving or at least snorkeling because there’s a need for both clear vision and inspiration.
Verse 26 Here in a book noted for its monotheism we find plural words relative to God. (“Let US make man in OUR likeness…”) Father-Mother (F-M) must be together indivisibly or we have more than one God. If there’s indivisibility in the original there must be indivisibility in the product.
Verse 27. To have Male-Female (M-F) in the product means that it’s in the original.
On IMAGE, Clemet of Alexandria wrote: “In our view, image of God is not an object of sense, but a mental object, perceived not by the senses, but by the mind.” But in Genesis 2:7 the mental model is dropped and in the material account of creation God forms man out of dust—the very OPPOSITE view.
This mimics the opposite view of male and female that is widely promoted in which sex promises us all satisfaction in physical unity—but does it deliver? The very definition of sex is division, not indivisibility. “The sensualist’s affections… and pleasures” would put one through lots of fitful, mental contortions that Mary Baker Eddy describes as “imaginary, whimsical, and unreal” (Science and Health, 241:8).
(Transcribed from notes in W’s Bible margins taken by Warren Huff during several Cobbey Crisler talks.)
HERE’S A CATCHY LITTLE DITTY TO HELP KEEP YOU GROUNDED in YOUR “LIKENESS” to GOD as INSPIRED by GENESIS 1:27 (cit. B5) and “The “I, Yi, Yi Song””
Singing this toe-tapping tune to oneself must come from “the admission to one’s self that man is God’s own likeness [which] sets man free to master the infinite idea.” (cit. S18, 90:24-25, bracketed word added)
Other references in this Bible Lesson to “image” & “likeness” & “reflection” in Science & Health include p. 475:7/cit. S24; 516:9-21/cit. S6; 172:17/cit. S8; 477:20/cit. S9; 300:9/cit. S11; 90:24-25/cit.18; 476:28-5/cit. S22; 392:8/cit. S26; 200:16/cit. S27; 497:5, cit. S32+ p. 200; 94:1-6; …
Song for Next Generation Fellowship 2018 by Mike Griswold (vocal) Mike Tice (guitar). Released: 2018.
LISTEN (by clicking black bar in an online Met) for an ORIGINAL ‘LITTLE DITTY” on REFLECTION
(written, sung and offered VIA EMAIL by longtime CedarS staff member, Mike Griswold, now the Director of the Music Ministry at Brentwood Christian Science Church/Next Generation Fellowship
email for more: musicamonteverde@gmail.com
SEE HUMANITY’S CURES AS BEING WAY BEYOND NOSTRIL-MAN, MEDICAL SOLUTIONS.
Cobbey Crisler on Isaiah 1- Isaiah 2:22/citation B6: “Cease ye from Adam”
[Cobbey on the next verses:] Isaiah 1:5 and 6. Isn’t this a question of Isaiah asking all humanity, “Why should you be stricken any more? You will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head [there is] no soundness in it: [but] wounds and bruises, and putrefying sores.” That’s Job’s problem written right out there. That’s his record that he that he didn’t want to have as his witness any more when he said [in Job 16:19] “my record is on high.” They must not have been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.” Here is even Isaiah bearing witness that the application of medicine has not cured what humanity needs to have cured.
In Isaiah 2:22/citation B6 maybe this is part of the solution? What’s the recommended solution? “Cease ye from man.” That word in Hebrew is actually the Hebrew word “Adam.” It literally reads, “Cease ye from Adam whose breath [is] in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?”
“Heal the Sick”: A Scriptural Record,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
TURN any GRIT into a “*PEARL* of great price*” (Mat. 13:46) & TRASH into “TREASURES of TRUTH & LOVE!”
Part of CedarS 2020 Theme in cit. S10, Science & Health, p. 265:3-15 by Mary Baker Eddy
“Man understands spiritual existence in proportion as his treasures of Truth and Love are enlarged. Mortals must gravitate Godward, their affections and aims grow spiritual, – they must near the broader interpretations of being, and gain some proper sense of the infinite, – in order that sin and mortality may be put off. This scientific sense of being, forsaking matter for Spirit, by no means suggest man’s absorption into Deity and the loss of his identity, but confers upon man enlarged individuality, a wider sphere of thought and action, a more expansive love, a higher and more permanent peace.”
