Rise to a divine Love’s-eye-view of womanhood!

[Rise to a divine Love’s-eye-view of womanhood!]
Metaphysical Application Ideas for the Christian Science Bible Lesson on

"Love"
for February 4, 2018

by Kerry Jenkins, CS of House Springs, MO
Kerry.helen.jenkins@gmail.com (314) 406-0041

To download a poem by Ken Cooper on "Love" go to the
online version and click on the PDF file in upper right.]

For anyone who has been struggling with the issues that have surfaced concerning women in recent months, this lesson shares a perspective that brings power, healing and comfort. An understanding of Love and the feminine aspects of Love, illustrated in several Bible stories, give a profoundly spiritual sense of Love (especially as expressed through womanhood), to bring about safety, justice, motherhood and healing. Have no fear, men, this lesson helps all to more deeply understand the unity of God's Fatherhood and Motherhood. God is, after all, One. So the Father-Mother is not two beings in one, but one, entire, loving and powerful God who loves universally, and expresses Her fullness in each of us.

For many of us our mother is, or may have been, the first to show us unconditional love. She may have been the one to whom we first ran for comfort, until we grew older. Our Golden Text takes this metaphor and tells us that there is none but this comforting mother love—that this love saves. It saves us from all dissatisfaction, from all that would make us unhappy, unhealthy, poor, or fearful. And the Responsive Reading explains how precious we each are to this Mother Love. The analogy of an eagle is used here and in the first section to illustrate God's mothering qualities. Further, Love will listen and hear us, guide us, keep us safe from oppression, from enemies—all foreshadowing the Biblical examples contained in the lesson. And we are assured at the end of this Responsive Reading that we will be truly satisfied (like being saved in the Golden Text) when we "awake", become aware and conscious of the fact that we are made in the likeness of God/Love. [Warren: Learn more about how a mother eagle teach her eaglets to fly by “stirring up their nest, fluttering over her young, spreading abroad her wings, taking them, bearing them on her wings”(RR, Deut 32.11 & B2, 19.4) saving them at the last minute after freefalls at http://www.eagleflight.org/cyberstudies/actions-and-attitudes-of-a-growing-church/157-with-eagles-wings and attached picture.]

Section 1: Honor both the Fatherhood and the Motherhood of God.

Obviously there is Biblical precedent for regarding God as Mother, like the passage from the Golden Text. Mrs. Eddy takes that image and embeds it in her spiritual interpretation of the Lord's Prayer when she translates "Our Father" as "Our Father-Mother God". And when we get the next verse as well in citation S5, God's Holy (Hallowed) name or identity—Father-Mother, is the "Adorable One", not two. Just as the 5th Commandment (B1) asks us to equally honor our father and our mother, so we must honor both God's mothering and fathering qualities. In order to do this, we need to gain an ever-deepening understanding of what these spiritually feminine qualities give us as God's, or Love's, reflection. As for the mother eagle, which appears here, as she did in the Responsive Reading, she is regarded as representing strong mothering qualities. She builds her nests in safe and inaccessible places, such as the "crag of the rock" in citation B4. And this rock also represents a strong and solid foundation. In citation B2 Moses is told that God "…bare [him] on eagles' wings…" indicating the great strength and sweep of these bird's wings in flight. Such images combine to illustrate the strength and protection that God's mothering qualities bring to man.

Section 2: An elevated view of Motherhood.

Hannah is in deep despair over being barren. Although not included in this account, her husband has a second wife who has had no trouble bearing children for him, and she is unkind to Hannah about her inability. In Biblical days, indeed for millennia, not being able to bare children caused women to feel worthless, and ashamed. Children were the only real wealth in some cultures. Even today, some women struggle with deep sadness and feelings of shame when they are unable to conceive. Even though her husband clearly loves and cherishes her, Hannah still is terribly distressed and goes to pray to God about the issue. What she does in this temple could be likened to Mrs. Eddy's passage in Science & Health where she tells us that "Desire is prayer, and no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires, that they may be moulded and exalted before they take form in words and in deeds." (p.1:11) In giving over her child to the service of God, she was, in a sense, giving up her personal desire to have a child in order simply to gratify that mother "want" (however sweet and loving), or societal respect, and recognizing the true spiritual nature of God as the only Mother. She was gaining that "diviner conception" mentioned in citation S12. There is no desire here to have a child to "mold" after her own ideals. Rather, she is ready to give this idea of a child up to God, for the true Mother to mold and educate. (S10)

Section 3: Deborah represents the wisdom and courage of Love.

