GEMs for YOU! PRAY with SINGLE-MINDEDNESS! CHERISH NOTHING that hampers the best YOU!
insights from Cobbey Crisler, Ken Cooper & others from the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“Mortals and Immortals”
for Sunday, May 16, 2021
shared by Warren Huff
CedarS Executive Director Emeritus warren@cedarscamps.org
KEN’S POETIC GEMs this week:
HEAR on YouTube two KEN COOPER POEMS, “Reject, Replace and Rejoice” and “Reflecting love”. Both are inspired by applications of ideas and citations in this week’s Bible Lesson.
[Ken wrote:] “When an artist paints a picture what is painted reflects the artist’s thought. In painting a portrait, the artist paints what s/he sees, and the artist, model, and observer sees face to face what is in thought. God is infinite Mind: the Creator and all creation is therefore ONE. There is no closer “face to face”. Nothing can interfere with this oneness. When we “seek the face of the Lord” we are in fact aligning ourselves to all that is true, for there is nothing else to see or think. Beholding this truth, we behold the reality of our being, our immortality, our true nature. The mortal myth is a lie, it has no reality, and cannot touch us or claim to be part of us. We are at unity with Our Artist. Anything unlike God can and should be immediately rejected, and replaced with the true picture: “I am being painted by the brush of Love”.
In the present reality of “I AM THAT I AM” the mortal has no beginning, presence or ending. It is what it is. We have the authority and power of Truth to instantly reject what isn’t true. The story of Jacob becoming Israel is one of the most powerful in the Bible, and illustrates “THE SCIENTIFIC TRANSLATION OF MORTAL MIND” as revealed in section 3:7. We see someone who practiced deceit, and was himself deceived, but whose inner core of immortality won through. Like each of us he was chosen by God to express what God is. Jacob came to recognise the omnipresence of the Father, and this helped him reject the past, the false view of man, and rejoice in the new. His quest to return to his homeland was the proof of the moral change, replacing the history of why he first left. However, this desire needed to be substantiated, not just dismissing the past but replacing it with greater confidence in God, in his true nature, and that of his brother.
When we wrestle with our thoughts, we must cling tight to what is true, and then when the time is right, we are freed to go forward. This is what happened to Jacob: “Let me go for the day (understanding) breaketh”. His past was soundly rejected, and replaced with his new name of Israel, – having “power with God”. The struggle to identify his true self was the final overcoming of his mortal beliefs, culminating in his seeing Esau as an angel, face to face, the beholding of reality, an understanding of the true nature of both himself and of man, in which they both rejoiced.
This journey of Jacob becoming Israel, is reflected in the poem “Reject, Replace and Rejoice”, the translation of mortal mind as referred to earlier, taking us from the physical, through the moral, to full understanding, showing the inevitable progress of man. Mrs Eddy writes “Spiritual sense, contradicting [rejecting] the material senses, involves intuition, hope, faith, understanding, fruition, reality.” SH 298:13–15). This is our journey and promise, leaving mortality and rejoicing in our immortal reality, our oneness and unity with God.
This is also shown in the poem “Reflecting love”. When you are face to face with someone you see them as they are, you hear everything they say. There is oneness. The beauty of “reflecting Love” is that it is exactly that, – when we behold the nature of God, we behold the nature of man, his immortality, as perfect reflection. “In trust and strong obedience, We hear so clear LOVE’S VOICE, It guides us what we have to do: LOVE is our ONLY choice.” The light of Love is the replacement and automatic unconditional rejection of darkness. Love is rejoicing in good, for Love is our immortality, all-inclusive and all-good.
This immortality and beauty of man is shared in “The Rosebud” as published in the Christian Science Sentinel. What we see is part of what we are, and the symbols of life eternal are everywhere around us. The last lines link with the Golden Text, the immortality of man right now in God’s likeness:
“No need for anxiety, for His wondrous plan
Is for me to express what already I am.”
This is the understanding of the immortality, eternality, of “now”, the ever-presence of God, the for-ever reflection, man.
When we look round, and seek with our spiritual eyes, we can behold God’s brush of Love in every direction, its beauty and perfection, we can see the face of the Father-Mother, “all the varied expressions of God” (S7:32)”
PDF copies of the poems are available in color and B&W on the top right of the week’s metaphysical article. See YouTube Ken Cooper Poetry for all Ken’s YouTube videos.