We invite you to join us in “gravitat[ing] Godward.” A CedarS-like camp setting, whether actual or on a virtual Hymn Sing, is the perfect place to discover and enlarge your treasures of Truth. Every “met” (inspirational sharing before activities), every breakfast Christian Science practitioner talk, every Bible Lesson study, every Hymn Sing, every Sunday School class, and testimony meeting offers campers nuggets of Truth to make their own. And each activity offers opportunities to apply these Truths and prove their value – to really turn them into treasures for life!
BONUS BLESSINGS to claim and demonstrate as your own:
The list in this passage is such a beautiful promise of the blessings realized through spiritual growth:
– Enlarged individuality
– A wider sphere of thought and action
– A more expansive love
– A higher and more permanent peace
We see this list as so contemporary, as so on-target, and as so timeless. This is as exactly what today’s youth needs – and exactly what today’s world needs.
*Pearls* are wonderful examples of the “treasures of Truth” and how they grow. A pearl grows in an oyster only because an irritant has entered its shell and the oyster responds by secreting on it layer upon layer of an irritant–soother (the way that spiritual sense and love heal whatever irritates us and others). Let’s take that as a challenge to be like the oyster and turn everything that looks negative and ugly into a string of beautiful pearls “of great price” by applying layer upon layer of love and spiritual sense to grow our treasures of Truth and Love!
Enlarging your treasures of Truth and Love will soon make you “debt-free” by cancelling the debt — think of “cancel culture,” but from a God’s-eye view! St. Paul simply describes this higher view of ultimate “debt-forgiveness program” of Love that freed him—as it will free you. It is to: “Owe no man anything, but to love one another” (Romans 13:8). Saul voiced this as one who “owed” Christ and all Christians BIG-time by being known as their most enthusiastic enemy and persecutor. Saul made up for it as Paul by becoming Christianity’s most ardent advocate and most eloquent missionary after he was converted by a “virtual” meeting with Jesus. (So, don’t underestimate the power of a virtual hymn sing or church service whenever the Christ is welcomed in!)
If you visit Saul’s “Road to Damascus” in CedarS Bible Lands Park, you will be reminded to be like Ananias of the Damascus Christians. Like Ananias, you will be asked to stop “owing” any former enemy or persecutors and to stop “bearing false witness against” any and all Saul-like characters in your life—and instead see them as if they’ve been on their “road to Damascus” and changed for good by the Christ. In the words of a young Sunday School student “Forgive us our “trash-passes” as we forgive those who “trash-pass” to us.”
Had Ananias held Saul in a position that he’d outgrown after his “virtual encounter” with the Christ – if he had NOT obeyed God’s command to forgive Saul’s trash-passing and to restore his sight, the born-again Paul would not have become the most productive, passer of the treasures of Christianity that the world has known. “Those unpretentious, yet colossal characters, Paul and Jesus” (Misc. 360:6-8) both did all they could to pass along the rich treasures of their resilient spiritual sense of oneness with God. May we each do the same with all the treasures of Truth that spiritual sense constantly gives us!
LIKE JESUS, SEEK, & GO WITH, THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. THEN, WITH THE AUTHORITY & POWER OF THE ONLY POWER SOURCE THERE IS, COMMAND THE EVIL TO DEPART. (v. 33 postlude) Cobbey on Luke 4:14:
[Cobbey Crisler on Luke 4:14/cit. B9:] “Luke indicates that he understands [Jesus’ period of temptations in the wilderness] has been a power test for Jesus because in Verse 14 he uses that word, “Jesus returned” not in any form of power that Satan had tried to impose upon him [“to take personal power, political power, and priestly power”]. But rather, “in the power of the Spirit into Galilee”— [“in the law that relates man directly to God, the source of the only power there is.” (CC)]
“Luke, the Researcher,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
TURN FROM ALL THAT’S SWINISH TO FACE YOUR FATHER AND YOUR TRUE SPIRITUAL IDENTITY!
