PYCLs: [“Life” Lessons of “Leaning, Letting, Loving” (Hymn 519) and the Mindset of Christ Jesus]
Possible Younger Class Lesson ideas for the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“Life”
for Sunday, July 16, 2023
by Kerry Jenkins, CS, of House Springs, MO
kerry.helen.jenkins@gmail.com • 314-406-0041
BONUS! As one of CedarS “Care House” Practitioners again this week, Kerry, along with Christie Hanzlik, CS, demonstrated on stage many teaching ideas below in their 5 to 10-minute Breakfast “Prac Talks.” All ages find this resource to be a very inspiring and helpful way to start each day here and at home. Click here & then on any Prac Talk of your choice to hear it.
PYCL #1: A long term study of the synonyms.
This is the first in a series of synonym subjects that we have twice each year. It’s an amazing way to dig deep into our understanding of who God is. This can be done on a more advanced or a really basic level. In the past I’ve suggested projects that we add to each week. That can certainly be something you pursue. Or you can start with a big poster board with “God” or “Principle” at the top and make a diagram looking sort of like a “family tree.”
Plan ahead so that the children come up with a list of ways that they know God as Life, for example, and then transfer them so the end result is tidy and can be added to when the next synonym starts. Click here for the online PYCLs where there’s a bottom Download of a pdf “7 Synonyms Poster” as shared by CSPS in 2011.
PYCL #2: Take a walk to look for manifestations of Life.
How do we express Life? In what ways do we see Life, or God as Life, around us? Take a walk, indoors or out. See how many ways we can notice Life distinctly. Take notes as they tell you things so that you can review and send them home with a list of how they saw God as Life when they were walking around.
Can we actually “see” Life with our eyes, or are we seeing manifestations of the fact that Life is being? Citation S7/284:15-20 tells us that God can’t be known through material senses. So, that clears away the conflict that our eyes and ears, etc. can tell us — such as the appearance of dead plants or animals. But I think we can look at trees, for example, and think about the spiritual qualities of Life that they express such as, strength, deep rootedness, beauty, shade, shelter, food (insects, squirrels, birds), color, and so on.
PYCL #3: Throw out the trash to make room for the true.
Click to hear our morning “Prac Talk” at CedarS Camps this morning (7/15/23) In it I spoke about the passage from Luke about not sewing new cloth into old garments/pouring new wine into old bottles. (cit. B12/Luke 5:36-38). I used the New International Children’s Bible translation which states that it would be a bad idea to take a new coat and cut out a piece to patch an old one. This would not match the old, and it would ruin the new one. And with the wineskins, understanding that the fermenting wine would burst the old leather, ruining the wineskin and spilling all the wine.
We discussed the metaphor here that points to how when we understand something spiritual and are inspired, we have to also LET GO of the material/old beliefs to make room for these new ideas. We can’t try to plaster our spiritual inspirations “on top of” our beliefs in matter.
Here are two more ideas that help illustrate the impossibility of any benefit from trying to fit a fact into the framework of an old fable. One example is the idea of the sun rising and setting. When we are little, that’s what we see and accept. As we become educated we find that actually the sun is still, and the earth is moving, giving us what appears to be sunrise and sunset. Once we know this, we aren’t holding onto the appearance of sunrise as “truth”, we know it’s just appearance!
The second illustration that I used this morning was to bring a clear pitcher full of garbage, a trash can, and a pitcher with water. I asked volunteers to decide what we should do to make room in the pitcher for the clean water. It was silly and obvious, but sometimes these pictures can help us cement the spiritual ideas we are learning. So you could have the children do this. You can also expand on this by naming the material beliefs that you would like to throw away as you empty each piece of trash.
[W. Click here for 10 temptations to treat like trash to get rid that would otherwise allow in material mindedness in little ways that would cause us to limit and mentally enslave ourselves by breaking the 10 Commandments. Keep Christ’s alert, counter-cultural Mindset by taking Downloadable pledges to keep the 10 Commandment and 8 Beatitudes as “we solemnly promise to watch, and pray for that Mind in us which was also in Christ Jesus.” 6th Tenet, S&H 497:24]
PYCL #4: How was the woman with the issue of blood making room for Spirit?
Along with the idea in PYCL #3, we can discuss and tell the story of the woman in Matthew 9:20-22/cit. B15. She was someone who had tried every material method available to heal her bleeding. It wasn’t until she recognized and reached out for the Christ that she experienced healing.
This woman had to “throw away” all her reliance on matter to do reach out to Christ for healing. On top of that she broke all the Jewish laws about being “clean” in order to touch Jesus, since she would have been considered unclean. And in this way, Jesus too, “threw away” the materialistic view of God/Life that would make her isolated, unclean, unable to receive the Christ, “separate” from Good/God.
I love as well that Jesus was on the way to heal the chief ruler of the synagogue’s 12-year old daughter when he stopped to give priority to healing this [castaway] woman who has been suffering with uncleanness for 12 years. He “threw away” another material law when he walked in and touched her dead body and told her to “arise”, and for them to feed her afterwards. (Dead bodies were also “unclean”). [Click to see more insights from Cobbey Crisler in this week’s GEMs.]
PYCL #5: How do we let Life govern us?
There’s a beautiful passage from Science and Health to memorize, it’s our last citation: “Whatever is governed by God, is never for an instant deprived of the light and might of intelligence and Life.” (cit. S32/215:12) What is it like when we are not governed by God? That would be the times where we feel grumpy, sad, angry, frustrated, impatient, ugly, judgemental, and so on. These are distinct examples of not allowing divine Life to inform us of what is real, and so, being fooled into feeling less than God’s good presence.
Can we come up with strategies for welcoming in the government of God so that we can never “be deprived of the light and might of intelligence and Life.”? Sometimes it might take us a moment of pause to remember that we are LETTING God govern our feelings. So “Pause”, might be one thing to list. We might try “Breathe”. We can always spiritualize these concepts too.
A pause is a way to “wait on God”, or Love.
A breath can represent “Spirit” which is equated with breath in the Bible.
If we are bringing in Spirit, surely we will feel Spirit’s government!
Perhaps we can take a walk. You get the idea.
Have a great week in Sunday School!
