APPLICATION GEMS to PROVE AS REAL ONLY WHAT GOD KNOWS OF YOU (& OTHERS)!
Tuesday, September 20th, 2022
By Warren Huff (with insights from Cobbey Crisler)
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APPLICATION GEMS to PROVE AS REAL ONLY WHAT GOD KNOWS IS TRUE OF YOU (& OTHERS)!
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
“REALITY”
for September 25, 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
WHAT GOD KNOWS OF YOU, YOU KNOW OF YOURSELF AND OF OTHERS!
Cobbey Crisler on I Corinthians 13:12 (citation B3) “see face to face”
Verse 12. Seeing “face to face” is a mental thing…
“then I shall know even as I am known…” What God knows of us, we know of ourselves and others…
[Transcribed from notes from Cobbey taken in the margin of Warren’s Bible]
A BONUS GEMs featuring the Role-MODEL RESILIENCE of “Heroic Hagar” (Genesis 21:9-20/cit. B5)
and more about your being tattooed on God’s hand as in Isaiah 49:16)
[Warren: For much more on the resilience role-modeled for us today by “Heroic Hagar” see ~12 minutes in a YouTube Video by our Bible professor son, Barry Huff (in minutes 27:45 thru 39:20 in a Good Friday 2021 Easter Talk for Third Church, New York City at https://youtu.be/D_SDmZ7GAQc It opens and closes with inspiring solos by Lily Oyer. You can also rejoice in outstanding Christmas Lectures and Talks featured on their website, including one on December 21, 2021 by Dr. Laurance Doyle that he calls “The Science of Christmas.”
SHOW YOUR BOUNCE-BACK RESILIENCE: KEEP THE KINGDOM AS YOUR CORE & YOUR ALL! (SH 262:15, a prelude cit. S15, 262:24) “Starting from a higher standpoint, one rises spontaneously, even as light emits light without effort; for “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
[W.] With the Kingdom at your core, even if thrown down hard, you won’t fall apart like an egg! You’ll bounce back even higher like a golf ball! Jesus tells us clearly “the kingdom of God is within you!” (Luke 17:21)
Mary Baker Eddy adds:
- “These clearer, higher views inspire the God-like man to reach the absolute centre and circumference of his being.” (S&H 262:15, prelude to citation S15)
- “God is at once the absolute centre and circumference of being.” (S&H 203:32-1)
Several decades ago when one of these citations was also in the Christian Science Bible Lesson, I decided to dissect a golf ball to explore its circumference and its center to see what made it thrive and bounce back so resiliently in the “hard-knock life” that it led. To dissect the one pictured, I clamped it in a vise and hack-sawed it in half. I found it had an inner rubber ball wrapped tightly in a bunch of rubber-bands that snapped as they were cut. (My dissected golf ball is shown as a Download at the bottom of this GEM online.)
Spiritual sense and resilience are especially valuable in changeable and tough times, because we and the team we’re on can ill-afford to have us “go all to pieces” like a broken egg—or to make it so others need to “handle us with kid-gloves” because if they don’t, we might fall apart or “fly off the handle.” The Golf Ball versus Egg analogy relates to the testing and proving of one’s spiritual resilience “to reach the absolute centre and circumference of his being.” (S&H 262: 15) It helps us spiritually perceive that “God is at once the centre and circumference of being.” (S&H 203:32-1)
I have reasoned many times with myself and with Sunday School students, campers and counselors (all who got to handle the cut-up ball), that, like rubber bands, we, as spiritual ideas, are made to be stretched. And, I usually remind them (and myself), “whatever stretches you (beyond your “comfort zone”)— blesses you.”
These “clearer, higher views inspire the God-like man” (you!) to resiliently bounce back from all kinds of hard-knocks and throw-downs. In fact, like a golf ball, you as a spiritual idea knowing that God’s kingdom reigns over and within you and all, will bounce back higher the harder you are thrown down. (The best higher-bounce-back example is Jesus’ hardest throw-down of the crucifixion followed by his highest bounce-back of the resurrection and ascension!)
On Easter I usually illustrate the contrast between the resilient characteristics of a bouncy, vinyl-shell golf ball with a fragile, raw egg and its easily broken shell (circumference) and its squishy yoke core (centre). The harder a raw egg is thrown down, the more it splatters! On Easter (egg) Sunday, we always discuss how the Bible and Mary Baker Eddy tell us of our Genesis 1 spiritual origin instead of an egg origin or dust origin. I usually quip that “If you think that you started out as an egg, you’re very likely to end up scrambled.”