Cobbey Crisler on Luke 15.11-24 (cit. B10) and the Prodigal’s “pig-pen cry”…
“Psalm 30:2 Again, the appointment with the physician, the Great Physician, in the Bible is very often this, “O Lord my God, I cried unto thee.” It does not take our being attuned to God to make the appointment. Just as the Prodigal Son suddenly decided that his real right place was not in that pig pen when he came to himself [Luke 15: 16-18]. There’s a whole new view of one’s identity. He decided that his father’s house held much more. Then, you notice the father did not go to the man with the swine to save the son. The son had to do something. Then, the father ran to meet him as he was coming [Luke 15:20]. With your back to the Father, you’re not even heading in that direction. With your face toward the Father you’re looking at the Father’s face, which is part of the cure biblically, [that] is to see the divine nature. Then, of course, you want to be nearer the source of your nature. Step by step the light grows brighter around your feet. We know where we’re heading. We may not have arrived yet, but it’s getting brighter, and lighter, and our problems are dropping away, our burdens, and the divine nature is becoming applicable nearer and nearer. “O Lord my God, I cried unto thee; you have healed me.”
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from Psalms,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
Christie’s fun Met shared about Chet’s Chickens & the Prodigal Son parable.
[In case you missed Christie Hanzlik’s fun illustration from Section 3 of this week’s CedarS Met, she says:]
“Section 3 uses Christ Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son returning to the forgiving father to illustrate the tender relationship between God and man. And it also includes the part about the older brother being upset by the father (God) bestowing gifts on the younger son, who had been so wasteful and sinful, when the older brother had been so faithful all along and got nothing. (cit. B10, Luke 15:1-31)
[Christie continues:] “The ”Bible Lens Research” in the Christian Science Sentinel explains, “Scholars view the elder son as symbolic of the Pharisees—self-righteous, prideful, and unwilling to welcome a repentant transgressor. Regardless of this attitude, his father addresses him as ‘son,’ reassuring him of his uninterrupted status in the family. One Bible expert suggests, ‘If repentance for the prodigal son means learning to say ‘Father’ again, then for the elder son it means learning to say ‘brother’ again.’ … Another source observes: “The parable is open-ended: it does not record the older brother’s response. The religious leaders still had a chance to respond to Jesus’ offer of the Kingdom.”
I have never before noticed Christ Jesus left the parable open-ended…we never hear what the older son decides to do. We don’t know whether the elder brother continues to be upset, or whether he welcomes the brother home. This open-ended question leads me to pray about the “older-brother tendency” that seems to tempt each of us. It occurs to me that we overcome the “older-brother tendency” for all mankind as we realize that divine Love is infinite and has infinite resources and that each of us cannot help but to hear the Christ-message that makes us aware of our infinite source of goodness.
[Christie:] “This reminds me of a story I heard from Chet Manchester, CSB. Years ago, Chet and his wife Anne began to raise chickens on their property in New York. Chet went out to feed the chickens with a huge bag of feed one day and was struck by how the chickens were all fighting with each other to get to the food. He found himself saying, “Silly chickens, if you only knew how much food I have to give you and how willing I am to give it all to you, you would not fight with each other.” This message, of course, is one that all of us can digest. If we understand that our divine Parent, infinite Love, has infinite resources and an unlimited metaphorical food bag, we would not compare or criticize or argue with one another. We would not stress out over getting enough affection. This lesson from Chet’s chickens can help us all to realize that we are all worthy of love and have an unlimited source of love openly willing to give us as much as we need.