FIND SATISFACTION AND HEALTH ONLY IN THE ORIGINAL!
Cobbey Crisler on Psalm 17:15 Golden Text:
“Verse 15 of Psalms 17 [tells us] that God’s prescriptions, precisely filled, bring satisfaction. Satisfaction because “we awake in God’s likeness.” But that results first from the prerequisite of “beholding God’s face in righteousness.” That requires us to go back to the theology of Genesis 1 to comprehend what that means. If we indeed are image, or likeness, and God is the original, the only way we can find out about our nature is to spend our time studying the original. Then we know the image. We also know what’s not the image by studying the original.
Just as Treasury Department experts know counterfeit bills, not because they have studied all the many thousands of counterfeit attempts, from poor work to expert work, but rather, simply study the original and you will know the counterfeit immediately. That’s in a sense akin to surgically removing in a mental way, or taking the purgative cathartic Word of God to remove what does not belong to our nature. Imagine the joy of letting go what has burdened us for so long. It’s part of that darkness that is ignorance, that the light, the laser beam of revealed truth, simply removes, and not painfully at all. It just does what light is supposed to do. It removes any rationale for the existence of darkness.”
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from Psalms,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
PRAY with UNWAVERING SINGLE-MINDEDNESS & “EYES ON THE PRIZE” OF LIBERTY!
… “We already know that James read Job because we read the verse (James 5:11) that mentions Job in it…
James 1:6 tells us how we should pray—[W’s 10/7/19 notes: like Job did who never wavered in proclaiming his spiritual innocence. Job so refined his powerful prayers of protest to God that he received his healing and “the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before” (Job 42:10)].
Cobbey: You’ll find when prayer is not prayer… “Let him ask in faith nothing wavering.” Wavering suggests this to-and-fro state of mind…
James 1:8 (citation B3) “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.”…
James 3:17 “But the wisdom that is from above” all stems from the commitment to oneness.”
“The Book of Job: A Mental Court Case” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
[W.] As James 3:17 declares wise prayer from above are committed to oneness and guaranteed of success. As Mary Baker Eddy states of prayers of unsuccessful prayer for President Garfield when he was shot.
Here’s to breaking down these precious, promises and principles and to applying them to get the blessings of putting them into practice: Look to the perfect —free, large, full—law of liberty as an unwavering, permanent gift from above.
Practice Actionable Mindsets today from Warren’s 10/7/19 insights from James 1:25 (cit. B3):
“whoso looketh unto the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.”
- “Keep your eyes on the prize”—on the perfect law of liberty (like on the Statue of Liberty which David Copperfield “vanished” by literally “turning the tables” under his entire audience as explained by Christie Hanzlik). If our perfect –free, large, full— liberty seems to be “vanished” by a group consent illusion or a popular turning to material beliefs, we can instantly turn the tables on them and look continually to the perfectly stable and divinely invariable LAW of liberty…
- Be an unwavering, all-in DOER— NOW! — NOT a forgetful hearer!
More on the rest of the first chapter and book of James:
James 1:17: “Every good gift and every perfect—free, large, full—gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning”—as in an eclipse (W: or a revolving audience for a vanishing Statue of Liberty trick).
[Cobbey:] God’s invariable nature is promised throughout the scriptures:
“God is not a man, that he should lie…hath he not said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken and shall he not make it good?” (Numbers 23:19}
And, “For I am the Lord; I change not.” (Malachi 3:6)
James 1:18 “Of his own will begat he us with the word—logos—of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures”—a sample of what He created to be consecrated to Himself.”
[per Warren’s notes on Cobbey Crisler’s talk on “The Book of Job”]
“CHERISH NOTHING WHICH HINDERS (Y)our HIGHEST SELFHOOD”
and the Ten Specifications of “Spirit, the great architect,” (citation S3/SH 68:2)
[W:] When I was studying for my architectural licensing exam many years ago, the following citation from Mary Baker Eddy was in the Christian Science Bible Lesson and stood out to me.
