Remember “Thine is the glory for which we play!”

Dear CedarS family,
With deepest appreciation for you and your support of our work we wish you Happy Thanksgiving!   In addition to providing you with a wonderful Met by former CedarS counselor and program leader Jared Eggers for the Thanksgiving (Christian Science Bible Lesson below), we are happy to announce the launch of a special website in gratitude for CedarS Founder, Ruth Huff.

 

Ruth's example, ongoing vision and love permeate CedarS and graciously filled it during our 51^st summer, the first one without her physical presence.  This new “Remembering Ruth” website provides an opportunity for those who have been touched by Ruth Huff's legacy and life to express their gratitude. We invite you to read what others have written, post your tribute, and notify your friends about this thanks-giving feast.

 

To access the website, please go to: www.cedarscamps.org/ruthehuff

 

With gratitude for each precious member of our worldwide CedarS family!
Warren Huff, CedarS Executive Director & Met Editor

[**“Thine is the kingdom in which…, the power with which…,
and the glory for which we play forever!”]

Metaphysical Application Ideas for the Christian Science Bible Lesson for
THANKSGIVING Lesson 2012

by Jared Eggers, St. Louis, MO[with bracketed italics by Warren Huff]

Golden Text

In the Golden Text we have a verse from Malachi. Most of the book of Malachi is spent rebuking the children of Israel for the ways in which they have broken the covenant. In verses 6-9, Malachi is declaring the people are robbing the temple by withholding tithes (giving of one tenth of your worth to the church). However, this book is not only about chiding. As biblegateway.com puts it, “The keynote of Malachi's book appears to be the unchangeableness of God, and His unceasing love (Mal. 1:2, 3:6).” We see in verse 10 that he is declaring all the good that God will bring to those who tithe. Today we may not give much thought to tithing. We probably cannot think of a single person who gives 10% of their value to the poor, but what if we gave 10% of our prayers in support of church? What would our movement look like if tithed of our prayers and handling the claims of animal magnetism against our church, such as resistance to attending church, lack of supply, lack of freshness and inspiration, etc.? 

 

Responsive Reading

The majority of the Responsive Reading is taken from Psalms 100 and 150. In the New International Version of the Bible Psalm 100 is titled For Giving Grateful Praise. As we read the passages we are charged to praise God, serve God and trust God with a foundation of gratitude.

Psalm 150 is the final Psalm in the book and, according to Matthew Henry's commentary, it was written as the conclusion of all the Psalms, showing the reader how to praise God. In just six verses the Psalmist directs the reader to praise God no less than thirteen times and his directions give why we should praise God, how we should praise God and who should praise God. 

In this Responsive Reading we are being directed to not simply be grateful, but to praise God through our gratitude.

 

Section 1: All blessings come from God

As we gather this season with our families, churches and communities to ponder and share gratitude, let us remember where these blessings came from. All good comes from God. Everything that is good, that we have seen in our lives, originated from and is a blessing from God to his highest ideas. Here are some excerpts from Deuteronomy 28 (found in section 1, marker 3) and Science and Health:

“Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out.”

“The Lord shall make the plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle and in the fruit of thy ground…”

“The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure…”

“Spirit blesses man…” (S&H, citation 1)

“…all may avail themselves of God as ‘a very present help in trouble.' (S&H, citation 2)

“To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings.” (S&H, citation 6)

All of this good and more is promised and more, so long as we know that our blessings come from God and trust in him to provide all of our supply. As it says in Science and Health citation 5 “His work is done, and we have only to avail ourselves of God's rule in order to receive His blessing”.

 

Section 2: Unlimited supply

This section covers man's unlimited supply from God. It begins and ends with the metaphor of a shepherd watching over his sheep (Bible citation 5 and Science and Health citation 12). In citation 5 we have passages from Ezekiel 34. This chapter starts by chiding the children of Israel for only looking after themselves and not helping others. The passages we have in the lesson are God talking to the children of Israel, explaining how they are His sheep and He watches over them. This is done for two reasons: 1. To point out that God takes care of all of his creation with as much care and dedication as a shepherd would watch over his sheep; 2. To charge all those that know of the one, true God to take care of others by teaching them about God. Science and Health ends the section with Mrs. Eddy's rewording of the 23^rd Psalm (a Psalm that is all about God taking care of man, as a shepherd looks after his sheep). Here she makes plain that Divine Love is the shepherd and all our needs are met by Love.

 

Section 3: Divine Love maintains man

The majority of the Bible verses from this section tell of a story of a crippled man who was healed by Peter and John while begging at the temple gate. (Bible citation 10) The man was crippled from birth, but it is clear that he was smart because he planted himself right at the temple gate at the hour of prayer. There he would be seen by great masses of people entering the temple for prayer. This was likely his daily custom in order to earn a living as deformity prevented him from working. On this particular day Peter and John happened upon him and wished to help him. When they got his attention, he looked at them expecting to receive a gift of money, but Peter said “Silver and gold have I none.” Peter and John could easily have given him money. They often had silver and gold given to them in thanks from the people they healed. It was their custom to give all this money to the church that the church may be able to help people in need like this man, so presumably they could have acquired some money to give to this man. Peter and John, however, had something greater to give. Instead of offering gold, they healed the man and told him to walk. This man did not slowly rise on his weak legs (legs that had never before been used) to take one or two feeble steps. He leapt up and entered the temple “…walking, and leaping,…” and completely healed. He did not need months of physical therapy to strengthen his atrophied muscles. The healing was instantly complete because the disciples healed from the foundational Principle that this man was never imperfect to begin with. 