“Chet’s chickens afford us many lessons. As Mary Baker Eddy asks rhetorically, “Shall we plead for more at the open fount [also known as unlimited chicken feed], which is pouring forth more than we accept? The unspoken desire does bring us nearer the source of all existence and blessedness [the source of all chicken food].” (cit. S15, 2:26)
She continues, “Through repentance, spiritual baptism, and regeneration, [silly chickens] put off their [limited] beliefs and false individuality [that makes them think they have to fight for everything they get].
“In patient obedience to a patient [supplier of infinite blessings], let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error, — self-will, self-justification, and self-love, — which wars against spirituality and is [what seems to make us feel separate and afraid].” (cit. 16, 242:1–3, 15 bracketed phrases added)
“I hope you can forgive my campiness in mixing the chicken metaphor into Mary Baker Eddy’s writings. In my experience, hearing familiar writings in startling ways, often stirs thought and leads to healing and awakening, plus it’s fun.
“As we understand more about our infinite source of goodness, we discover more and more peace and fulfillment. We are not separate from the supply, or separate from the source of all goodness. The prodigal son story helps us to understand the tender relationship between God and man, that God is always forgiving and always welcomes us home.
“And yet, we must remember that, in truth, we are never separated from God, never separated from the Father. We cannot actually wander away from ever-present and omniscient Mind. We cannot actually step away from God’s presence even for a single moment because God–infinite Love–is ever-present. Man is the entity of God, the very expression and outpouring of God. As Mary Baker Eddy states. “The admission to one’s self that man is God’s own likeness sets man free to master the infinite idea.” (cit. S18, 90:24-25)”
BE HUMBLY EVER-READY TO MAKE WISE, LOVING ADAPTATIONS that always bring DIVINE BESTOWALS!
[Warren Huff & Geith Plimmer, CS on cit. S19, Science & Health 13:2]
[Warren:] “I will always cherish my time in the mid-1970s as a church lecture committee host for Geith Plimmer, a Christian Science Practitioner and Lecturer from Great Britain. In one of his very Bible-based, Christian Science lectures, Geith commented on this sentence in Science and Health “Love is impartial and universal in its adaptations and bestowals.” (SH 13:2-3, citation S19) He said something like, “individuals and organizations will only be ready to receive divine BESTOWALS when they are ready to make wise, loving and divinely-directed ADAPTATIONS. Humility and love are the keys to the letting go of limiting circumstances and of humanly-outlined outcomes. We need to open up a willingness to let “Thy will be done” and to humbly make appropriate adaptations so that all we do is “characterized” by “wisdom, economy and brotherly love.”
[Warren:] “A need to make adaptations seem to imply that we can make mistakes with lasting bad results even when we are striving wholeheartedly for good. But we are blessed to be students of the Bible and so to know that no mistakes can really be made when we love God with all our hearts and put all we do in His hands. As Saint Paul declares as one of the rules by which we operate: “And we know that ALL things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” (Rom. 8:28, caps & emphasis added)
I was delighted to share in my INSPIRATIONAL TALK (AT THE END of Arden Wood’s 2022 Annual Meeting), A DETAILED EXAMPLE ABOUT MAKING AN ADAPTATION TO CORRECT A “MISTAKE” THAT RESULTED IN A WONDERFUL BESTOWAL OF BLESSINGS. We all now “see the past (“mistake”) through wisdom’s eyes, as a blessing in disguise.” (You can read & hear this verse & Desiree Goyette’s whole, inspiring solo, “Let It Go,” at https://desireegoyette.com/track/2585018/let-it-go )
Click on the ARDEN WOOD WEBSITE FOR A REPLAY of this meeting to GET (in the second half) SPECIFIC TAKE-AWAYS OF APPLICATION IDEAS TO MAKE YOUR OWN!