“Sometime we shall learn how “Spirit, the great architect,” has created men and women in Science. We ought to weary of the fleeting and false and cherish nothing which hinders our highest selfhood.” (cit. S3/68:4)
I reasoned that architects communicate their design intentions not only with drawings (and sometimes models), but also with written documents, called specifications. The ten categories of architectural “specs” spell out quality standards for each stage of every project and for every building component in order to guarantee the highest quality and longevity of their creations. I asked God, “what are Your “specs” for ‘our highest selfhood’ as your creation?” Right away the answer came—the Ten Commandments, of course. I had fun then, and ever since, discovering the valuable connections between the ten categories of specifications (specs) that architects write to guarantee the quality and longevity of their work and the Ten Commandments provided by God to guarantee that we live up to “our highest selfhood.” This gave me a whole new take on the Commandments. No longer were they seen as ten, dictatorial restrictions to LIMIT us, but as ten ways established by God to protect, heal and BLESS us. I hope you enjoy finding and applying the fun links between these Ten Specs, the Ten Commandments and healings in your own life and in others.
The ten God’s-eye views of the spiritual you — in the Download pdf —were written by “*the finger of God” to bring health to your body by looking AWAY from it to God, instead of looking AT the body or TO it, as if it were in control. (*Deut. 9:10, Luke 11:20) In these powerful, Ten-Commandments views of the real you, you can see how they work as your Divine Identity Protection Plan—set-up and upheld by “Spirit, the great architect.” (S&H 68)
… (For all Ten “Specs” see Downloadable PDF in upper right online.)
SHOW YOUR BOUNCE-BACK RESILIENCE: Keep the kingdom as your core & your all! (citation S16/262)
Then, 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, citation S16)
- “God is at once the absolute centre and circumference of being.” (S&H 203:32-1)
A few 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 white, golf ball is shown below. Orange ball is whole.)
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, cit. S16) 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 since then 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.”
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 days—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” (S21, 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” SENTENCE 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.
NOTE UNIVERSAL HEALING STEPS IN JESUS CURING “INCURABLE” LEPROSY
Cobbey Crisler (on Mark 1:32-41) in this Bible Lesson from Luke 5:12-14/citation B14
[Cobbey on Luke 5:12 (& Mark 1:40):] “A leper comes to Jesus. We already know what the early message in the Scriptures is about healing leprosy? Notice what the patient does. Study the patient’s role. Then study the healer’s role, namely Jesus. The leper comes, “beseeching, kneeling, and saying, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.” What does that show is occurring in his thinking? Is he ready? Again, there’s your key. Receptivity is the key to healing. You know, a leper was not supposed to approach anyone. He was to remain at least six feet away and ringing a bell. He was supposed, according to the Torah, to shout everywhere he went, “Unclean, unclean.” Imagine the label one attached to oneself. No wonder it was incurable. You never got off the subject. Unclean, unclean.
Here, he’s breaking through that ritually required barrier and saying, “If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.” Look at the difference just in thought there. From “Unclean, unclean” [to] “if thou wilt thou canst make me clean.” Jesus noticed how the healer here works. [Verse 41,] “Moved with compassion, put forth [his] hand, and touched him.” That’s a no-no. You know what the ritual law said he had to do after that? Go home and bathe. And send out all his clothes to the laundromat and stay there for at least seven hours before he could even mingle with humanity again, because touching a leper made you unclean. [Voice:”…took the serpent by the tail.”] Took the serpent by the tail, good point. No fear.
Also, if we’re studying the healing method of Jesus. If we’re saying that this course on “Heal the Sick: A Scriptural Record” is the record of how we, too, should heal the sick, if this is what Jesus had in mind, or what God is revealing to humanity through the Bible, then what else happened when Jesus touch that leper?
Just ask yourself. Put yourself in that leper’s position. Then stand back and appreciate deeply Jesus’ humanity. How long had it been since that leper had felt a human touch? Did Jesus have to touch him humanly to heal him? [Voice: “No, he didn’t.”] He’s proved in other cases he did not have to. [Voice: “I think he wanted to prove that he wasn’t afraid of leprosy, and nobody should be.”] Alright, that’s also a good point. But look at it from the leper’s point of view. Did Jesus do everything from his own point of view? In other words, like, “I’m gonna do this because I want to show you all I’m not afraid of this dread disease”? No. That’s part of it. [Voice: “Love”] But that great love that saw the man’s need. The love that meets the human need Jesus was expressing there. That man must have just responded in such a way that he was healed immediately.
