Application GEMs to MORE CLEARLY SEE THAT “ALL IS INFINITE MIND AND ITS INFINITE MANIFESTATION…” (SH 468:10, citation S1)
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
“Mind”
for August 8 – August 21, 2022
by Warren Huff, CedarS Executive Director Emeritus, warren@cedarscamps.org
(Cobbey’s noted insights are shared with the blessing of Janet Crisler janetcrisler7@gmail.com)
BE COMFORTED & ASSURED BY THE UPLIFTING EVER-PRESENCE OF GOD! SPIRIT, GOD, IS EVERYWHERE!
Even if circumstances seem to have us thrown down to the depths of hell, Psalm 139 (“Whither Shall I Go from Thy Spirit…” verses 7-11) comforts us with assurance of the uplifting ever-presence of Spirit. We can sing together of this in Hymn 599, “Whither Shall I Go from Thy Spirit”, in the 2017 Christian Science Hymnal.
This psalm is a favorite song at several camps and is especially lovely when sung with the descant. Click this link to hear All The Christian Science Camps Singing Whither – CedarS Camps . Holly Huff Bruland, CedarS Executive Director (and our first singer), proposed and coordinated this effort (before a summer that was different for all of us due to pandemic protocols) as an example to share with our constituents of the unity and support that we feel for one another and for our work to bless youth, families and our world.
You can hear another version of it (and buy a 50th Anniversary trilogy of CedarS CDs all for $25 to go totally to camperships) at http://blog.cedarscamps.org/2011/07/16/order-around-the-clock-a-collection-of-3-cds-with-camp-songs-you-love-created-just-for-cedars/
PRACTICE A MIND-SET OF THINKING with the AFFIRM-AND-DENY PATTERN of “THE SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT OF BEING” TO REACH A GOAL OF DEMONSTRATING IT MORE EACH DAY! (SH 468:8-15, cit. S1) Perceive & PROVE these scientific facts!
Affirm your God-like nature; Deny the claims of life & intelligence in matter!
** In her Church Manual Order of Sunday Services, Mary Baker Eddy specified that right before the closing Benediction each week there be a “Reading of the Scientific Statement of Being, and the correlative Scripture according to 1st John 3:1-3.” (Manual 124:7) This seems “altogether fitting and proper” (from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address) because Einstein referred to Mary Baker Eddy’s Scientific Statement of Being as “THE MOST PROFOUND STATEMENT EVER UTTERED BY MANKIND.” (In the last GEM there’s more on Einstein’s evaluation of the profundity of this ahead-of-its-time statement.)
It’s been helpful to me to follow the cadenced pattern of this whole, 60-word statement that alternates between Bible-based truths of what to say yes and what to say no to — between Denials of FABLES and Affirmations of FACTS:
(1st Denial:) “There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter.”
(and its Affirmations:) “All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all.” (citation S1, 468:10)
(Next Affirmation:)”Spirit is immortal Truth;”
(and its Denial:) “matter is mortal error.”
(Next Affirmation) “Spirit is the real and eternal;”
(and its Denial) “matter is the unreal and temporal.”
(Next Bible-based Affirmations) “Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness.”
(and its final Denial) “Therefore, man is not material;”
(& final, counteracting Affirmation) “he is spiritual.”
I like to remind myself that this affirmation/denial pattern follows the method not only often voiced by Jesus, but also used by rowers in a row boat. They reach their desired destination only by pulling equally on both oars. (Whenever they (or we) pull only on one oar, instead of on both, they (or we) will seem to go in circles!)
Like Mary Baker Eddy did by both affirming, saying a hearty YES! to the facts, — and also by denying, or saying a hearty NO, to the fables, let’s follow this method of the Master Christian. He denied each lie with affirmations of truth (like he did to affirm that healings came by “the finger of God” NOT by the devil in Luke 11:18-20). Such balanced prayer will enable us to demonstrate healing and a goal of “a higher and more permanent peace”—in ALL conditions.
