Ken Cooper’s “POETIC PRELUDE” for “REALITY,”…

Ken Cooper’s “POETIC PRELUDE” for “REALITY,” the
Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson for 9-26-2021

• In the monologue “Not born blind but born again” we see the blind man’s lifelong view of his limited reality changed by Jesus understanding of his true reality.
• In the monologue “Tabitha” , read by Sue Cooper, we see a woman’s view of her best friend, Tabitha as dead awakened by Peter’s view of the immortality of her and her good deeds.  

 [Ken:] “The Golden Text this week has a similar ring to last week’s “…stand still, and consider the wondrous works of God”, and “Stand up, shake the dust off yourself!”  In Webster’s 1828 Dictionary “stand” has over 30 meanings! One of them is “To be on its foundation.”  Others are “To succeed”, “To have a direction”. When we stand with God, our foundation is always around us, and we stand with all that God is, – Love, Spirit, Truth, Life. This guarantees our success, and our direction is always God-ward! We stand in the eternity of good, free of the false claim of dust, free to experience the wonders of God.  When we stand with God we are putting our stamp on the nothingness of error! As Hymn 12 states “Arise ye people, take your stand, cast out your idols from the land….” (Christian Science Hymnal)

“Our reality to human sense is what we believe—to spiritual sense, it is what we are. We may believe in mortal mind, but to God it is nothing, not even a concept. True conception is what God thinks, and what we think therefore as reflection. In Bible citation 1 we have the prayer “Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.” Ps 19:18. Let me see as God sees, as Jesus saw. Again, linking to last week “Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man, the Saviour saw God’s own likeness and this correct view of man healed the sick” (SH 476:32-4)

“In the monologue “Not born blind but born again” we hear the story of a blind man caught up in his mortal assessment of himself, resigned to his reality, his view of the world. The monologue takes his full story, and the disbelief of others, then their discomfort of what they do not want to believe. But the beautiful thing about reality is that it is independent of belief. It is what it is, the “I AM THAT I AM” that governs the universe, all life. This is what Jesus saw, and what this man joyously came to believe. His final words are “I see”, – the understanding of reality that Jesus shared and proved.

“And not just Jesus! His instruction “Feed my sheep” was fully taken up by Peter, and in the monologue “Tabitha” , read by Sue, we have the experience of Tabitha’s best friend, – taken completely aback by the death of this much-loved Christian, but then able to rejoice with her when she also hears Peter’s command “Tabitha, arise.” In other words, Tabitha, stand on your feet, stand up with God, stand as God sees you. And she did. Reality broke though false belief, a belief that was never true.

“While these events happened 2000 years ago, their truth is eternal and therefore right now. They both demonstrated the reality of true being: “Reality is spiritual, harmonious, immutable, immortal, divine eternal” (cit. S5/335:27-28) The final citation is “All the real is eternal”. (cit. S32/335:16 (only)). This was the stance taken by Jesus and Peter. It is the natural stance of man, in which all stand together, at one with God.”

Copies of the poems are available in pdf format in color and B&W as DOWNLOADS at the top right of the online version of this Poetic Prelude to this week’s Bible Lesson as well as of CedarS online Met this week.  (Audio of the Met yet to be added with the email then following soon.) The full range of Ken’s videos can be found on KenGCooperPoetry.  Ken’s email is kengcooper@btinternet.com.