Soak in feeling Soul-full GEMs meant to bless YOU—and ALL!
from insights of Cobbey Crisler and others for the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“Soul”
for August 15, 2021
shared by Warren Huff
CedarS Executive Director Emeritus warren@cedarscamps.org
SOAK IN THE FEELING OF BEING DIVINELY LOVED AND BLESSED — ALL UNITED TOWARDS GOD, DESPITE OUR DIFFERENCES
with the singing of “The Lord Bless You and Keep You” (Numbers 6:24-26/Responsive Reading)
While my favorite rendition of this hymn was at a Principia Upper School graduation, I couldn’t find that on YouTube. But you can click on https://youtu.be/lZN1mryHEnQ to hear the choir of Westminster Abbey sing John Rutter’s wonderful “The Lord Bless You and Keep You” during a service to celebrate the 60th wedding anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip.
[Or see more joyful countenances at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQFYeWBL0gY ]
“The Lord bless you and keep you The Lord make His face to shine upon you To shine upon you and be gracious And be gracious unto you The Lord bless you and keep you The Lord make His face to shine upon you To shine upon you and be gracious And be gracious unto you The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you And give you peace, and give you peace And give you peace, and give you peace Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen”
Comments:
“It’s incredibly spectacular how a single hymn Can unite us all towards God, despite our differences.”
“The words “and give you peace”, repeated four times, was deeply touching.. I am reminded of an old German saint and quoting her as I remember what she said. “The world mocks our joy and scoffs at our love but it envies our peace.”
CLAIM YOUR BLESSINGS as the DIVINE BENEFITS: SINS REMOVED,
ALL DISEASES HEALED, DEATH OUTDONE! Cobbey Crisler on Psalm 103: 2-6 (citation B5):
[Cobbey:] “We’re all covered by insurance policies, perhaps life and health insurance. The Canadian spelling is probably better, “assurance” as far as biblical therapy is concerned. If you’ve ever wanted to know what benefits we have, Psalm 103 lists them: Verse 2, “Forget not all his benefits.” We have “Forgive us iniquities,” that’s sin removed from man. “Disease,” all of them healed, Verse 3. Removed from man’s experience and nature.” Verse 4, “Redeemeth thy life from destruction,” death no longer the arbiter of man’s potential and capability. Those are the benefits. They’re not only individual; they’re collective because verse 6 says, “The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed.”
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from the Psalms”, by B. Cobbey Crisler**
DAILY USE THESE ALL-INCLUSIVE FEATURES OF YOUR ROYALTY “BENEFITS PACKAGE” (AS “THE SPITTING-IMAGE” of YOUR FOREVER QUEEN MOTHER/KING FATHER) IN THE DIVINELY ROYAL KINGDOM WITHIN YOU:
1) a complimentary, personal fitness & health care system (with the Best Physician on-call for you 24/7/365);
2) a free, built-in security system constantly monitored by “the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal” Security Go(uar)d (SH 587:5);
3) a perfect travel-planning system with free trip insurance/assurance (“going out & coming in forever”);
4) systems for personally-planned, food service & waste management (“going out & coming in” Ps 121:8);
4) an ideal match-making service** (to preserve right companionship & even your “going-out” … dating);
5) an income (“coming-in”) preservation service** from your Soul/sole Provider of “infinite resources”;
6) and, best of all, it’s FOREVER! —Cobbey Crisler on Psalm 121:3, 8 (B3) No off-hours
[Prequel & postlude to Psalm 121:5, 7/cit. B6 by Cobbey:] “Psalm 121, Verses 3 and 4. Let’s remember that the Bible tells us that the Great Physician has no off-hours; “He that keepeth thee will not slumber.” There are no busy circuits, no vacations, no fully booked calendars. You can get right to God, and there is a security system built in Verse 8*, “The Lord shall preserve thy going out* and thy coming in* from this time forth, and for ever.”
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from Psalms,” by B. Cobbey Crisler
**[W: Psalm 121:8 is annually a key metaphysical citation to support those coming-in and going out from CedarS. We all apply it to help affirm divinely-safe arrivals and departures when hundreds are travelling to and from CedarS from all over the world.]
**[Here’s a semi-humorous, Warren’s wordplay offering: “Psalm 121.8 establishes a helpful divine basis for those seeking right relationships and supply. “You can rest easy that it’s God who cares for your “going out” (your dating and companionship) and who provides for your “coming in” (or your in-come) forever!”]
LIKE RUTH, MAKE A DAILY PRACTICE of LIVING LOVINGKINDNESS!
Kerry Jenkins, CS on Ruth & Naomi in the 1-31-21 CSQBL & in cit. B9/Ruth 2
[Kerry, in January 2021:] “I think Bible stories are always the way to go [in teaching A.P. (Answered Prayer) History in Sunday School]. Make sure you read the story of Ruth, feel free to find a newer translation if it seems helpful. [To share it, you could download a slide show telling of almost any Bible story like one of these for about Ruth for your target audience and use Zoom’s Share Screen feature to share it.]
Why would Ruth follow her mother-in-law rather than go home to her family of origin?
What did Ruth see about Naomi’s understanding of God that made her want to follow her?
“Did Ruth maybe make a practice of seeing this activity of Love around her on a daily basis?
