Click here to print PDF version
Application GEMs of GOD’S INFINITE SUPPLY & POWER TO MAKE YOUR OWN!
Let God Expressed Meekly/Mightily in you sparkle brightly with insights from Cobbey Crisler & others as inspired by The Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“Is the Universe, Including Man, Evolved by Atomic Force?”
for June 13-19, 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
HAVE ANSWERS READY FOR GOD’S QUESTIONS OF YOU!
Cobbey Crisler on God’s questions to us in Job 38.4, 7/ citation B2
[Job 38:4] “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” God expects us to answer. Where are we? What book of the Bible describes the foundations of the earth being laid by God? Are we there? We’re in the first chapter of Genesis. That requires then that answer.
Job 38:7 “When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”
[These are “NOT rhetorical questions, but ones that we are expected to answer. What could this (“Laying the foundations of the earth”) mean to the Jewish reader but the first book and chapter of Genesis 1? The dominion man IS there… “I and my Father are one.”… The whole question of origin is what God brings out… We must answer every question posed by God in these chapters to get the same (turn-around) results that Job did… If God comes to each one of us and asks us this, how long are we going to put off our answer? It took 40 years for Israel to make it to their Promised Land walking straight it would have taken 6 months. How many years in our lives are we going to spend wandering rather than adopting straight routes to answer God’s demands?”
[Notes on a Cobbey Crisler talk about Job in Warren’s Oxford Wide-Margin Edition of the King James Bible, Job 38: 3, 4)]
LIKE JOB, HOLD OUT TO SEE THE EVIDENCE OF GOD’S BEING PRESENT IS IN HEALING.
Cobbey Crisler on Job 42:2-5/cit. B3
[Cobbey:] “Now, back to the last chapter of Job and we’ll see what occurs (there).
“In Job 42:2 Job says, “I know that you can do every (thing) and that no thought can be withholden from thee.”
“Job 2:5 says, “I’ve heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now,” Guess what? “My eye sees You.” Not just a rumor that God is around, but what else? (Voice: “The healing.”). The evidence of God’s being present is in his healing.”
“The Case of Job,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
QUIT FOCUSING ON NEGATIVITY — TALK INSTEAD OF “TENDER MERCIES”
Cherish “… his tender mercies … over all his works.” (Ps. 145:9-11/cit. B8)
Enjoy a serenade of “Tender Mercies” by two Christian Science Practitioners!Click hear and then click Browse YouTube to see and hear Craig Ghislin, CS, and David Price, CS, two of CedarS Met contributors, singing a guitar duet of “Tender Mercies” on the back porch of our new Care House where they were serving.
[Click on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PToeaQ_CWLE&t=14s
By accentuating the harmony, positivity and blessings that flow from receiving God’s “tender mercies,” we can and should eliminate the curses of strife and negativity play up daily by ads and news — especially in an election year.
(Ps. 145:9/cit. B8) “The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works. All thy works shall praise thee, O Lord; and thy saints shall bless thee”—as two of them do in a fun “Tender Mercies” duet from the deck of CedarS log Care House.
Cobbey Crisler points out in the next verses that we should encourage one another to share examples of God’s power, TO STOP FOCUSING THOUGHT ON STRIFE AND TO QUIT TALKING ABOUT ILLNESSES (and viruses)!
[Cobbey Crisler on Ps. 145:11]
“Psalm 145, Verse 11. A receptive, spiritually-educated, human race going to God with total commitment for the answer to all ills will no longer talk about illnesses. “They shall speak of the glory of God’s kingdom, and talk of thy power.“’
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from Psalms,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
EXERCISE DOMINION OVER WHAT LOOKS (to be) OUTSIDE of YOU—EVEN the ELEMENTS & extreme heat!
A Cobbey Crisler GEM on Matthew 8:18-26 as in Luke 8:22-25, citation B14 in this week’s Bible Lesson
[Cobbey:] “A stilling of the storm is an encouraging application given today’s weather concerns.
“(Matt. 8, Verse 26). “Jesus says, “Why are ye fearful,” immediately seeing the thought, reading the thought, “you of little faith.” He rebukes the wind and the sea; “and there was a great calm.” That tells us something about what it must mean in Genesis 1 (Verse 26) when man “was given dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air.” Is it possible? Is Jesus telling man it is possible that he can exercise dominion over the elements? He has within him the kingdom of heaven dominion that can be exercised over what looks (to be) outside of him…]
“Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master: A Tax Collector’s Report,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
AN ADDITIONAL SPARKLE OF A MONOLOGUE BY ONE OF DISCIPLES IN THE BOAT)
Ken Cooper wrote when this Bible event was in and earlier Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson: “This week I am sharing a monologue by one of the disciples caught in the storm at sea, with due sound effects! [The link to see a YouTube version is https://youtu.be/Y_Z-BCwFBUw and the PDF’s are attached as Downloads atop CedarS webpage.]
“Jesus knew that God was and is the only cause and creator. Knowing that he could of his “own self do nothing” was the fundamental truth of all he expressed, and the power with which he healed. Likewise, all storms that we face, however severe, can be met with these same words of authority, “Peace, be still”, and the calm and presence of The Word is felt and witnessed. In my monologue are the words “We looked at each other, hearts racing with fear of a different kind. It was as though the storm had never been.” Truth removes all error.
“The monologue finishes with Jesus saying: “…nothing shall be impossible unto you” for nothing is impossible to God, the source of our reflection, nothing is outside the embrace and care of infinite Love.
“The storm had no history, no beginning, for the beginning of everything, of us, was and is the Word.”
