book for September

For September, we will be reading the very first book of the Bible, namely Genesis. Choose whichever version pleases you or surprises you the most. If you can read it in the original Hebrew, perhaps you could share your insights with the rest of us who have to revert to English translations and paraphrases. 

In the meantime, if like me, you have not yet finished our August selection (pages 103 - 237 of Miscellany), then there is still time to catch up with all the ideas there.

You may not hear from us for a week or so as your editor sails from the island of Flores into Komodo National Park in the beautiful islands of Indonesia.

Happy reading everyone.

Julie Swannell

Surprises

I wonder if other folk have the same experience that I often do when reading our Book Club books:  I have a period of reading without seeming to have anything to write about, but one phrase can keep coming back to me demanding attention. This morning the phrase is:

And because Science is naturally divine, is this natural Science less profitable or scientific than ‘counting the legs of insects’? (178:10-12)

How valuable is this Science of Christianity!

I had a similar experience last night while reading a few pages of Science and Health (S&H) before going to sleep.  The phrase “influx of light” (47:7-8) left a strong impression and remained with me for much of the night. Without opening the book, I could not remember the full sentence, which is, “The influx of light was sudden”. I was trying to fit in “the Day of Pentecost,” which is in the next sentence. Was it “The sudden influx of light as on the Day of Pentecost”? The words had come to me as a surprise. I couldn't quite gauge the meaning in the context of the paragraph, and the sentence didn’t seem to fit.

As I opened S&H to read the paragraph this morning, it was thrilling! The passage speaks about Jesus’ students receiving the Holy Ghost, but was Mrs. Eddy also describing her own experience of receiving the Holy Ghost as an influx of light, an overwhelming power, just as the disciples had received it (see Acts Chapter 2)?  

Mrs. Eddy seems to intimate that we too can experience that influx of light.  Indeed, we must expect it as our right as children of the Most High.

Sometimes Science and Health surprises the reader in the way it teaches us and opens up our understanding. This reminds me of a delightful hymn in the Christian Science Hymnal – “Sometimes a light surprises the Christian when he sings” (Hymn 313).

Joyce Voysey

Benedictions

Have I mentioned before that I have found many benedictions amongst the writings in Miscellany, benedictions suitable, with sometimes a slight change of words, for church services?

Here is one on page 167 (line 11, adapted a little) – May heaven’s messages of “on earth peace, good will toward men,” fill yours hearts and leave their loving benedictions upon your lives.

Joyce Voysey

Spiritual progress

It is such a pleasure to re-read the letters from Mrs. Eddy to the churches. One finds old friends which re-delight us. For instance I find I have marked I find I have marked the following passages in Miscellany:

Thus may each member of this church rise above the oft-repeated inquiry, What am I? to the scientific response: I am able to impart truth, health, and happiness, and this is my rock of salvation and my reason for existing (165: 18);

He who is afraid of being too generous has lost the power of being magnanimous (165: 26-27);

and

When we are willing to help and to be helped, divine aid is near (166: 19-20).

We can always expect to be inspired by different words of wisdom each time we re-read Mrs. Eddy’s writings, as I was when I read:

…let our measure of time and joy be spiritual, not material (166:23).

We have progressed spiritually each time we come to re-read, and we can say with joy, Alleluia!

Joyce Voysey

"Indefatigable labours to bless others"

I wonder what was occurring in 1904 that Mrs. Eddy’s Message on the Occasion of the Dedication of Mrs. Eddy’s Gift should be so full of strong metaphysics? I searched in Robert Peel’s Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority but failed to find anything that seemed outstanding. However, I did find a wonderful quote by Mrs. Eddy from Joseph Mann: “Who that has spent one hour in the home of Mrs. Eddy has not had his own slothfulness rebuked by her indefatigable labours to bless others?”

On further searching in www.JSH-Online.com, I found that this quote comes from Joseph Mann’s article Seventeen Years a Witness in the August 8 1903 edition of the Christian Science Sentinel.

 

Joseph Mann’s outstanding healing of a bullet wound is well known in Christian Science annuls.  In his article he expresses gratitude for that healing, and adds,  ”But during all these years (17) a still greater blessing has been mine, the blessing of thinking and speaking the word of truth through which hundreds of others have been healed.”