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You can click here to hear Kathy Fitzer’s “Met” for this week’s Lesson on “Mind.” In Kathy’s Metaphysical Applucation ideas for the March 21, 2021 on ‘Matter” she wrote: “I found a couple of articles that were helpful to me in gaining a clearer sense of the correlative relationship of 1st John with the Scientific Statement of Being. One was an article written by a student of Mary Baker Eddy’s, Hermann S. Hering. He asked her for approval before it was published, which, of course, was granted. https://sentinel.christianscience.com/issues/1906/1/8-19/i-john-3-1-2-3
A more recent article, https://journal.christianscience.com/issues/1982/9/100-9/understanding-the-correlative-scripture, included this statement: “By indicating the correlative nature of the I John verses in respect to “the scientific statement of being,” Mrs. Eddy shows us that the Bible verses themselves indicate both the unreality of matter and the present spiritual sonship of all, however much the deceptive corporeal senses would try to obscure this sonship. It is instructive to read the whole of I John with these points in thought.”
There is also a helpful Sentinel Watch podcast that addresses the question, How Can I Better Understand the Scientific Statement of Being? with Janet Clements. Here’s a link: https://sentinel.christianscience.com/sentinel-audio/sentinel-watch/q-a-how-can-i-better-understand-the-scientific-statement-of-being
STRIVE TO FEEL GOD’S FACE ALWAYS SHINING ON YOU (& on the ILLUSION of any STRIFE) AND, ALWAYS PAY YOUR BILL BY GIVING GOD THANKS & PRAISE (in advance as Jesus did)!
Cobbey Crisler on Ps. 107:8 (cit. B9)
[Cobbey:] “I’m going to give you an assignment in Psalm 107 because it’s a very rewarding one to work with. In the first 22 verses, for example, when you are studying this independently at home, work out the steps that are being given us, the symptoms, the appointment with the Great Physician, the treatment, the complete remedy, and then paying your bill. That happens to be a refrain, “Pay your bill. Pay your bill.” In this particular Psalm, in Verse 8, [and Verses 15, 21, 31] “Oh that [men] would praise the LORD [for] his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!” Follow that all the way through and you’ll find three different sets of prescriptions and treatments that can be quite relevant to our own experience.”
[Cobbey’s transcribed-from-audio response to an audience question:]
“The appointment with the Great Physician and then, of course, when you’re in front of the Physician, that’s face-to-face, seeing God’s face, get the treatment, let His face shine upon thee, then the remedy, go out and have the prescription filled. The remedy solves the whole problem; then pay your bill. Follow that through and see what comes.”
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from Psalms,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
ACCEPT AS YOURS the “understanding (that) is not intellectual, is not the result of scholarly attainments; (but that) is the (reflected) reality of all things brought to light.” (citation S8/505:26-28)
[Warren:] Acknowledging your ability as the reflection of “the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal” God always leads to a right answer to every question (SH 587:5).
Here’s my first-hand, “Answered Prayer Proof” (A.P.P.) of the principles of “Original Reflected” REALITY (Marginal Heading, SH p. 505). It’s totally possible and provable for YOU too. Just trustingly accept it as already lovingly fulfilled your faithfully request (“plea”) to God for His/Her supreme “will” and its healing power to be shown to you and all “in earth, as it is in heaven.” (Lord’s Prayer, SH 17) “Then, if your fidelity is half equal to the truth of your plea, you will heal the sick” and demonstrate divine Mind’s allness in all experiences. (SH p. 418:9)
[Warren Huff:] The Bible account of Joseph answering Pharaoh’s question about the humanly unknowable meaning of his dream (Genesis 41:1-57) along with some correlated Science and Health citations in this week’s Bible lesson, remind me a precious time when some of these passages appeared in a Christian Science Bible Lesson as answers to prayer for me during a final exam week at Princeton University. Besides working out in daily spring training for the football team and working about 20-hour a week in University food service and mail delivery, and in daily recess coaching at Miss Mason’s School (right across from the Christian Science church in Princeton), I had a course load of five demanding classes.
That year what made my upcoming finals week even tougher was having all five of my 3-hour-long final exam periods one right after the other to start the week. The first was 9am-noon Monday morning, the second 2-5pm Monday afternoon, the third 7-10pm Monday evening, the fourth 9am-noon Tuesday morning and the fifth 2-5pm Tuesday afternoon. To top that off, I had already fallen behind on the heavy reading assignments in several of the courses. So, on the Saturday morning before these finals, I thought, “How am ever going to be humanly able to read, study and prepare for these exams with no real study time between them?”