Then, to turn things into thoughts and to “strengthen our shells” so as to not crack easily, we often read together “Taking Offense” where Mary Baker Eddy counsels against having a fragile, easily-ruffled or touchy disposition. (Miscellaneous Writings, page 223:24.)
To live love resiliently, Paul tells us, “Love is not easily provoked”… or splattered (I Corinthians 13). Whenever you become easily provoked, one might say, “the yoke’s on you.”
THINK AGAIN TO PROVE THAT IT’S NOT PROBLEMS, BUT HEAVEN & GOD, THAT ARE AT HAND!
Cobbey Crisler insights for Mark 1:14, 15/cit. B10: “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.”
[Cobbey on Matt. 4, Verse 17 & Mark 1:14, 15/cit. B10] “Jesus’ opening word…is “Repent.” Change your concept. Again, just as John the Baptist said in Matthew 3:2 and Jesus echoed in Mark 1:14, 15/cit. B10) , “the kingdom of heaven/God is at hand.” That is radical good news for mankind.
“It’s not a far-off event. Many denominations have left the impression that heaven is something attainable in the far-off future. But, the opening words of John the Baptist, as well as of Jesus, are “the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” right here. That means that we must be able to do something with it and about it. And, apparently that had something to do with the changing of our concept, even theologically, that heaven and God can do something about the problems that that seem to be at hand.
“… Are the problems at hand, or is heaven (God) at hand? That’s the test question that Jesus met in the preceding verses so beautifully as a sovereign over it in the wilderness. He proved that heaven was at hand.”
“Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
[W.] We follow our Master Jesus, as we dismiss dualism like he did to feel a heavenly harmony that heals EVERY PERSON & EVERY ISSUE! (Matt. 14:23) As a prelude to these verses from this week’s lesson, you’ll enjoy Cobbey’s insights on Jesus’ wilderness testing experience where he overcame feeling isolated and alone, by feeling ALL One with his Abba “Daddy”! You’ll enjoy this even more if you’re feeling vulnerable to attacks from a devilish, divisive virus! (Devil or diabolos means to try to throw in 2 opposite directions at the same time.)
Cobbey Crisler on Jesus “acing” his long isolation tests & healing all, Matt. 4:1-11 before verses 17, 23 (in citation B3):
[W. Before the Matthew 4:17 and 23 verses in this week’s lesson is what enabled Jesus to heal everyone.]
[Cobbey:] “There is what we might call an identity-crisis test in Chapter 4 (of Matthew). The Anglo-Saxon word “tempt” has almost picked up a theological meaning. It really means “test.” That’s what the word means. It’s a test. (Verse 1) So, “Jesus was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness” to be tested on the fact that had recently been revealed (directly from God in Matthew 3:17 (and Mark 1:11) that Jesus was God’s “Beloved Son”).
Verse 23. And “healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.” Here are human problems that had defied solution, and Jesus solved them all based on his concept of theology, namely the kingdom. Remember a kingdom is not chaos. It’s an ordered government of heaven and harmony at hand.”
“Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master, A Tax Collector’s Report,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
FOLLOW THE RULES OF THE MASTER-HEALER—GIVE MULTIPLE TREATMENTS AS NEEDED!
Cobbey Crisler on Mark 8:22-25 (cit. B11— Also, see a monologue offered by Ken Cooper as a Download at the bottom of the online version of these GEMs.)
“A similar thing happens in Chapter 8, Verse 22. This is after Jesus has fed another multitude (Mark 8:1-9). This time, “four thousand,” not counting the women and the children, and it’s in Gentile territory. The other was in Jewish territory. We have “coming to Bethsaida,” which means “house of the fishermen,” the home of Simon and Andrew. They encounter a blind man.
Verse 23. These four verses, Verse 22-25, are only given to us by Mark. “He takes the blind man out of the town.” Treatment Number One, why? Jesus wants to get away from the crowd. This is a methodology. These are the rules by which Jesus healed. Anyone who wants to follow the example of this tender Master-healer must accomplish the work according to the same rules. The patient must be taken out of town, out of the “legion” of opinions that are already expressing their conclusions on the patient.
Verse 23, Treatment Number Two, “He spit on his eyes, put his hands on him, asked him if he saw ought.” He indicates to a blind man what he was doing and what was going to happen.
Verse 24. The first objects this man has ever seen were men as trees, walking.” He could have understood the shape of trees and that they are vertical. Men looked like trees to him, walking.
Verse 25. Jesus in the Third Treatment, “puts his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up.” The Revised Standard Version is probably the most correct here. It’s “he looked intently.” Jesus has his complete attention with that. “He looked intently.” There were no wandering way-side thoughts for the seed to land. “And he is healed.”
