Thursday, February 19, 2009

deafness and lectures

That may sound like a strange way to begin this blog but let me explain. For the application goes way beyond the original occurance. A friend emailed me a convocation address given at Principia College in 1998. The subject was 'church', which is my personal study for 2009. Within the address were some really amazing thoughts about the importance of church attendance. I will be working with those today. But in the middle of the article was a reference to someone the author knew, and this is what totally blew me away. His friend had been deaf until he reached young adulthood, when he had been healed. He went on to be a Christian Science lecturer. The author asked him whether he had ever known of any other healings of deafness and his response was 'Oh yes, a number of people wee healed of deafness during my lectures."

Isn't it astounding that someone who was deaf even went to a lecture! These are not video shows, it was sound, the spoken word. But they came anyway. That says a lot about what there expectation was for healing. The words that healed them did not come through the physical senses. It was the power of the Christ speaking to them right where they were. Christian Science does heal.

There are many levels of deafness. Sometimes we just refuse to hear something we do not want to hear. Sometimes we insist on hearing something that was not spoken at all, or misinterpreting what the speaker meant. Sometimes there appears to be a blockage that has built up over time, shutting out what we need to hear.

I want to think about this today. I want to be open to that conversation with the Christ. I'm all ears.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Don't try to fix Genesis Two

Where does error come from? Certainly not from the account of creation given in Genesis One, where God saw everything that He had made and it was very good, including mankind, His very own ideas. NO mention of evil, error, lack, sickness, conflict there at all.

It starts with a mist or fog in a dream within a material creation described in Genesis Two. It affects a man-created woman who is mislead by a talking snake suggesting that there is both good and evil and that it is worth knowing about. She accepts this lie, passes the information along to Adam, and things go downhill from there.

Don't try to fix Genesis Two! See instead that you are not and never were part of that dream in the mist...stuck in the midst of good and evil. You are the cherished idea of divine Mind, safe in the first account of creation, surrounded by His good plan, already in place, unfolding day by day.

What happens to evil, to the talking snake? By the end of the Bible it has swollen into a big, red dragon. A lie accepted by one person, spread as truth to others, accepted, only causes the problems to increase. But the snake doesn't win! God's angel messengers and messages of the ever presence of good defeat it and deflate it. It is cast out of thought and out of experience.

Ty asssociating yourself with Genesis One today. If it isn't in that account, don't accept it as anything more than a lie from a liar who only exists in a mist in a dream. No substance or reality in that at all. God, good, on the other hand is absolutely real and wonderful and constantly ready to bless and protect His child. Let Him. Nothing can come between you and God. You can read that as a positive statement or you can believe that 'nothing' is real and able to cause you problems and that is all that comes between you and Good. A big fat nothing. You don't even have to do battle with it, that already happened and it lost. Just stop accepting it as your reality. It isn't. Don't keep trying to fix Genesis Two...rejoice that you are in Genesis One. Relax in the arms of divine Love and watch your day unfold as He intends it to be. No mist, no missed payments, no missed opportunities, no missed deadlines, no missing items. No dream multiplying into a nightmare human existence filled with problems, illness and lack. No man-made person swayed by the cunning lies of a talking snake. No spreading of that lie to encompass others. No dragon. Just ask yourself, did this happen in Genesis One? If it didn't, it doesn't have to ruin your day, your life or your health. See yourself surrounded by everything good, supported by divine Love itself. Because that is what is really happening.

Friday, February 6, 2009

This morning I am doing some research into one of Jesus' healings. It appears in this week's Bible lesson on Spirit. One of the themes running through this lesson is a clearer understanding of 'uprightness'. Uprightness is defined as adhereing strictly to principle. In Christian Science, another name for God is Principle. So I have been looking at each section of this lesson for examples of uprightness.

This account is in John's gospel. Jesus returns to Galilee where a nobleman, who has heard of his miracles, seeks him out. He wants Jesus to come to Capernaum, about 20 miles away, to heal his son who is dying of a fever. One Bible commentary feels this
3 man was driven by his need to seek out Jesus, not by his sincere desire to learn from his teachings. Jesus' reply is "except ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe'. This man's thought is very different from the Samaratins Jesus had just encountered who were willing to believe without miracles. This man was pleading with Jesus to come with him, in a way limiting his ability to heal. He is asking Jesus to 'come down' since he himself cannot raise himself to that level of belief. The man is not deterred but continue to plead for he does believe that Jesus could heal his son, even if he is linking it to the bodily presence of the Lord. The best thing Jesus can do for this man is to strengthen his faith by not agreeing to come with him, but he sends him away with full assurance that his son lives. We can only imagine how Jesus spoke those words but it must have been with authority and grace and power for the man stopped pleading and headed home. He no longer needed to plead for the Lord had granted his request for healing. In effect, Jesus had not only healed the child, he had healed the father. In a lovely completion of this healing we are told that as the man returned home. He travels at a normal pace, no longer rushing, because it is the next day when his servants meet up with him. They have wonderful news and confirm that his son is alive. He asked them when the child began to get better, amend. They tell him that the fever completely left him the day before at the very hour he had been speaking with the Master. At the height of his belief the father had only been looking for a gradual recovery but what occured with a complete, instantaneous healing. So he now fully believed along with his whole household.

There are many lessons here to ponder, especially when we feel we are seeking the Christ under dire circumstances. Is our faith at the same level as that father's had been? Do we look for 'signs and wonders' before we accept the possibility of something so frightening being truely healed? And once we have the assurance that God, Principle, is on the case, do we go our way with confidence and gratitude? Do we expect the problem to be fully and completely dealt with or are we settling for a gradual return to normal health or circumstances? All interesting things to pray about as we continue on our spiritual journey, growing in our understanding of the immense love God has for us, His unlimited power for good, and our ability to demonstrate uprightness.