Just as I started to ponder my seemingly impossible situation, a dull pain in my right side that I’d been aware of overnight suddenly became very sharp and did not go away. A roommate, whose dad was a doctor, suggested that it looked like my appendix had burst and that I was having an appendicitis attack. I chose to handle this suggestion with prayer just as I’d had done successfully to meet many other challenges from making hard decisions to experiencing quick healings of broken bones, severe wounds, sprained ankles, torn cartilage… When this very aggressive problem refused to yield quickly to my own prayers, I struggled to get to the privacy of a pay phone booth… (this was B.C.— Before Cell phones). I was calling to ask for the uniquely powerful, prayerful support known as a Christian Science treatment that‘s given with professional warmth and principled love by wonderful Christian Science practitioners (who worldwide are normally readily available 24/7/365).
When the handful of practitioners I knew well from camp and from church did not answer or did not even have answering machines in 1969), and no human help seemed to be quickly available, I hobbled my way – still doubled over in pain— to a Christian Science Reading Room. Its “quiet precincts” were several blocks away on Nassau Street and proved to be a perfect place to reach out directly to God for angel messages and my healing.
For five or six sacred hours that Saturday I was the only visitor to the private study area in the back of the Reading Room. That sacred secrecy enabled me to feel free enough to stretch out on the floor whenever sitting up wasn’t comfortable… I snuggled up to every passage from the Comforter who was re-teaching me all the precious truths that applied to me in that week’s Christian Science Bible Lesson. It included the account of Joseph’s divine intuition that enabled him to know and share the humanly unknowable dream of Pharaoh (Genesis 41:1-57). I reasoned that this divine intuition was mine too and that God would give me the angel insights I needed to cherish to be healed as well as what I needed to study and what to write on my upcoming exams. I loved that Joseph shared the way to humbly demonstrate what he did when he told Pharaoh, “it is not in me: God shall give … an answer of peace.” (Gen. 41:16).
I also distinctly remember feeling great relief in affirming for myself the truth that, “When man is governed by God, the ever-present Mind who understands all things, man knows that with God all things are possible.” (SH 180:25, citation S21) More lessons from the Comforter that I cherished during my Reading Room study came back to bless me big-time after I got my healing and was taking my finals.
That private Reading Room study area also gave me a perfect place to feel free enough to seek and find the Comforter’s comfort by wholeheartedly belting out favorite hymns. I knew by heart all of Mary Baker Eddy’s hymns from years of singing them in Sunday School, plus scores of others from CedarS Hymn Sings every Sunday night. On this Saturday I was forced to study for my exams in the unconventional way of cherishing and singing each word of every hymn as if my comfort and my grades and my very life depended on it. (And, I think they all did depend on and were blessed immeasurably by that unique and powerful preparation of really “leaning on the sustaining infinite.” (SH vii:1)
I’ll always remember that as spiritual sense gave me more and more peace, I closed my healing hymn sing by cherishing each word of “Christ My Refuge” –a poem and hymn (254-258) by Mary Baker Eddy. At about 3pm my tears of pain changed to tears of joy! The pain lifted as I let my heart sing the following laws, “O’er waiting harps strings of the mind, there sweeps a strain, Low, sad, and sweet, whose measures bind The power of pain… And wake a white-winged angel throng of thoughts illumed By faith, and breathed in raptured song, With love perfumed. Then His unveiled, sweet mercies show Life’s burden’s light. I kiss the cross, and wake to know A world more bright… I see Christ walk and come to me and tenderly divinely talk. Thus Truth engrounds me on the rock (Matt. 7:24-29, B12) … whereto God leadeth me. (Christian Science Hymnal #254)
With my freedom of thought and action back, I was inspired to RUN back to my Dodd Hall dorm room. That night and on Sunday, I ate normally and prepared with peaceful inspiration for my first four final exams on Monday and Tuesday morning. I felt divinely inspired to review just what I needed to know. During my first four exams I felt great and full of gratitude to God.