Man is maintained by God. God made His ideas perfect and that perfection remains with them forever. Mrs. Eddy says that it is “the sunlight of Truth, which invigorates and purifies.” (Science and Health, p. 162, citation 15) [See Warren's P.S. healing] In that same passage, she goes on to say “Christian Science acts as an alterative, neutralizing error with Truth.” Man is healed by the truth that man never has been and never will be imperfect. Man is made perfect by God and He would never let man's perfection falter or fade.

 

Section 4: Praise God and give thanks

This final section is all about praising God and giving thanks. (Bible citation 12) It takes us back to where we started with the Golden Text and Responsive Reading. Everyone must recognize the good in their lives, where this goodness originates and be grateful for it in order to be ready to receive more good (Science and Health citation 20). This goes for everyone, whether you are a king, prince, judge, young man, maiden, old man or child (Bible citation 13).

 

Citation 14 in the Bible quotes I Chronicles 29:11 as saying “Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty.” This should remind us of the end of the Lord's Prayer. In biblical times it was common to finish most prayers with a similar conclusion. Today, we can finish our daily prayers with a similar line that recognizes the origin of all the good in our lives and gives gratitude for it. “Thine is the kingdom in which we live (run, work, pray, play, etc.), and Thine is the power with which we live (run, work, pray, play, etc.), and Thine is the glory for which we live (run, work, pray, play, etc.)”. 
(This prayer was inspired by one of my CedarS counselors who shared what was [unofficially adopted as] a team prayer that she led her Division 1 field hockey team in before every game in their series of national championship runs:
**“Thine is the kingdom in which we play;
Thine is the power with which we play; and
Thine is the glory for which we play forever.”)

 

[Warren's P.S. healing, 1^st shared in at the end of a CedarS Thanksgiving 2009 Met by Jared Eggers: Here's “a whole-hearted song of gratitude to God and to Christian Science for the priceless gift of a life-saving healing! About a year ago — after a joyous 2008 summer and fall of service– I found myself agonizing in the passenger seat during our evening move home from camp. I sang (along with the sound system) many hymns that I knew by heart–thanks to years of camp Hymn Sing experience-belting them out at first through tears of intense pain, and later through tears of immense gratitude. For the first part of the trip the disabling discomfort just wouldn't let up–no matter how I changed my position or what hymns or citations I prayed. The pain seemed to radiate from a huge internal growth that had been steadily growing for several months. It had attempted to rob me of my vigor as well as of all ability to lift one of my legs. In deepest humility–and supported by the prayers of the dear driver, my mom and a practitioner who I kept calling-I continued to reach out to God and to sing each word with renewed understanding, conviction and vigor.  (using what will be CedarS 2013 theme of: “Put your whole self in!!”) With tears of joy and with my whole self I cherished the truths about my spiritual nature as if they were being tenderly told to me in order to save my life for God's service — and that they did!  (“Thine is the glory for which we continue to operate CedarS forever!”) All pain finally broke thanks to this all-out, fervent praying and singing– and I have hardly stopped smiling or singing since.  I remain eternally grateful that I took “God-is-All” instead of Tylenol — that I chose Christian Science treatment to eliminate not only the pain, but also its cause, rather that just opting to temporarily relieve suffering.  I knew when I got home without pain that I was healed, although the draining and dissolving of the growth took several more weeks of consistent “ray-delineation therapy” which “dissolves tumors” with the invigorating purity of “the sunlight of Truth” that “Christian Science brings to the body.” (S&H 162:4, S-15 in this Thanksgiving lesson)  I applied each ray of this divine, healing sunlight –shining the specific, promising laws and wonderful ideas laid out in this precious paragraph.
“Christian Science brings to the body the sunlight of Truth, which invigorates (refreshes, revitalizes, stimulates, enlivens, energizes, animates, rejuvenates, strengthens) and purifies (cleanses, disinfects, sanitizes, decontaminates, filters). Christian Science acts as an alterative (a medicinal plant that causes a gradual beneficial change in the body, usually through improved nutrition and elimination, without having any marked specific action OR A medicine or treatment which gradually induces a change, and restores healthy functions without sensible evacuations), neutralizing error with Truth. It changes the secretions (emissions, discharges, oozings), expels humors (4 Medieval ones to be balanced: blood, yellow bile, phlegm, black bile see http://www.wsu.edu/~hanly/chaucer/coursematerials/humours.html), dissolves tumors (growths, cancers, lumps, swellings), relaxes rigid muscles (“thought-forces”), restores carious bones to soundness. The effect of this Science is to stir (rouse, wake up, budge, shift, get up, revive) the human mind to a change of base (basis, foundation, origin, heart, starting point), on which it may yield to the harmony of the divine Mind.” (S&H 162:4)

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Have fun yielding to and singing out, with your whole self, this transforming “sunlight of Truth”!]