[I shared this application example in my May 1, 2022 Arden Wood inspirational talk:]
“Over thirty years ago, even though prayed about in advance, it looked like a big mistake had been made when CedarS was left maintaining an expensive piece of property and an old building in West St. Louis County to operate a service that was often undersubscribed. It was an attempt to put CedarS resources to use to offer an after-school and day-care program in the St. Louis area near Principia School when camp was not operating. The site featured a stone house built in 1818 on 8-acres that adjoined Queeny Park. It was bought during a high inflation period when interest rates could not he secured for more than 6 months and they had jumped to 20%. We were spending unsustainable funds to own that high maintenace property and the anticipated enrollment was big on some days and very small on most other days. To make a long and detailed story shorter, our Board prayed with several ideas and adaptations to make this program and property sustainable in keeping with Mary Baker Eddy’s guidance in the Church Manual: “God’s Requirement. Sect. 5. God requires wisdom, economy, and brotherly love to characterize all the proceedings of the members of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist.” (Man. 77:18)
As we prayed about the idea of selling the property, my mom who was then serving as Executive Director Emeritus, suggested that, like Gideon, we ask God for signs of this being a right idea. We did ask for “signs” – and God sent two quickly. First was a clear one right away that St. Louis County had favorably considered our application for this amazing Thomas Mason House to become an Historic Landmark so that developers wouldn’t tear it down; and the second sign was that my sister, her husband and their young daughter planned to move to St. Louis, knew of the house, were very interested in bidding on it and restoring its historic features. We did put out a sign and they won a bidding war that keep the Thomas Mason House in the CedarS family, so to speak, and the rest, including its preservation, is history.
In hindsight, after CedarS Board sold the house and land we had the financial wherewithal to “love into view” not just one, but two, unique, game-changing camp resources— first, our 30-acre Crown Lake in the shape of a crown positioned just right on our cross-shaped, 1,000 acres; and, second, a fun, over-300-foot-long waterslide to get from our Aquatic Center to our new Crown Lake. Both have blessed thousands and thousands of kids of all ages from every state in the U.S. and from over 25 other countries in the 32+ years since we sold CHEER House and they were built.
We now clearly “see the past through wisdom’s eyes, as a blessing in disguise” as Desiree Goyette wrote and sings in her solo “Let it Go.” Confidently holding out to see God’s blessing, always gives you the “grace to go forward wherever he guide thee, gladly obeying the call of his word” (from Hymn 278:2 – which was not only CedarS 2021 metaphysical theme, but also that of The Mother Church and Principia.)
A Bible-based comfort that gave us the grace, strength and courage in advance to sell the house was thinking of the conversation between Jacob and the angel he was wrestling with. Jacob’s condition for letting the angel go became ours for letting the property go: “And he (the angel) said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he (Jacob) said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. … And he (the angel) said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.” (Gen. 32:26, 28)
A LET-US DIET THAT’S PERFECT TO CHEW ON FOR EACH OF US & FOR THE WHOLE WORLD!
[Warren;] Let us give thought & action to the following divine directives to memorize from citation S24. [As a memory aid, I think of this call to healthy action as our “Model Lettuce diet” or our “Excellent Let-us plan”]:
“Let-us feel the divine energy of Spirit, bringing us into newness of life and recognizing no mortal nor material power as able to destroy. Let-us rejoice that we are subject to the divine “powers that be.” (citation S24, Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 249:6–9)
(Bold italics added for Let us)
Mary Baker Eddy uses the words “Let us” 28 times in Science and Health, and 67 times in her other writings—plus there are 40 more “Let us” combos in the Hymnal! So, you could chew on different blends of “let us” every day as it’s in season for you, and apply or dress them to best suit your taste and meet the needs of the day.