However, when I turned over the fifth exam on Tuesday afternoon, my heart sank as I read all the exam questions which ask me to compare and contrast several books that I had intended to read over the weekend but did not due to the time I needed to spend in the Reading Room having my healing. At first I was seriously tempted to go up to the exam proctor and turn in the exam with a note that I’d had a health challenge and was unable to adequately prepare for the exam and to ask to take the course on a Pass-Fail basis so that my B+ grade going into the final could at least get me a “Pass” on my transcript for this course.
Then, I remembered citations from the Christian Science Bible Lesson that I’d mined in the Reading Room as cherished gems to apply to myself. That included the account of Joseph humbly knowing it was not in him, but in God to give the right answer. (Genesis 41: 1-57)
As I stood up to walk up and give up, rather than try to write about books that I hadn’t even read, an angel message stopped me saying “the same Mind that made this test and that wrote every book is your Mind that is taking this test and I will tell you everything you need to know.”
I gained confidence from this and from remembering other ideas from the Bible lesson that I had cherished and made my own during my healing time of spiritual outreach in the Reading Room.
They included these passages from Science and Health, one of which is in this week’s Christian Science Quarterly Bible lesson:
“This (spiritual) understanding is not intellectual, is not the result of scholarly attainments, it is the reality of all things brought to light.” (505:26-28, cit. S8)
“It is the prerogative of the ever-present, divine Mind, and of thought in rapport with this Mind, to know the past, the present, and the future. Acquaintance with the Science of being enables us to commune more largely with the divine Mind… to be divinely inspired, yea, to reach the range of fetterless Mind.” (84:11-18)
“A knowledge of the Science of being develops the latent abilities and possibilities of man. It extends the atmosphere of thought, giving mortals access to broader and higher realms. It raises the thinker into his native air of insight and perspicacity.” (128:14)
I sat back down with a joyous, confident prayer to glorify God by being a clear transparency, “a scribe under orders.” (Mis. 311:26) I was determined to not try to “make up” myself what I humanly didn’t know, but to merely make it welcome. Ideas flowed and I effortlessly wrote them down, barely taking up my pen. At the end of the three hours I handed in the exam with joy. The next day I was overjoyed and awed to find out that my grade actually improved and not only in that course, but in all five classes. Truly all glory goes to God!! What cannot good do for you too when you, like Joseph, know that “it is not in me. God shall give (me every)… answer” that I need, and I know it!
[A rough draft of a testimony that I will send into the Christian Science periodicals]
ACT LIKE YOU KNOW THAT PROPHECY IS FULFILLED NOW AND THAT INCURABILITY IS HEALED BY CHANGING YOUR CONCEPT AND BELIEVING! Cobbey Crisler on Mark 1:14-27 (cit. B12) Four foundational points for Jesus:
[Cobbey:] Mark 1, Verse 14. We have “John put in prison.” He has already disappeared from the scene.
And, ‘‘Jesus comes into Galilee, and his work begins.”
“Verse 15. There are four foundational aspects to the gospel we need to study. Normally, an architect might refer to just one cornerstone in a building. But let’s remember that all four of the corners have cornerstones. To that degree, let’s ask ourselves if this is not a clue to understanding Mark. We have a foursquare gospel, and at each corner we have a particular point. If this is true, you should be able to compile the information that follows in the gospel under one of the following four headings.
(1) The announcement that, “the time is fulfilled.” What does this mean? Prophecy. The time for the fulfillment of prophesy has arrived. So, everything is just brimming in the gospel of Mark with this great news. All of the expectation is over for the Messianic prophecy: We have a fulfillment now. ‘What could be more exciting than to be living in an era of fulfilled prophecy? Nothing, apparently, because this is what impels the gospel writers to pick up their pens….
Study Mark as if it were a textbook, filled with data that Jesus needed us to know in order to follow him. It is a handbook, so to speak, a textbook where we can find data that can be applied. Those four foundational points, under “the time is fulfilled,” you will see over and over again, explicit or implicit, in the text.
(2) The second one, “the kingdom of God is at no distance.” It is right here. Even that idea is radical to Christendom today often because the kingdom of God, or often heaven, is considered to be so far away from any of us now. It is out of reach, and we’re not really behaving ourselves sufficiently to get there. It takes Palomar’s 200 inch reflecting telescope to even get a glimpse of it. But we find the founder of Christianity saying, ”Not so.” His theology is based on the fact that “the kingdom of God is at hand.”