He speaks with wonder at the blessings that came to him through six years working in Mrs. Eddy’s household, many of which blessings sprang from direct observation of how she lived what she taught.  He says, “… six years of witnessing in our Leader's life the exemplification of her teachings; six years of extraordinary opportunity to practise in my own every-day life such a sense of honesty, absolute justice, and fidelity to Truth, as the world outside of Christian Science little dreams of, and of which even Christian Scientists outside of Pleasant View have more of the letter than of the spirit, as they would see if they judged themselves by the standard of the natural daily conduct of their Leader, rather than by the world's standard.”

Regarding my initial wonder at the beginning of this blog, I am left with the conclusion that Mrs. Eddy had seen what the field needed to hear from God through her at that time and she shared what was revealed to her.

Joyce Voysey

Why have church edifices?

August, 2015.  Book Miscellany by Mary Baker Eddy.

I am up to Chapter V, Christian Science Hall, Concord, N.H., and so far have not felt the urge to comment.  However, on the matter of the church building at Concord, New Hampshire, I am curious about the beginnings of the hall and those of the granite church which came later on the same site.

What surprises me is the short period between the remodelling of the hall (begun 1897; completed end 1897) and the dedication of the granite church (July, 1904).  I seem to recall that Mrs. Eddy said something like, “The hall is looking shabby…” when she announced the building of the new church.  But I have not so far found the quote.  If I am right about that quote, it gives us an idea of Mrs. Eddy’s standard for church building.  The remodelled building had been in use from 1898 and was replaced in 1904 – 5 years.

However, there is this note of caution about church edifices:  “Our proper reason for church edifices is, that in them Christians may worship God, - not that Christians may worship church edifices!”  (Message on the occasion of the dedication of Mrs. Eddy’s Gift, July 17, 1904 – 162:21).  Robert Peel  has a note that may explain this somewhat (Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority, 455 n. 7).

Mrs. Eddy called her last Class of about 70 to gather in Christian Science Hall in November 1898.  This is the famous class about much has been written by those called for that momentous few hours of teaching from the great inspired Leader and Teacher.  (See particularly the We Knew Mary Baker Eddy books.)

The following was found through JSH-Online.com  –

The Final Meeting

From the June 13, 1903 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel

Concord Evening Monitor

The final meeting in Christian Science Hall last night [June 3] was full of interest. A large number were in attendance not only from Concord but visitors were present from Littleton, Lancaster, Boston, and elsewhere.

The deep sense of appreciation, manifest by reason of the active preparations for the handsome new church presented by Mrs. Eddy, was accompanied by a natural regret at the thought of parting from a place so dear to all.

It was in the fall of 1897 that Mrs. Eddy purchased, and after remodeling presented, Christian Science Hall to the Concord Church. Here she preached March 4, 1898, and in November of the same year she taught a class of seventy. At various other times she has addressed her students here.

For more than five years, therefore, this beautiful hall has not only been the church home of the local congregation, but here have been the reading rooms and the headquarters of Scientists from this and all lands.

The announcement of the manifestations of fraternal good will from sister churches in Concord brought forth many expressions of gratitude. St. Paul's Episcopal Church expressed their willingness to have their Memorial Hall used as a temporary place of worship. The Unitarian Church has extended the privileges of their beautiful edifice so long as it shall be needed. This permission has been accepted, and until further notice the services of First Church of Christ, Scientist, will be held on Sunday at three o'clock and on Wednesday evening at half past seven in the Unitarian Church.—Concord Evening Monitor.

As I was thinking about the Concord church and its updating, John Salchow’s reminiscences came to mind.  We find these in We Knew Mary Baker Eddy Expanded Edition, Volume 1.  John had provided photos of the outbuildings on Mrs. Eddy’s Pleasant View property; one of the barn and one of the carriage house.  They are beautiful, so far above my idea of what a barn is expected to look like, and to me give evidence of Mrs. Eddy’s building standards – and John’s meticulous work in knowing what those standards were, and up-keeping them so that Mrs. Eddy might not be distracted by seeing less than perfection.  Indeed, John refers to Mrs. Eddy’s high standards and her exact eye for colour (page 390 of the book) when she noticed an ill-matching of paint colour between the house and the barn.

Joyce Voysey

Paradise

Where is paradise?

Is it a place on earth? Is it a space in thought?

Can we travel there in a jet? Can we find it among friends and family? Or in the presence of a special friendship?

Is it a place we find in aloneness? On a mountain? In a cinema? In a crowd? On a beach?

Is it somewhere far away? Not here. Not now. Not me.

Is it ephemeral? Elusive? Unattainable?