BONUS MODERN-DAY EXAMPLES (SHARED ON YOUTUBE) OF DOMINION OVER THE ELEMENTS:
[Warren:] In a May 1, 2022 inspirational interview with Arden Wood’s Executive Director, John Mitchell, I shared a few examples of God giving us dominion over the elements – as divine guidance of where to locate CedarS, in a 6-day, 60 million gallons filling of our Mediterranean cable ski lake, in timing of rain at night or other right times for outdoor activities, and much more. To hear these, click here and then click “Watch on YouTube.” If you cannot hear all of Arden Wood’s very informative Annual Meeting, you can fast forward to the second half. https://www.ardenwood.org/arden-wood-2022-annual-meeting/
MARY BAKER EDDY’S CONNECTION IN PROSE WORKS BETWEEN EXTREMISM AND “EXTREMES OF HEAT AND COLD;…”
“…. love, unselfed, knocks more loudly than ever before at the heart of humanity and … finds admittance; … that religion and materia medica should be no longer tyrannical and proscriptive; that divine Love, impartial and universal, as understood in divine Science, forms the coincidence of the human and divine, which fulfils the saying of our great Master, “The kingdom of God is within you;” that the atmosphere of the human mind, when cleansed of self and permeated with divine Love, will reflect this purified subjective state in clearer skies, less thunderbolts, tornadoes, and extremes of heat and cold;…”
(The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 265:3–30)
ACCEPT AS YOURS THE GEM of an “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 S14/505:26-28)
[Warren:] Acknowledge your ability to always rightly answer every question as the reflection of “the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal” God (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 for YOU too when you trustingly accept it as true and faithfully request (“plea”) 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 ready 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, the 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 picked up, and no human help seemed to be instantly 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, B6). I reasoned that this 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 do when he told Pharaoh, “it is not in me: God shall give … an answer of peace.” (Genesis 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) 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 off 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 given 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. S14)
“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 joyous, confident prayer to glorify God by being a clear transparency, a scribe under orders. I was determined to not try to myself “make up” 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!
[This is a second draft of a testimony that I will send into the Christian Science periodicals]
FOLLOW THE UNIVERSAL HEALING STEPS IN JESUS CURING “INCURABLE” LEPROSY
Cobbey Crisler on Luke 5:12-14/citation B16
[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.” Notice how the healer Jesus works here. [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**
REALIZE (or “real-eyes”) the POWER of Paul’s advice to the Philippians TO BE FORWARD-LOOKING INSTEAD OF BACKWARD-LOOKING TO HELP RESOLVE ANY MISTAKE EVER MADE.
How heavenly it would be to rise above all partisan politics for unity around the common good! Getting caught-up in a polarized “blame game,” is “mental quackery” and only postpones real solutions. Paul tells us plainly to “do…this one thing” to come out “perfect” on the other side of any seeming disaster – “…forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things that are before…” Philippians 3:13, 14/citation B18)
[A Cobbey Crisler insight relating the story of Stephen’s stoning in Acts 6 & 7 to Phil. 3:13, 14/cit. B18:]
[Cobbey:] “Was Stephen’s martyrdom in vain? (“No.” From member of audience) It was probably always in the memory of Paul.
(It) may have something to do with the “thorn in the flesh,” which he says reminds him continually, of his past.
II Cor 12:7 And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.
“Paul had to forget his past. Can you imagine that anyone here in this room, and I think all of us have a past that we would like to forget. If we dwell on a past that we’d like to forget, we’re not going to forget it. And Paul’s approach to that might be good advice for us.
“Because, remember he said, “Therefore forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark….” (See Philippians 3:13, 14 below, also citation B18)
Phil 3:13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
Phil 3:14 (citation B11] “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
“So, he went forward despite what he had done.”
“After the Master What? – The Book of Acts,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
[Warren Huff:] Mary Baker Eddy echoes this life-lesson in Science & Health: “When we learn that error is not real, we shall be ready for progress, “forgetting those things that are behind.” (SH 353:22)
Here’s a past CedarS application activity to bring new life to Paul’s advice in Philippians 3:13 that we’d love to bring back as part of our hands-on, Bible Outdoors curriculum in CedarS Bible Lands Park. Hundreds of campers and staff have happy, hands-on memories of doing a fun, spiritual growth, “Tire Traversal” activity at CedarS in the 1980s and ‘90s. Using two, side-by-side sets of 19 tires suspended on aircraft cables between a double set of big trees on opposite shores of a Crown Lake cove, we challenged campers to race a friend (or themselves) using the one piece of advice that Paul gives to perfection-seekers in his day and in ours. To get from to their destination on the far side of the cove, perfection-seekers needed to swing freely from the tire they were on and eagerly release it as they reached out for the next one — symbolically dropping the past and seizing the now in line with Paul’s Philippians 3:13 tip on how to be perfect.
We were forced to discontinue this fun, hands-on application of this Bible message because one winter a visiting beaver community chewed through the supporting trees and used them to make a home on Crown Lake! We have “forgotten” that loss in favor of “reaching out” to demonstrate an even better dream. We hope to re-build twin, side-by-side Tire Traversals in our Bible Lands Park near Philippi. (This time we’ll use power poles, treated so as to NOT be tasty to beavers.) These Tire Traversals will again be spiritual-growth teaching-tools, this time—and will serve as a fun element in a future, hands-on-learning tour of Paul’s journeys. We’ll keep our eyes on this prize and ALSO develop other Biblical life-lessons in fun, hands-on ways as both the right manpower and funds are loved into view!