Do we act like it is? We moan and we groan most of the time. We wouldn’t if our state of mind was the “kingdom-of-God-is-at-hand” and the “prophecies-are-fulfilled.” But those are only two of the cornerstones.
(3) The third one is “Repent!” That means to change your concept. Now, we’re going very deeply to the roots of what is required of us to get anywhere spiritually. The problem is mental or he never would have stated it in this way.
It would be cruelly misleading if he laid down as one of the four important aspects of his theology the fact that we had to change our concepts of things. The implication is that every human ill, physical, moral, mental, all can be changed mentally. Otherwise, repenting wouldn’t make any difference. Changing one’s concept wouldn’t make any difference.
This might be where maybe we temporarily get off the train leading to Jesus’ theology. We may say to ourselves, if our bodies are riddled with cancer, of what avail would it be to change our concept? How would that affect the body? The implication is that this is the panacea. Repent ye. Change your concept about things.
Do you realize what kind of a religion that suggests? It’s very revolutionary in this respect: nothing is incurable from the point of view of Jesus’ theology. If you can change your concept, then everything is curable. That’s some good news of victory that has yet to hit the human race with any impact like Mark, the hammer.
(4) The fourth and final cornerstone is to “believe the gospel,” That “believe” is not just to hold an opinion that waves in the breeze. This is a conviction and a trust in the pronouncements of the gospel of the kingdom of God, and that “kingdom of God is at hand.”
With that structure of the gospel in mind, we can do this kind of work together. As a matter of fact, the reward comes from doing this work individually and meeting each other that way. It affects the world’s climate by doing this kind of deep research. In your own individual study, try those four columns.
The time is fulfilled,
The kingdom of God is at hand,
Repent ye,
Believe the gospel,
and see how you can outline the whole gospel in that way.
We may just discover that Peter becomes one of the most polished orators of all time. Yet he is regarded as a rather simplistic fisherman who probably stumbled in Greek and was more at home in his Aramaic.”
Let’s look at the gospel from above. Let’s see the divine structure here that is motivating what we are being told. Aside from simply gathering the first disciples and paying tribute to John the Baptist’s fulfillment of his mission, a greater sense of baptism, the fact that Jesus is defining things in Mark for us. He’s defining things like church, and baptism, and man, and repentance, and relationship. All of these things are major definitions. But we have to move from the day-to-day approach into the narrative and see this happening in an over-all tenor behind the text.
Verse 21, “Straightway on the sabbath day.”
The Sabbath day is an important thing, because what we’re supposed to do on the Sabbath day had already been defined by a commandment (Exodus 20:8). We’re to keep it holy. Is he going to be consistent or inconsistent – with this commandment? We test his every move. “He enters into the synagogue,” where worship is going on, “and he teaches.”
Mark 1, Verse 22. What he is teaching is so radical that his hearers acted as if they’ll never heard this before. How wonderful! That means it’s inspired. They didn’t recognize in his method anything they were used to in the scribal method the Bible experts, the teachers of that period. In Jesus’ remarks they heard more authority coming across than they had ever heard from the local ecclesiastics.
“Now we’re going to really see part of Jesus’ definition of church. He begins with this preaching that we have heard him do. But his preaching is never separate from his practice of what he’s preaching.
(Verse 23-31 Jesus introduces healing as an appropriate if not mandatory church activity there in that synagogue when he heals a man with an unclean spirit.] “Is the church of that period prepared for healing? Is it ready to be regarded as a place to remedy health and other problems?
Verse 27. “Authority” is the point that’s raised. It’s almost as if religion, as defined by human kind, has come across to us with splendor, with robes, with grandeur, spectacle, but without authority. “The authority Jesus proves is illustrated by the results.” This is what spreads Christianity. Not knocking on doors, not even one-to-one that we so reverence, but healing. There’s a one-to-one. That news, the good news, the gospel of healing, spreads by itself. Who can hold it in? It’s bigger than all of us. It’s God’s word applied, and capable of being applied.”
“Verse 28. So, we find that “his fame spread abroad all-around Galilee.”
