Sunday, June 9th, 2024 Roundtable

In the spiritual Genesis of creation, all law was vested in the Lawgiver, who was a law to Himself. In divine Science, God is One and All; and, governing Himself, He governs the universe. This is the law of creation: “My defense is of God, which saveth the upright in heart.” And that infinite Mind governs all things. On this infinite Principle of freedom, God named Himself, I AM.

— from Miscellaneous Writings, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 258

Animal magnetism, ignorant or malicious, you cannot separate me from God, good. You cannot dim my spiritual perception. … 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. My health, strength, life, intelligence, action, etc., are subject to the governing and controlling power of the divine Mind, and to nothing else, for there is no other power.

— from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, (the “Blue Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, page 77

179 — WATCH lest you yield to the error mentioned in Joel 3:5, and carry into the temple God’s goodly pleasant things. Even though our pleasant things represent the harmony resulting from demonstration, they must not be carried into the church, since the church represents spiritual effort and activity, where the watchword is from Joel 3:9, “Prepare war.” The goodly things represent the fruitage of demonstration, whereas the church represents a warfare with material sense that must continue, until the warfare is ended. Thus the thought of completion should not enter into the church, since it stands for spiritual growth.

The danger from results is that they may bring self-satisfaction, which is death to progress. No child beyond the kindergarten stage is allowed to play in the schoolroom. That is the place for study. Thus our church is the place for demonstration.

If one really wants continuous progress, he would never desire nor seek to have any error removed without demonstration. Otherwise he is not making a suitable preparation for meeting the next problem. To have a right spiritual objective means to understand that progress is overcoming rightly each error that confronts one in his path, thus giving proof of faithfulness.

To sidestep an error means to step out of the struggle for the time being. Once a student of Mrs. Eddy’s declared that in his early days in Science when he had a difficulty, he went so far as to pray that it would not go away except through demonstration. To him demonstration was such a sacred and vital thing, that he did not want to miss a single opportunity to use it.

— from 500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter

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GOLDEN TEXT: PROVERBS 3 : 19

“The LORD by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens.”

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“As Mary Baker Eddy I am the weakest of mortals. As the Discoverer of Christian Science I am the bone and sinew of the world.”

—from Recollections by James F. Gilman

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“For example, if it is necessary I will compel you to confront and give up the resentment eating away at your joy, the pain in your mind you have not felt able to renounce — it will dissolve in the bliss of unconditional, outreaching love and forgiveness. Or I will uncover the willful interference you have indulged in or suffered from without seeing the danger; I will bring you to acknowledge that God, not man, governs all and ‘carries on His harmony’ (Mis 353:24). Or I will open your eyes to the harshness you have not replaced’ with understanding, humour, and affection. Or I will force you to exchange persistent worry about supply for an enlarged sense of the plenitude of spiritual resources and their present expression. If you are harbouring fear of a disease which you believe killed someone or gave someone else years of suffering, I will not allow that fear to go on lurking in your thought; I will insist that you fully accept — either in a flash or little by little — that no one has ever died in the unbroken infinitude of Life or been banished from the sunshine of Love. I will uproot the rotten seed so that it cannot come up in your thought or experience. I will never leave you until I have led you through that valley of the shadow of death to the point where it buds and blossoms as the rose.”

—from “Spiritual Consultations” by Rosalie Maas Stamp

Whole Article “Spiritual Consultations” by Rosalie Maas Stamp

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Final Readings

The delicate ferns and the spreading bracken unfold their fronds in springtime within the shadow of the forest. They do not fear to grow by unfoldment. The spiritually-minded must permit their God-given abilities to unfold and develop under the tender protection of Science, rejoicing the while that they are witnessing the real creation, the revelation to human apprehension of that which has always been. In that wonderful chapter entitled Genesis, in the Christian Science text-book, the meaning of which dawns upon the comprehension of the astonished student as nothing short of a divine revelation, we read: “There is but one creator and one creation. This creation consists of the unfolding of spiritual ideas and their identities, which are embraced in the infinite Mind and forever reflected” (p. 502)

…creation is not the act of making something out of nothing, but rather of unfolding that which already is. The belief in matter, space, time, physical sense, in the desires of the flesh, in personality, error, fear, hate, and death, having been steadily brushed aside by the hand of revealing Truth, there will eventually remain only the transcending beauties and eternal qualities of real being.

In proportion as human understanding is receptive of this revelation, does the spiritual activity of true creation go on apace. Human character unfolds like the forest fern at the touch of Love’s benediction; positive truth sweeps away negative error, and the moments of seeming darkness grow less frequent and of shorter duration as the gleams of revelation become more regular and their rays draw closer together in order to create the final effulgence of perfect understanding. Then shall not this growing time be purged of foolish repining, useless speculation, and self-pity, and become to us more and more a season of joyful unfolding?

“Joyful Unfolding” (excerpt) from The Christian Science Sentinel November 4, 1916, by William D. McCrackan

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