Did her life experience at the beginning of the story seem like it pointed to Love’s always meeting her need? After all, she lost her father-in-law, her brother-in-law, and her husband… But these challenges led her to Israel, to Boaz, to being the grandmother to Jesse, great grandmother to king David. Love is always there, but it sometimes takes some effort on our part, some trust on our part, to see this care, but it is there!”
CHERISH a CHRISTLY COMPASSION to HEAL, FEED OTHERS & have DOMINION!
Cobbey Crisler on Matt. 14:14 (cit. B12) and beyond:
Matthew 14: “(Verse 13, before the verse in the lesson). Jesus hearing that John the Baptist had been beheaded, decides to make himself scarce, leaves into a desert place apart.
(Verse 14). “But the multitudes followed him.” Instead of saying, “Look, will you let a man be alone for once,” he turned around with compassion and healed their sick.”
Verse 15-20). And out comes the famous loaves-and-fishes incident in which everyone is fed, with a balance left over despite the fact that we’re dealing with thousands of people. …
And, right after this (Verses 24-33) we have the walking-on-the-sea incident.”
“Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master, A Tax-Collector’s Report,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
[Warren:] A concomitant idea: Find in divine economics that our Shepherd’s supply is inexhaustible, because “LOVE IS, LIKE 5 LOAVES AND 2 FISHES—ALWAYS TOO LITTLE UNTIL YOU START GIVING IT AWAY!”
Cobbey Crisler on Mark 6:35-44 (similar to Matthew 14:14-21/cit. B15)
“The only so-called miracle in all four gospels is the feeding of the “five thousand,” Verses 35-44. I put it in quotes because they were only counting the men. Out of the little boy’s lunch box comes five loaves and two fishes. We hear that from the gospel of John Chapter 6, Verse 13. They feed a multitude. Now we have a lesson on economics given to us by the Master. He didn’t regard that as a problem either. No Malthusian limitation on man that we’re going to outgrow our supply, and, therefore, we should kill off sectors of the human race in order to meet the supply. That’s Malthus and his philosophy of necessity. But we find Jesus saying instead in Matthew 14:16, “They need not depart.” Malthus says they need to be killed, but Jesus is saying, “They need not depart.”
Mark 6.37. The disciples say it would be impossible to feed the multitude, that it would take about “two hundred pennyworth.” The group was considerably more than five thousand if you count the women and the children.
What Jesus said to all the disciples made them become part of the remedy. Twelve baskets were taken around. There were twelve disciples. Each one was made to participate in the abundant result and learn from it. They started out with only five loaves and two fishes. They ended up with more fragments left over than they had when they started out. More available. That’s divine economics. It doesn’t exhaust.”
“What Mark Recorded,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
PRAY PRIVATELY. TENDERLY POINT OUT PROBLEMS. EXPECT GOD’S SURGERY TO OPEN ALL PERFECTLY.
Cobbey Crisler on Mark 7:32-35/cit. B18 – Jesus heals a deaf and dumb man
“Mark 7, Verse 32. Here we have a record, peculiar to Mark, of a healing of one who is deaf and has speech impairment. This may be considered, according to commentators, as too crude by the other gospel writers to include, but it contains a great lesson. Again, we have three treatments.
Verse 33 has treatment Number One. We shouldn’t be surprised to see, “He took him aside from the multitude.” Why? In an apocryphal book called Recognitions of Clement, Peter is quoted as saying, “Nothing is more difficult, my brethren, than to reason concerning the truth in the presence of a mixed multitude of people.” There’s a privacy of prayer. ”Pray to thy Father in secret,’’ Jesus said about prayer in Matthew 6:6.
So, the Second Treatment, “He put his fingers into his ears, spit, and touched his tongue.” We may say, “Jesus, why did you have to do it that way,” right? It seems to argue against the way he had already established. What does he do with the one he is dealing with? He is meeting a mental state that is dualistic and confused. It needs the tender lesson and mercies of the Christ, to summon it to that purity that can see God and, therefore, be like God. Thus, it can have every vestige of the mixed nature of impurity removed.
You have a deaf man. You can’t communicate to a deaf man, not audibly. So, what does he do? He knows what the problem of that individual happens to be. He’s not going to alarm that man any more than he did the twelve-year-old girl who woke up from that so-called terminal sleep. He simply goes to that individual and tenderly points to the areas that he knows constitute the problem, and that he is going to deal with. Nothing defensive by the man. No alarm expressed. He simply “put his fingers in his ears, spit, touched his tongue.”
Verse 34. Then the Third treatment, “Ephphatha,” Aramaic for “Be opened.”
Verse 35, “And immediately.” We don’t have Jesus assigning him months with a speech therapist in order to learn how to phrase the language which he hasn’t spoken or heard from others, “He spake plain. No surgical operation.
“What Mark Recorded,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
TOTALLY LEAN ON GOD FOR A LIFE BIG WITH BLESSINGS!
What a relief to know that it’s by God’s will and “amazing grace”— not by any of our own efforts, other than that of leaning on God — that we are given lives “big with blessings.” As Mary Baker Eddy has proven and promised: “To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings” (cit. S32/ vii:1) What could be bigger blessings for us than daily demonstrations that the newness of Life in God is ALL-inclusive: “Behold, I make all things new!” (Revelation 21:5).