BONUS “REST of the STORY” (beyond citation B12) — Mark 1:32-41 Then “at even,” Verse 32. What that tells you is that it’s now after sunset and other people can come and be healed. It was a Sabbath day we find out from another gospel. They all come and the Sabbath is over and he heals a great multitude. In fact, in Verse 34, “He [even] healed many who were sick of divers diseases.” That’s not the bends. That’s simply “diverse diseases and casts out many devils;”
“What Mark Recorded,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
“FOR GOD HATH NOT GIVEN US THE SPIRIT OF FEAR;
BUT OF POWER, AND OF LOVE, AND OF A SOUND MIND.” (II Tim. 1:7, cit. B13)
It’s fun to see “sound mind” as a Biblical promise of mental health which seems especially needed these days. “Sound mind” is also most often translated as “self-control”…
Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers
(7) “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear.—Or better, perhaps, the spirit of cowardice—that cowardice which manifests itself by a timidity and shrinking in the daily difficulties which the Christian meets with in the warfare for the kingdom of God. (Comp. John 14:27, and Revelation 21:8.) “Hath not given us,” in this particular case, refers to the time when Timothy and St. Paul were admitted into the ministry. The Holy Spirit is no Spirit, be it remembered, which works cowardice in men. But the reference is also a far broader one than merely to the Holy Spirit conferred on ministers of the Lord at ordination. It is a grave reminder to Christians of every age and degree that all cowardice, all dread of danger, all shrinking from doing one’s duty for fear of man’s displeasure, proceeds not from the Spirit of God.
“But of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.—Instead of rendering the Greek word by “a sound mind,” it were better to substitute the translation, self-control. The Holy Spirit works, in those to whom it is given, power, or strength, to fight the fight of God, power, not only patiently to endure, but also to strike good blows for Christ—the power, for instance, of steadfastness in resisting temptation, the strong will which guides other weaker ones along the narrow way “of love.” It works, too, in those to whom God gives the blessed gift, that strange, sweet love for others which leads to noble deeds of self-surrender—that love which never shrinks from a sacrifice which may benefit the friend or even the neighbour. And lastly, the Spirit works in us “self-control”—selbst-beherrschung—that power which, in the man or woman living in and mixing with the world, and exposed to its varied temptations and pleasures, is able to regulate and to keep in a wise subjection, passions, desires, impulses.”
IT’S TIME TO WAKE-UP AND YIELD TO THE INVIGORATING AND PURIFYING STIRRINGS OF SCIENCE!
“The effect of this Science is to stir (rouse, wake up, budge, shift, get up, revive) the human mind to a change of base (basis, foundation, origin, heart, starting point), on which it may yield to the harmony of the divine Mind.” (S&H 162:9, citation S19).
This sentence ends a paragraph that I’ll always treasure because it helped save my life!!
That’s why I always share my gratitude for it whenever any part of it is in the Bible Lesson. You can read about my 2008 healing of a large, cancerous growth thanks to a healing hymn sing and my in-depth, follow-up applications of this powerful paragraph – word for word:
“Christian Science brings to the body the sunlight of Truth, which invigorates (refreshes, revitalizes, stimulates, enlivens, energizes, animates, rejuvenates, strengthens) and purifies (cleanses, disinfects, sanitizes, decontaminates, filters). Christian Science acts as an alterative (a medicinal plant that causes a gradual beneficial change in the body, usually through improved nutrition and elimination, without having any marked specific action OR A medicine or treatment which gradually induces a change, and restores healthy functions without sensible evacuations), neutralizing error with Truth. It changes the secretions (emissions, discharges, oozings), expels humors (4 Medieval ones to be balanced: blood, yellow bile, phlegm, black bile), dissolves tumors (growths, cancers, lumps, swellings), relaxes rigid muscles (“thought-forces”), restores carious bones to soundness. The effect of this Science is to stir (rouse, wake up, budge, shift, get up, revive) the human mind to a change of base (basis, foundation, origin, heart, starting point), on which it may yield to the harmony of the divine Mind.” (S&H 162:9, citation S19).