Jesus makes him do something. It’s a rare case where Jesus ever does it all for the patient. He says, “Be thou clean.” Whose responsibility? [Voice: “His.”] “Be thou clean.”
Let’s remember now as we see these things occurring in the early moments of Jesus’ earthly career, that within them, this is not just something that’s springing full blown. There is a continuity, isn’t there? We’ve spend the whole morning with the continuity, the promise, the prophecy, the indications of healing to come up to Jeremiah’s [31:33] prediction of the New Covenant and it would be “written within on our hearts.”
When Jesus touches this leper and heals him, there comes with it all that authority of God’s revelation behind him, nothing new, as old as God and His revelation to man. Yet, don’t we hark, in a way, to some of the earlier records? For instance, when Jesus tells this man in Luke 5:14 (& Mark 1:44) to go “to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded.” Maybe behind that stands that statement of God to Moses [Exodus 4:8] that if they do not believe “the voice of the first sign that they will believe the voice of the latter sign,” or healing? What greater evidence of one’s religion or understanding could you have than the evidence of a healed case? Especially of one that could very well have been a form of incurable leprosy.”
“Heal the Sick”: A Scriptural Record, by B. Cobbey Crisler**
Like Stephen, lift YOUR thought & committee work to ANGELIC LEVELS! Cobbey Crisler on “the REST of the story” of Stephen & the EARLY CHURCH FROM ACTS 6 (citation B16):
[Cobbey:] “In the event that we might be under the delusion that committee work is nothing but (sort of) hand-to-mouth type of operation, mechanical, read Acts 6, verse 8, and see if that is how Stephen regarded his assignment when he accepted the committee post he was elected to as recorded in Acts 6:5.
Is that all he did was serve on that committee, to serve widows? “Full of faith and power,” he was doing what simultaneously? — Acts 6:8 And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people.
And now, remember what generally happened when Jesus did too much healing?
The next verse, or verses, would generally bring us into the resistance to that kind of thing.
And here, in Acts 6, verse 9, we find those who belong to…apparently in Jerusalem, there were synagogues of Jews from various nationalities.
In other words, they were ghetto-like in a way, but appealing to their own national group of origin.
“So, you have “the Libertines, the Cyrenians, Alexandrians (these are in North Africa), Cilicia (which is Paul’s territory in Tarsus), Asia (which would be a part of modern-day Turkey)” and the synagogues, undoubtedly were…there were several synagogues, hundreds of them perhaps, in and around the Jerusalem area, and some of them just more nationalities.
“And they’re disputing with Stephen now.” (See below)
Acts 6:9 Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which is called the synagogue of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia and of Asia, disputing with Stephen.
“And yet something Stephen had was irresistible. And it’s defined as the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake.” (Acts 6:10)
Much of it must have been based on what? – Scripture, the Holy Ghost, of course, and what about this new concept and strength that would come from the unity which the church was manifesting at this time?
Well, “the accusations, however, are made directly against Stephen,” sounding very familiar to all of us. There the same accusations that were made against Jesus, weren’t they? “They haul Stephen to the Sanhedrin, the same council that had convicted Jesus. (See below, Acts 6:12, paraphrased)
“They set up false witnesses, which again happened in the narrative of Jesus.” (See below, Acts 6:13, paraphrased)
And “they charge him with blasphemy, and announcing that Jesus would destroy this place which is another term for temple.” Do you remember that charge was made against Jesus as well? (See below, Acts 6:11,13)
Acts 6:11 Then they suborned men, which said, We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses, and against God.
Acts 6:12 And they stirred up the people, and the elders, and the scribes, and came upon him, and caught him, and brought him to the council,
Acts 6:13 And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law:
One of the groups of early disciples, most of whom had fled in the opposite direction when Jesus was being charged similarly, look and study whether Stephen budges.
“Despite the malice, the falsehood, the vengefulness hurled at him at this moment, “all he could do when they looked at Stephen was to see that, if his human face resembled anything, it resembled the face of an angel.” (See below, paraphrased)
Acts 6:15 And all that sat in the council, looking stedfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.
“Now that has to do with transparency probably, because the “face of an angel” conveys that. (See above)
“Can you imagine that Stephen had one resentful thought in his consciousness? If he was giving that kind of appearance even to his enemies.