Deborah was one of the Judges of Israel before the monarchy. In the story of her victory over the much better equipped Canaanite army, she illustrates an elevated understanding of power. In her position as a prophetess, she knew that it was not brute force that would overcome the chariots of Sisera (the Israelites had no chariots), but in the wisdom and love of God. Deborah's victory might be seen metaphorically as her unwillingness to subscribe to the pervading system of warfare, (chariots). She saw her power as from God, not dependant on the world's means. Our only hope, male or female, of truly overcoming fear, is through a deep understanding of God's love. The courage that Mrs. Eddy showed in sharing her discovery of Christian Science, was an example of a mother's deep love and desire to offer comfort to a hungering world. She references this courage in citation S14. And the story of Goliath is the archetypal story of going to battle without the typical world's means. In God, Love, lies our only true victory.

Section 4: Love elevates laws of justice.

This lovely story of how the daughters of Zelophehad were able to inherit their father's property, illustrates how Love supplies justice when we turn to Love for answers. These women came to Moses, true, but the story tells us that "…Moses brought their cause before the Lord." Of course God, Love, directed Moses to give them this portion of their father's. In turning to God in times of injustice we can often get a clearer sense of what we are given of God. Love never withholds good from Her creation, as we learn in the next section as well! Citation B15 tells us where our true inheritance comes from, and citation S17 affirms that this more "practical" Christianity is here, it is knocking at the door of our consciousness and is found in an understanding of Love. While human laws, at times, are not fair, we can still experience justice, just as Hannah experienced motherhood, through an elevated understanding of Love's infinite power and government. It may take courage, as it surely did for Deborah and persistence and humility as it did for the woman in the next section, but justice is an infinite quality of divine Love and cannot be constrained by human law.

Section 5: God's expression of motherhood is persistently meek.

Jesus told us that the meek inherit the earth. This story is an example of that meekness bringing a mother great comfort. This story is tough to read because we think of Jesus as being unfailingly loving. While he was, at times, firm with many, the Pharisees and Scribes in particular, I don't think it was from any basis but love. But here, he basically calls a woman who is begging for healing for her daughter, a dog. The woman was a gentile, or non-Jew. Jesus was telling her that he was sent to heal the children of Israel (though we have many examples of him healing non-Jews, such as servants of Roman soldiers). We may never know exactly why he treated her this way, but her humility and persistence are a beautiful reminder of the depth of a mother's love for her child. Of course he does heal her daughter showing that all are worthy of God's love. Citation S21 reminds us of the same fact that pertains to Hannah's situation back in the second section. God is universal Love, She does not "interpose in behalf of one worshipper, and not help another who offers the same measure of prayer". This woman came to Jesus, she saw, through him, the view of God as Love that heals. She recognized Love's power, and was undeterred by words of any kind. When we meet with injustice, even if it is just harsh words, we can remain, like this woman, humble, persistent and loving. In so doing, we open ourselves to see the power of God's Mother Love. Rather than weakness, this shows great power and a sense of our true worth, whether male or female!

Section 6: Mother Love is expressed in the Comforter.

This divine Science that Mary Baker Eddy discovered and founded brings us that Mother Love that comforts in every need. Looking back to the Golden Text "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else… As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you;" we see Biblical evidence for the power of Mothering Love. We have all these amazing Bible examples in this week's lesson to guide us toward the fact that this Mother is present today in Love. Love has infinite power, creative capacity, courage, humility and healing to bestow on each of us. We are, each of us, whole expressions of this Love. As Mrs. Eddy says in citation S27: "Man and woman as coexistent and eternal with God forever reflect, in glorified quality, the infinite Father-Mother God." (516:21)

Click here online version of Warren Huff’s additions of insights and healing application ideas by Cobbey Crisler on some citations in the Christian Science Bible Lesson on “Love” for February 4, 2018.

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