Self justification, revenge, and Love’s strong demands

Self-justification.  Here is a different angle on it – Page 54 of We Knew Mary Baker Eddy Amplified Edition, Volume II (Janette Weller) “During these years, I was constantly tormented with a burning desire to be justified before the world.  It seemed to me that I could not endure to be misjudged and misunderstood.  This intense longing for self-justification kept up for many months [until], suddenly at a Sunday service, the thought came to me that my justification would mean another’s condemnation, and a new light dawned in my consciousness.  I was then and there convinced that a desire for self-justification was the highest sense of revenge one could entertain.”

We find self-justification in evidence a lot in these records of folk who were learning to practise Christian Science.  And do we not have to meet this error in our own experience?

On page 126, Lida Fitzpatrick records Mrs. Eddy as saying, “The preachers speak of Jesus as though he was always so placid, never ruffled, while really he was very stern.  The Scriptures speak of him as saying to his disciples, “Get thee behind me, Satan”; and just before he ascended, he called them “fools” [Luke 24:25].  I used to be very amiable before coming into Christian Science – was a peacemaker at home when arguments about temperance, politics, and philosophy would arise – but now I am stern.”

This reminds me that recently I read aloud the whole of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew Chapters 5 - 7). Then I continued on with a few of the following chapters.  I found that Jesus was speaking very strongly and emphatically, and with great authority.  It made me wonder if as Readers in Christian Science churches we are too soft in reading Jesus words; and Mrs. Eddy’s words in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures as well. 

Somewhere it is recorded that Mrs. Eddy used the phrase “kid gloves”, the inference being that error must not be handled gently.  I have searched for the quote but with no result so far¹.  However, I did find this delightful poem on JSH Online [http://journal.christianscience.com/issues/1951/8/69-8]:

In the Temple

RITA BERMAN

From the August 1951 issue of The Christian Science Journal

 Strong, Jesus' words,
Stinging, like lash of whips.
To the dulled ears of those who bought and sold,
And those who would handle with kid gloves,
Delicately, with compromise, false tact—
Considerate of favor, richer tithes—
The sheep-clothed traffickers
In impure thoughts and aims,
Whom he named thieves.

Let none such motives, God, in whom I dwell,
Despoil the house of prayer that is my mind!
As servitor and minister let me
Be swift to discern the intents that are pure,
Swift to cast out the traffickers in self
That would aggrandize² man by matter limned³.
Seeking by theft of truth some spurious gain!

I was also reminded of what Robert Peel has quoted in his Mary Baker Eddy-Years of Authority.  “But she had small patience with Christian Scientists who were so intoxicated with the vision that they failed to take imperatively needed footsteps towards reifying⁴ it in experience.  “Your head is way up there in the stars,” she admonished one student, “while the enemy is filling your body with bullets.” (Quoted from Powell’s Mary Baker Eddy p. 52)”

On the other hand we find this about love (Mary Baker Eddy’s Miscellaneous Writings p. 250:14) -

“Love is not something put upon a shelf, to be taken down on rare occasions with sugar-tongs and laid on a rose-leaf. I make strong demands on love, call for active witnesses to prove it, and noble sacrifices and grand achievements as its results. Unless these appear, I cast aside the word as a sham and counterfeit, having no ring of the true metal. Love cannot be a mere abstraction, or goodness without activity and power. As a human quality, the glorious significance of affection is more than words: it is the tender, unselfish deed done in secret; the silent, ceaseless prayer; the self-forgetful heart that overflows; the veiled form stealing on an errand of mercy, out of a side door; the little feet tripping along the sidewalk; the gentle hand opening the door that turns toward want and woe, sickness and sorrow, and thus lighting the dark places of earth.”

Joyce Voysey

¹Ed: I am reminded of this quote from Mrs Eddy’s Miscellaneous Writings p. 177: 14 “Will you doff your lavender-kid zeal, and become real and consecrated warriors?”

 

^Ed:

² aggrandize  https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/aggrandize

If you are a window washer, but you refer to yourself as a "vista enhancement specialist," then you are aggrandizing your job title — that is, making it sound greater than it is.

The verb aggrandize not only means "to make appear greater"; it can also be used to mean simply "to make greater." If you buy an estate and sink millions of dollars into its improvement, then you are actually aggrandizing the estate. If you are making yourself seem greater, then people may say you are "self-aggrandizing."

³ Limn  https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/limn?family=limned

Limn is a verb that means to represent or portray. It is most often used to describe the act of drawing or painting a portrait, but it can also refer to describing or outlining a scene or event.

The verb limn evolved from the Latin lumināre, "to illuminate." The word referred originally to coloring (illuminating) manuscripts. The sense of "portray" or "depict" did not come into use until the late 16th century, but that meaning is close to the original, since someone who paints a portrait usually illuminates something about the subject's character. The word is less often used of written description, as in "Her reviews tended to limn the worst aspects of the performance, ignoring the best."

⁴  reify  https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/reify

When you reify something abstract, you make it real. You might reify your affection for Italy by hanging posters of the Italian Riviera on your wall and cooking Italian food every night.

Reify, which is three syllables — ree-uh-fye — comes from the Latin word res, which means "thing," with the suffix -fy, meaning "make into" or "produce," which you know from verbs like "horrify" and "falsify." You may already know the Latin word res, too. From your study of literature, you've probably encountered the phrase in medias res, "in the middle of things," used to describe a story that begins in the middle of the action.