Sunday, June 23rd, 2024 Roundtable
How Long Halt Ye Between Two Opinions?
This week’s Lesson Sermon Subject: Is The Universe, Including Man, Evolved By Atomic Force?
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Morning Prayers
Hold yourself constantly and consciously under God’s eternal law of blessing, of happiness, harmony, health, peace, joy, power, progress, protection, abundance; there is no other law, – only a contrary mortal mind lie which you are awake and alert to, and not under.
For God is All-in-all, the only creator of the only universe and man. We are His children and we do realize the all-fulness of the omnipotence of God.
— from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, (the “Blue Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, page 63, 77
Discussion points
434 — WATCH lest, when you realize that with God all things are possible, and that all things work together for good to them that love God, you fail to accept these statements or laws in their fullest extent. As Christian Scientists we accept our experiences, whatever they may be, and perceive that good is working through all of them and out of all of them.
— from 500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter
GOLDEN TEXT: REVELATION 22 : 13
“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.”
As the first faint streaks of light in the east gave token of the beginning of a new day, a bird near a Christian Scientist’s chamber window was heard to give a glad little twitter, which increased in volume and power until it was a vibrating, joyous pæan of praise. This continued with short intervals of silence, broken only by sleepy chirpings from some other birds, until the singer had succeeded in arousing his neighbors with his song to the realization that the day was approaching and that it was time to acknowledge it. All of a sudden the solo changed into a glad chorus, in which the solo warbler’s notes could be clearly distinguished above the rest, and to the listening Scientist it seemed as though, because of this bird’s longer practice in voicing praise, his notes were richer in the quality of gladness.
The east now resembled a rosy cloud shot through with streaks of light, which became broader in expanse as they mounted higher; and, as the sun appeared above the horizon, the chorus seemed to reach its climax through a crescendo in which every one of the participants exceeded his highest anticipations. The awe of it, or perhaps it was the glories of the newborn day, brought a reverent hush like unto that of benediction. In “Christian Science versus Pantheism” (p. 3) Mrs. Eddy writes: “‘Solitude is sweet.’ Certain moods of mind find an indefinable pleasure in stillness, soft, silent as the storm’s sudden hush; for nature’s stillness is voiced with a hum of harmony, the gentle murmur of early morn, the evening’s closing vespers, and lyre of bird and brooklet.”
How typical this was of the Christian Scientist’s experience … On perceiving the first faint streaks of light, which promised …the full, glad song of thanksgiving and praise, typified by the bird’s solo, … of gratitude … lifted to awe-inspiring contemplation of God’s wonderful and loving care of His children.
— “Early Shall Ye Praise Him” (excerpt) from Christian Science Sentinel, January 16, 1926 by Alma N. Newton
“At-One-Ment”, from Christian Science Journal, December 1896, by Julia M. Knowles
Understanding this, Paul took pleasure in infirmities, for it enabled him to triumph over them, — he declared that “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death;” he took pleasure in “reproaches” and “persecutions,” because they were so many proofs that he had wrought the problem of being beyond the common apprehension of sinners; he took pleasure in “necessities,” for they tested and developed latent power.
From Miscellaneous Writings,
by Mary Baker Eddy, page 571: 201
“Life is God, or Spirit, the supersensible eternal. The universe and man are the spiritual phenomena of this one infinite Mind. Spiritual phenomena never converge toward aught but infinite Deity. Their gradations are spiritual and divine; they cannot collapse, or lapse into their opposites, for God is their divine Principle. They live, because He lives; and they are eternally perfect, because He is perfect, and governs them in the Truth of divine Science, whereof God is the Alpha and Omega, the centre and circumference.”
— Unity of Good by Mary Baker Eddy, page 10