ELIMINATE ANXIETY! ALL GOOD COMES by SEEKING GOD 1ST
Cobbey Crisler & Mary Baker Eddy on Matt. 6:27-33/cit. B16; cits. S25/530:5 & S26/62:13
[Cobbey:] “Matthew 6: The several verses which begin ‘Take no thought’ or utilizing that concept. “Let’s determine just what thought-taking is. Does it mean to be thoughtless? Thought-taking is the way Jesus is using this in context. It’s anxiety, it’s care, it’s concern. Alright, let’s ask ourselves how we do in this test.
‘Take no thought for your life, what you are going to eat, drink, or wear.’ How much time do we give in any day to those three objectives, eating, drinking, wearing? Then Jesus said, ‘Do you know what? It’s not the menu that counts so much as your life which is bigger than what you’re eating, and your body, or identity, much bigger than what you wear.’…
…(Verse 28). …why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.’ They’re disappearing from the Holy Land rapidly with all this building, but you can still see some of them…. all red anemones behind the snow-covered 10,000-foot peak of Mount Hermon is absolutely magnificent. There’s no difficulty at all when you’re visiting the Holy Land in the Spring to “love your anemone.” They’re simply magnificent.
(Verse 29). You can understand really why it says, ‘That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.’
(Verses 30 and 31). So, ‘if God so clothed the grass of the field, why should we be so concerned and anxious about what we wear?
Matthew 6: (Verse 32). Again, Jesus repeats, ‘Take no thought…’ Don’t be so concerned and anxious about what we eat, drink or wear…
(Verse 33). And then Jesus gives the priority equation, ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” In other words, is what we eat, drink or wear of no significance? They are natural and normal on earth. He’s not wiping them all out as if it were a branch of some ascetic cult. But rather, ‘Seek God first and all these things will be added.’ Added. The heavenly law of mathematics is priority first and all those that we normally take thought of would come into our experience naturally. Instead of wasting so much good mental time, taking thought, worrying, and being anxious, we spend that same time seeking the kingdom of God, and all those things come naturally as a result of that.”
“Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master: A Tax Collector’s Report,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
TO PLEASE GOD, GIVE YOUR ATTENTION TO WHAT’S SPIRITUAL, NOT TO THE FLESH! EXERCISE YOUR SPIRITUAL SENSE MINDSET AS A CHILD OF GOD & FIND BEING DIVINE EASY & LIBERATING! Cobbey Crisler & Mary Baker Eddy on Romans 8:6, cit. B17 plus!
Prequel, Romans 8:1,2 “There is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”)
[Cobbey:] “Remember the consistency of the Scripture. This is what turns us into students. The consistency of the Scripture would force us to study in depth how we please God. Here is ‘My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.’ How do we please God? Do you remember any particular Scriptural statements on that?… One of the things that Paul says about it in Romans 8:8 is, ‘They that are in the flesh (they that are earthly minded, who obey the lower nature) cannot please God.’ “
“What Mark Recorded,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
[Warren again: The preceding verses, Romans 8:5-7, with other translations shed more light on the challenge of earthly-minded body worship that seems prevalent today in obsessions with fitness, diet, revealing “selfies”… (Verse 5) “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.” (“People who are controlled by the physical, think of what is physical: and people who are controlled by the spiritual, think of—give their attention to—what is spiritual.” Goodspeed (Verse 6) “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” (“But to set the mind on the flesh brings death, whereas to set the mind on the Spirit brings life and peace.”
The New Testament: A New Translation (Olaf M. Norlie)
These passages and many more from Mary Baker Eddy have helped heal body-worship and lots of resulting ills and issues: “Paul said, ‘Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.’ Sooner or later we shall learn that the fetters of man’s finite capacity are forged by the illusion that he lives in body instead of in Soul, in matter instead of in Spirit.” (S&H 223:2)
“There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual.” (S&H 468:9, cit. S1)
These ideas from Miscellaneous Writings describe the form, color, light, and beauty of our world being loved promises and representatives “of the beauty, grandeur, and glory of the immortal Mind.” (Mis. 87) “My sense of the beauty of the universe is, that beauty typifies holiness, and is something to be desired. Earth is more spiritually beautiful to my gaze now than when it was more earthly to the eyes of Eve. The pleasant sensations of human belief, of form and color, must be spiritualized, until we gain the glorified sense of substance as in the new heaven and earth, the harmony of body and Mind…
“Even the human conception of beauty, grandeur, and utility is something that defies a sneer. It is more than imagination. It is next to divine beauty and the grandeur of Spirit. It lives with our earth-life, and is the subjective state of high thoughts. The atmosphere of mortal mind constitutes our mortal environment. What mortals hear, see, feel, taste, smell, constitutes their present earth and heaven: but we must grow out of even this pleasing thralldom, and find wings to reach the glory of supersensible Life; then we shall soar above, as the bird in the clear ether of the blue temporal sky.