For example, another favorite, “mixed-green” combo of mine is at the top of that same page 249 of Science and Health: “Let us accept Science, relinquish all theories based on sense-testimony, give up imperfect models and illusive ideals; and so let us have one God, one Mind, and that one perfect, producing His own models of excellence.” (SH 249:1)
Let-us joyously picture “… heaven and earth, inhabited by beings under the control of supreme wisdom” (SH 91:2) This spiritual sense vision will enable us to affirm together that God is in charge of our country and of our leaders and of the whole wide world and its manifestation of good. It’s uplifting to know that “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” The imbedded link above to the original version shares a spiritual written in World War II by Obie Philpot, a Native American of the Cherokee tribe. It speaks of God as our creator and protector. You might also enjoy an add-on parade of soulful, prayer-filled voices of this message as started by Tyler Perry and his friends of color and ended by Mahalia Jackson. I found these YouTube video offerings inspiring. )
Mary Baker Eddy adds rich Bible-based connections to let us confidently affirm God’s control of “every event of our careers.” (Unity of Good, 3:28) She writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “Understanding the control which Love held (holds) over all, …” we can feel safe in any pandemic as “…Daniel felt safe in the lions’ den” and can prove all viruses to be harmless, as “Paul proved the viper to be harmless.” (514:26)
To round-out and wrap-up our “Model Let-us die in every branch of government:” let-us affirm that “…the LORD is our judge [in charge of the judicial branch], the LORD is our lawgiver [in charge of the legislative branch], the LORD is our king [in charge of the executive branch], he will save us.” (Isaiah 33:22)
“ACKNOWLEDGE ONE Christ… divine Comforter… & man in God’s image…” (the 2nd Tenet evolution)
(Science & Health 497:5, cit. S32) from The Mary Baker Eddy Library for The Betterment of Mankind
Current edition:
2. We acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God. We acknowledge His Son, one Christ; the Holy Ghost or divine Comforter; and man in God’s image and likeness.
1879 “Tenets and Covenant”
2d. — We rest our hope and Faith on God, the only Life, Truth and Love, depending for salvation not on the person of God, but on the understanding of the Principle or Spirit that is God, and the demonstration of this Spirit or Principle according to those commands of our Master, “Go ye into all the world, preach the Gospel, heal the sick, and these signs shall follow them that believe” (understand). “They shall lay their hands on the sick and they shall recover.”
1887 “Tenets to be Signed by those Uniting …”
Second. — We acknowledge one Father, Son and Holy Ghost, — one God, the brotherhood of man, and Divine Science. And the forgiveness of sin, which is the destruction of sin. And the atonement of Christ, which is the efficacy of Truth and Life. And the way of salvation marked out by Jesus, which is healing the sick, casting out devils [evils], and raising the dead, — uplifting a dead faith into Life and Love.
1892 (from “Church Tenets and Rules”)
2. We acknowledge and adore one Supreme God. We acknowledge His Son, the Holy Ghost, and man in His image and likeness. We acknowledge God’s forgiveness of sin, in the destruction of sin, and His present and future punishment of “whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie.” We acknowledge the atonement of Christ, as the efficacy of Truth and Love. And the way of Salvation as demonstrated by Jesus casting out evils, healing the sick, and raising the dead, — resurrecting a dead faith to seize the great possibilities and living energies of the Divine Life.
1893 (from “Church Tenets and Rules”)
2. We acknowledge and adore one Supreme God. We acknowledge His Son, and the Holy Ghost, and man in the Divine image and likeness.
81st edition (1894)
2. We acknowledge and adore one Supreme God. We acknowledge His Son, and the Holy Ghost, and man as the Divine image and likeness.
179th edition (1900)
2. We acknowledge and adore one Supreme Infinite God. We acknowledge one Christ, the Holy Ghost, and man as the Divine image and likeness.
214th edition (1901)
2. We acknowledge and adore one Supreme Infinite God. We acknowledge one Christ namely the Holy Ghost or divine Comforter — and the son Christ Jesus – man in the divine image and likeness.
249th edition (1902)
2. We acknowledge and adore one Supreme Infinite God. We acknowledge one Christ, His son, the Holy Ghost or Comforter, — and man in the divine image and likeness.
252nd edition (1902)
2. We acknowledge and adore one Supreme and Infinite God; — acknowledge one Christ — His Son Christ Jesus; the Holy Ghost or the divine Comforter; and man His divine image and likeness.
1907 edition
2. We acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God. We acknowledge His Son, one Christ; the Holy Ghost or divine Comforter; and man in God’s image and likeness.
