PYCLs–Share your synonym project with your Sunday School or Church. (1) Grab a play snake by the tail. (3) Bring some blocks & illustrate “a house divided.” (4) Have students blot out lies! (5)
Possible Younger Class Lesson ideas for the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“Mind”
for Sunday, August 20, 2023
by Kerry Jenkins, CS, of House Springs, MO
kerry.helen.jenkins@gmail.com • 314-406-0041
PYCL #1: Share your synonym project or sing the synonym song.
This Sunday we are studying our final synonym (minus Principle) in our series. You can complete any projects you may have started and share them with your Sunday School! If they are craft oriented, such as our train car series or a mobile, maybe they can be displayed prominently, or you can bring your church attendees by for a tour after Church on Sunday.
If the project was learning a synonym song such as the one that I included in a previous PYCL, then maybe the children can sing this for your Sunday School, or even for those who want to come hear after Sunday School. See https://solocommittee.com/albums/g-is-for-god/seven-names/
As part of this final project, we will be discovering what qualities specifically apply to Mind. The obvious ones might be things like: understanding, intelligence, discernment, light… but one that is often associated with Mind is creativity and creation. If you think about it these qualities make sense and they give rise to others!
PYCL #2: How can there be only one Mind?
The fact that there is only one Mind is emphasized in this week’s Bible lesson. This is a hard fact to accept because it certainly appears as if there are many minds out there. Mary Baker Eddy gives this appearance the name “mortal mind” because we have to have a name for it, not because it is a real thing.
One little exercise that may help illustrate this idea is to sit and close our eyes. Explain that we are going to pay attention to thoughts that come to us as we sit there for __ seconds (you choose how long, but keep it to maybe 20 seconds if it is young children). Now ask: “Did you have some thoughts? Where did they come from? Was it “inside” your skull? Was it “you”? ….If they say it was from themselves, ask how they can tell?
If you were to ask them their favorite movie, for example, and they answered right away, where did that thought come from? Was is “stored” inside their skull? Obviously they had an experience of seeing that movie, but still, the thought appeared to them out of nowhere. If they answered quickly, it’s not as if they pulled it out of some space inside their head. This, to me, illustrates the fact that human thoughts are just collective mortal thoughts that are claiming life and originality by attaching themselves to a separate human identity. True thoughts that originate in the one Mind, might come to us initially as “our thoughts”, but once we have demonstrated them as good, loving, intelligent and so on, we start to recognize that they are God’s.
Look at this passage from citation S11/321:6-2 After Moses handles the snake and the leprosy, she tells us ” God had lessened Moses’ fear by this proof in divine Science, and the inward voice became to him the voice of God,…”
I think this statement tells us that we prove our “inward voice” by being obedient to God, to what we hear, and then realizing, “okay, that must be God’s voice!”. That’s the one Voice, if you will!
PYCL #3: Pick up a snake by the tail!
Okay, don’t do this, but bring in a rubber, or stuffed snake, if you want, to illustrate this idea. You can explain that first of all, we are taught that picking them up by the tail leaves us particularly vulnerable to snake bite, since they can easily flip around and bite you. Whereas holding them behind their head makes it so that they can’t twist around and get you.
A second point to remind them of is that snakes would have been particularly feared for their more commonly venomous natures (in the U.S we don’t have that many venomous snakes–in comparison with the many harmless varieties, while in other parts of the world they are more plentiful). They were also worshiped (as evil gods) in Egypt during that time.
Why did God ask Moses to pick up the snake by the tail? I think this is another cool illustration of the oneness of Mind. Tell the story of Moses in this lesson. He was arguing that he had a separate (less capable) mind from God. He was arguing that he wasn’t capable or worthy of this task that God was asking, not understanding that there is only one Mind — that all his ability came from the one Mind. God set him this task of picking up the serpent by the tail to illustrate the power of listening to the one Mind, rather than his “own” thoughts. His obedience showed that he was beginning to understand this, to recognize the one Mind as the only one.
Now consider what this means for us today? What are we being asked to do, by Mind, that seems scary, or beyond our capabilities? Sometimes it might be challenging or scary to do what we know Mind is asking us to do. Perhaps it is talking to a teacher about something, or another adult. Maybe it is reaching out to someone who looks like they need a friend.
Maybe it is taking an unpopular but good stance on something that most people are challenging. We can then think of Moses, and the task he faced, and grab the “snake” by the “tail”.
PYCL #4: Kingdoms divided.
In citation B11/Matt. 12:22-28, Jesus heals many and is accused of healing through the power of “Beelzebub”, or the devil. Jesus explains how it is impossible for good to come from evil. That this good would destroy the evil, “a house divided against itself”. In other words, if evil were capable of doing good things, it would be destroying itself. What sense would that make?
Bring in some blocks to play with. Ask the children to build a wall of blocks across the Sunday School table. As they build, go along behind them and remove the blocks from the wall as they go. Hopefully they will protest and you will all have a good laugh as you tell them, not to worry, just keep building!
Explain that this is a good way to explain the idea of being a “house divided against itself”. Everything one person is constructing, is torn down by another. Will you ever be successful in building this way? Likewise, if we continue to listen to mortal mind as if it is true and good, we are destroying our own “building” of a right understanding of who we are as spiritual ideas.
pycl #5: Bring some paint or ink, and maybe a sponge.
Based on Mary Baker Eddy’s statement in citation S20/390:32 get out some bright or dark colors (not yellow or white) and use it in a “blotting” exercise. Explain that in her day all pens were fountain pens that had little storage wells within the pen that you had to dip into ink to use. Often this process would yield a big “blot” of ink that would cover what you were writing. We don’t use this kind of pen anymore, but you can still “blot out images of mortal thought and its beliefs in sickness and sin.”
Try writing down some lies and then have the children blot them out with the paint you brought, or with a strong magic marker. Try replacing the lies with truth as well. Remember that it is the one Mind that gives us true thoughts of health, harmony, joy, comfort, love, and so on.
Have a happy time in Sunday School!