“To take all earth’s beauty into one gulp of vacuity and label beauty nothing, is ignorantly to caricature God’s creation, which is unjust to human sense and to the divine realism. In our immature sense of spiritual things, let us say of the beauties of the sensuous universe: ‘I love your promise; and shall know, some time, the spiritual reality and substance of form, light, and color, of what I now through you discern dimly; and knowing this, I shall be satisfied. Matter is a frail conception of mortal mind; and mortal mind is a poorer representative of the beauty, grandeur, and glory of the immortal Mind.’”
(Miscellaneous Writings, 86:14- 87:14)]
BE A REVOLUTIONARY THINKER! LIBERATE MANKIND WITH SPIRITUAL SENSE!
Mary Baker Eddy was an innovative thinker, way ahead of her time. She wrote & lived in a remarkable way with profound, spiritual understanding to heal & free mankind!
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” (cit. S28, Science & 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 YouTube video shows Australian Brush Turkey chicks taking flight at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3TNnAv0uwM
**HERE’S ANOTHER “WAY AHEAD of HER TIME” EXAMPLE WRITTEN by Mary Baker Eddy: “The light of spiritual understanding gives gleams of the infinite only, even as nebulae indicate the immensity of space.” (Science and Health 509:18)
This is another example of how Mary Baker Eddy in her writing of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures was way ahead of her time in referring to this phenomenon that had not yet been discovered or explained scientifically. She could only do this by humbly, sincerely listening to her all-knowing, divine Mind.
A Christian Scientist friend of mine, Chuck Douglas, was an avid amateur astronomer and the Kansas City dad of CedarS staff friends, Charlie Douglas, Carol Douglas and Elaine Douglas Boudreaux). Chuck had the wisdom and the occasion to ask a professional astronomer what a woman author could have meant when she stated “even as nebulae indicate the immensity of space.” (509:18) The astronomer asked when this insightful observation was made and was amazed that Mary Baker Eddy wrote the first edition of Science & Health in 1875 and its last (418th) edition in 1906. He explained that it was not until 1929 when American astronomer, Edwin Hubble (who the Hubble Space Telescope is named after) was the first to describe the redshift phenomenon and tie it to an expanding universe and exploding stars (nebulae) as explained further at https://www.space.com/25732-redshift-blueshift.html in 1990 when the Hubble Space telescope was launch into its orbit around the earth astronomers’ able to see more distant nebulae and to measure the speed at which their exploding light was simultaneously moving towards observers at light speed in a blueshift spectrum of light and away from us at light speed in a redshift spectrum of light. If you download the amazing pictures of the red and blue light from Helix Nebulae (in the upper right part of thus GEM’s online version), imagine this and countless other nebulae expanding in opposite directions at the speed of light of 186,282 miles per second—with no end in sight! Now, that “indicates immensity”!
** MARY BAKER EDDY chose her MOST PROFOUNDLY ADVANCED STATEMENT, the Scientific Statement of Being, to CLOSE EVERY SUNDAY SERVICE. A portion of this 60-word statement was chosen to open the Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures part of this Christian Science Bible Lesson on Mind: “All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all.” (cit. S1/468:10)
Dr. Albert Einstein, when he was a professor at Princeton University, is said to have said privately of Mary Baker Eddy’s full, 60-word “Scientific Statement of Being” (SH 468:8-15, citation S1): “That is the most profound statement ever uttered by mankind.” After witnessing amazing healings of the radiation exposure of a research colleague, Christian Scientist, Dr. Underwood and of his daughter’s broken bones, Einstein is also said to have quipped “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.