“If thoughts are things, if thoughts are expressed by our bodies as they so often are, and we can tell what total strangers are thinking just at a distance often, just think how we could (perhaps) guess, but fairly validly, at what Stephen was thinking at that moment.”
“His thoughts had pinions if they reminded the onlookers of an angel. And you know, out from that state of thought comes Acts, Chapter 7… and Stephen’s narrated history of Israel.”
“After the Master, What? The Book of Acts,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
YOUR FOCUS on GOD CHANGES YOU, even when it SEEMS just partly FULFILLED
Cobbey Crisler on II Corinthians 3:13-18 (citation B17)
[Cobbey:] “In 2nd Corinthians 3:13 it says that Moses had to “put a veil on his face,” because… they weren’t really ready to face the abolition of so much that we trust right now that doesn’t deserve our trust, so much that we depend upon, other than God.”
Instead of that veil, look what we must do in Verse 18, “We all, with,” what? “Open face.” Now here are the instructions; when in doubt, read the instructions. “We all, with open face,” no veil, no mist. “Behold,” how? “As in a glass.” Immediately we’re talking about what? Original and reflection. What are we supposed to look at? What’s our model? “The glory of the Lord,” and look what’s going to happen.
Are we going to be changed into shame? No, the more we look at our Original, the more we will be “changed.” It’s passive again; we’re not doing the changing. Our focus on God changes us. The more light we face, the more transparent we become for that light. We “are changed into the same image.”
Does it happen overnight, all at once? No, “from glory to glory.” Here we have the word glory expressing the very steps of our way, not from crisis to crisis, but from “glory,” that’s victory. There is an identity that is showing its supremacy over everything that the world has calculated to suppress it. It’s “from glory to glory” that we go down the way, making visible spiritual progress, because it’s happening from “the Spirit of the Lord.” (verse 17)
This verse has caused the Interpreter’s Bible Dictionary to say that glory to Paul is “a partly fulfilled reality, although it is also a future expectation into which we enter by degrees.”
We know when we’ve progressed just as we know when we’ve been inspired. We have already found glory palpable to our spiritual senses right here. Here is the link the human has with the divine, the link that we can tug on in the midst of kinds of bad news. This is why the gospel, or good news, elevates, uplifts our human experience because it is linked to facts that are quite applicable now, even though only partly fulfilled, perhaps some even tenuously based on what we think is hope rather than present fulfillment.”
transcribed from “Glory: Divine Nature in The Bible,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
Like Stephen, when YOUR “BACK’S AGAINST the WALL,” PRAY the W.A.L.L. TREATMENT! —or C.A.L.L. treatment to know “who you gonna call?” (S&H, 495:20/cit. S31)
In Science & Health on page 495, lines 14-24 Mary Baker Eddy gives you (and the whole world) four powerful (and memoizable) sentences to guide your thoughts to healing when you are tempted to believe in the reality of some illusion or ghost of fear or doubt that seems to be in your face.
W.A.L.L. Treatment (SH 495:14) These four sentences begin with the letters W, A, L, L—hence the W.A.L.L. treatment. This was a memory devise that came to me and has made it easier for me to remember the whole paragraph and use it often as a cornerstone for healings.
- “When the illusion…
- Allow nothing but his likeness to abide in your thought.
- Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and…
- Let Christian Science, instead of corporeal sense, support your understanding…” (cit. S16)
Or it could be called the C.A.L.L. Treatment (SH 495:14) A different acronym/memory device can be made by using the first letters of the directive verbs in each of these same four sentences. They are Cling, Allow, Let and Let again—hence the C.A.L.L. treatment. This alternate memory devise came to me when tempted to be afraid of some illusion or lingering “ghostly” belief from the past, present or future (like Scrooge was in “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens). Mary Baker Eddy unknowingly answered in-advance and brilliantly the question “Who you Gonna Call?” (from the 1984 movie “Ghostbusters” soundtrack song by Ray Parker Jr.). She treated all such “ghosts” as illusions in her ultimate, metaphysical “Ghostbuster” treatment that has served as a cornerstone for thousands of healings. –“When the illusion… tempts you,
- Cling Steadfastly to God and His idea.
- Allow nothing but his likeness to abide in your thought.
- Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your Clear Sense and calm trust…
- Let Christian Science instead of Corporeal Sense, support your understanding of being and…” (cit. S16)
(Reread carefully and consider memorizing the FULL, 10-line Christian Science treatment in Science and Health, page 495:14-24. Note the four pairs of consecutive words (which I capitalized, highlighted and bolded above) all begin with C and S!
We’re faced with the barrage of news articles on a global pandemic and other forms of lawlessness as well as with the hopefulness of peaceful protests which attempt to transform and uplift mankind out of hateful habits and often unconscious biases of racism. To stay with the allness of God in the midst of this seeming somethingness of this evil we can always spiritualize thought as we C.A.L.L. on God and:
- C. Cling steadfastly to God and His idea [Christ]
- A. Allow nothing but His likeness to abide in your thought.
- L. Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and calm trust, that the recognition of life harmonious — as Life eternally is — can destroy any painful sense of, or belief in, that which Life is not.
- L. Let Christian Science, instead of corporeal sense, support your understanding of being, and this understanding will supplant error with Truth, replace mortality with immortality, and silence discord with harmony.” (SH 495:14-16, 20)
Such CALL-ing on God gives us something certain to “cling steadfastly to,” and overturns what appears to be a worldwide fixation on fear. The C.A.L.L. treatment is a sure defense. It protects us as we follow the Wayshower, to find comfort and healing for our whole global family. “Jesus marked out the way. Citizens of the world, accept the ‘glorious liberty of the children of God,’ and be free! This is your divine right.” (SH 227:23-26)
**Join us for a virtual CedarS Sunday Hymn Sing! (by Zoom Sunday at 7pm Central Time.) Invite family, church and other friends and even neighbors to join in this healing CedarS tradition along with a happy, worldwide “chorus” every week. You can sing along (muted) with CedarS unmuted, host musicians seven hymns that all are invited to request.
Click here for a link and fuller details.
(A precious prelude precedes each sing at 6:45pm Central Daylight-savings Time (CDT.) We encourage singing along in Zoom’s gallery view to share the joy of seeing dear ones in virtual family-church reunions that bless all generations.
To protect privacy and copyrights, these “brief, but spectacular” sessions are NOT recorded. So, calibrate your time-zone clocks, mark your calendars, and remind friends, so that no one misses any of these inspiring, weekly reminders of our precious, spiritual oneness with each other and with our ever-loving, Father-Mother God who owns and embraces us all!
Lovingly singing prayers and praise to God for about 30 minutes each Sunday is such a warm, “Welcome Home” tradition to bless the start of each week with joyous, peaceful GRACE. (Our 2021 theme.) We have loved singing-in this grace with longtime as well as first-time friends—not only from ALL 50 of the United States, but also from 21 other countries! So far, our “Hymn Sing family” has clicked or dialed-in from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, England, Germany, Ghana, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, New Zealand, Pakistan, Paraguay, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Scotland, Spain, South Africa, Switzerland, as well as from each of the United States! In the universal language of divine Love, “the ‘still, small voice’ of scientific thought reaches over continent and ocean to the globe’s remotest bound.” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 559:8–10)
Here are some areas where financial support is needed and would double the blessings in very meaningful ways to thousands of dear ones served by CedarS:
- UNRESTRICTED & OTHER MAINTENANCE AND HERD-SUPPORT GIFTS WILL BE MATCHED UP TO $100,000! Extra thanks in advance for clicking here to electronically share your tax-deductible support. It’s especially needed during reduced-income periods to help “keep our oil lamps burning.”
- ENDOWMENT GIFTS to help cover CedarS camperships & operations are being MATCHED up to $200,000/year ($1-MILLION total). This will solidify support for our outreach efforts in all conditions!
- Here’s our camp office address to MAIL your gift to THIS WEEK:
The CedarS Camps Office, 410 Sovereign Court #8, Ballwin, MO 63011 - Next week (5/24) we’ll settle into our offices at our CedarS Camps SUMMER HOME & ADDRESS:
The CedarS Camps, 19772 Sugar Drive, Lebanon, MO 65536 - or call CedarS team at 636-394-6162 (forwarded to Gay, Kim or Jennifer) to share a credit card gift.
- CedarS is a not-for-profit, 501-C-3 organization with a Federal ID # 44-0663883.