“What Mark Recorded,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
Note Jesus use of spit as a way of showing contempt for the Genesis 2 dust version of man and the washing off of every trace of that to heal blindness as Cobbey comments on the case Jesus healed in John 9:6…
“Notice what he does in John 9:6 and what it may remind you of. “He spat on the ground, made clay of the spittle.” That reminds you of man being made of the dust in the Second Chapter of Genesis Verse 6 and 7, doesn’t it? Would Jesus ever [by spitting show contempt for or] mock God if he considered that was the real way that creation occurred? Yet, it almost looks like a mockery of that. He’s taking on that concept of the man of dust. He’s spitting on that ground, into the dust, making clay of it, and slapping it on the eyes of the blind man.
John 9:7. The man goes to the pool of Siloam. He can’t see his way there. He’s got mud all over his face. He doesn’t go seeing. He comes seeing.” He comes only after he has washed off that symbolic making or formation of man out of the dust.
In a way, it might even give us a greater hint on what the true meaning of baptism is, the immersion in Spirit, nativity, and washing off every trace of the dust man.”
“Book of John, A Walk with the Beloved Disciple,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
STOP THINKING THAT YOUR LIFE AND THOUGHTS REVOLVE AROUND YOUR BODY, ANY MORE THAN THE SUN AND UNIVERSE REVOLVE AROUND THE EARTH!
Citation S17/122:1-18, 21 ends by referring to “optical illusions … instances of similar illusions, which every thinker can recall for himself.” Page 122 ends with with a paragraph a classic example
In the very first (April 1, 2012) episode of the Christian Science Journal’s audio podcast series “Mary Baker Eddy Mentioned Them,” Dr. Laurance Doyle takes 5 minutes to fill us in on this reference to Ptolemy and his “blunder” right after citation S17/p. 122 in this week’s Bible Lesson. Mary Baker Eddy mentions the ancient astronomer Ptolemy in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures on page 122. In this Journal podcast, astrophysicist Laurance Doyle gives context to that passage by filling us in on Ptolemy and his famous “blunder.” (“Our theories make the same mistake regarding Soul and body that Ptolemy made regarding the solar system. They insist that soul is in body and mind therefore tributary to matter. Astronomical science has destroyed the false theory as to the relations of the celestial bodies, and Christian Science will surely destroy the greater error as to our terrestrial bodies. The true idea and Principle of man will then appear. The Ptolemaic blunder could not affect the harmony of being as does the error relating to soul and body, which reverses the order of Science and assigns to matter the power and prerogative of Spirit, so that man becomes the most absolutely weak and inharmonious creature in the universe.”
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, 122:1, 29)
LIKE JOHN, WITH SPIRITUAL SENSE, (the light of the Christ or Lamb,) WE CAN SEE REALITY — “THE HOLY CITY, NEW JERUSALEM… AND THERE SHALL IN NO WISE ENTER INTO IT ANY THING THAT … MAKETH A LIE:” (Rev. 21:2, 27 (to 🙂
Related to this passage, to our regular repetitions of “the scientific statement of being” (SH 468), and to this Bible Lesson on REALITY, I felt led to share the last few sentences in a book by Samuel Greenwood called “FOOTSTEPS OF ISRAEL: FROM EDEN TO THE CITY OF GOD.”
“”When the feet of returning Israel cross the threshold of the Heavenly City, when the eyes of her people open to the consciousness of things as they are and “see realities face to face,” [W. I Cor. 13:12/cit. B3)] the vision of the prophets will be realized, as described by St. John in these glowing words: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain ; for the former things are passed away.” (p. 346)
Greenwood was a prolific writer for the periodicals in the early days of Christian Science. He wrote “[The] mission [of the church] is not confined, as many erroneously suppose, to the healing of diseases which material methods have found incurable, but it comprises the salvation of mortals from every discordant state, every condition which is out of keeping with the will of God. It is working for the present appearing in human consciousness of that new heaven and new earth ‘wherein dwelleth righteousness.’”
“While the declaration of the first line of the scientific statement of being causes the old heaven and earth to pass away, the declaration of the second line causes the new heaven and earth to appear: “All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all.”
“The remaining lines of the scientific statement of being alternate between denying the reality of the old heaven and earth, thus causing it to pass away, and affirming the reality of the new heaven and earth, thus causing it to appear. Finally, the scientific statement of being declares, “Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual.” That is, the scientific truth and robust health emanating from the new heaven and earth constitute and maintain man’s being.”