Is it fleeting? Is it confined to a certain time or place? Back then. Over there. When…

Is it a feel? Sometimes felt?

What and where is paradise?

See Miscellany 118: 25—119: 1

Julie Swannell

the Christian world

Chapter One of our reading this month is entitled To the Christian World and its message remains clear and relevant for us today over one hundred years later.

Eddy described her writing as “hopelessly original” (see Miscellaneous Writings p. 371:28 and Retrospection and Introspection p. 35:4) and this piece certainly verifies that description. Who else could write: “Because Science is unimpeachable, it summons the severest conflicts of the ages and waits on God” (Miscellany p. 103:2)? I looked up “unimpeachable” and found the definition: “beyond question, blameless”; “summons” is a “call with authority to some duty or appearance”; and “severe” is defined as “extreme; serious; hard to endure, perform, achieve”.

In the face of criticism, Eddy proceeds to defend the scientific nature of what she named Christian Science (also called the Science of Christ) by citing the experience of St. Paul (see page 104) and providing examples of the healing effects of this Science. For example she names healings of consumption, diphtheria, carious bones, cancer, blindness, deafness, dumbness, and inability to walk. Furthermore she refers to her 1869 encounter with the distinguished M.D., Dr Davis, who encouraged her to “write a book which should explain to the world [her] curative system of metaphysics” (p. 105).

She rebels against the misrepresentation and persecution directed against her discovery and chooses to speak plainly in demanding that it desist. At the same time, Christian Scientists are admonished to speak kindly of others and not to join the ranks of those who might return evil with evil, nor engage in “ignorance, slang, [or] malice” (p. 108).

She closes with a quote from the great St. Paul: “Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body” (p. 108). That puts everything into perspective for the whole world.

Our book for August

For August, we will return to our June book The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany. In June, we read Part 1. This month we will resume where we left off and read the first ten chapters of Part 2, i.e. pages 103 - 237.

Here are the titles of our chapters this month:

1. To the Christian World
2. The Christian Science Textbook
3. Personality
4. Messages to The Mother Church
5. Christian Science Hall, Concord, New Hampshire
6. First Church of Christ, Scientist, Concord, New Hampshire
7. Pleasant View and Concord, New Hampshire
8. Dedicatory Messages to Branch Churches
9. Letters to Branch Churches
10. Admonition and Counsel

Happy reading!

Faith, Hope, and Love

Some favourite Bible passages come from Hebrews and readers will have discovered their own as we have read this glorious and interesting book together. 

We have read about rest, about God's quick and powerful word, about the throne of grace where Christ Jesus is the priest for ever under the new covenant, and about faith that is the evidence of our hope and is so substantial it becomes understanding that blossoms into love for God and our fellow man. I love that chapter 13 ends with love - which of course is the subject of our Lesson Sermon this week, and which has led us on a marvellous journey with the exposition of "faith, hope, and love, these three" with "the greatest of these" being love. The writer of Hebrews had learnt the lessons of Jesus and Paul very well indeed.

Julie Swannell 

Practicing faith

Chapter 11 gets away from priests and such, and gets down to individuals who practised their faith.

Interestingly, we find this about Moses, “Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt” (v. 26).  The writer knew the timelessness of the Christ -that silver (or is it golden) thread that can be recognised throughout all time.  

“The Christ is here all dreams of error breaking…” our beloved hymn 412 tells us.  The words of this hymn are by Rosa M. Turner, a Christian Scientist.  The Hymnal Notes say of the words that they “…seem to have been carefully moulded to this melody, to express its lovely mood of meditation and tenderness – of yearning aspiration.  It is altogether the song of those who know that they seek a country.”

That had me curious about Rosa.  JSH-online.com shows that Rosa was Miss and lived in Warwickshire, England.  There are many, many poems in the periodicals written by her; also a testimony; and many expressions of appreciation for the words of hymn 412.

A couple of things in the last two chapters.  “Ye have not resisted unto blood, striving against sin” (12.4).  Christianity is not for sissies, is it?

The note at the end of the book says, “Written to the Hebrews from Italy by Timothy”!!  I think I referred to the last verses as sounding like Paul.  Still does to me.  I have the vision of a pupil of Paul’s being given the assignment by him to write a paper on the problems he saw facing the Hebrews.  And his adding a note at the end before it was sent.  So there you have it.

Joyce Voysey

In our hearts and minds

New Testament writers were very familiar with what we now call the Old Testament. We see that over and over again. So the writer of Hebrews reminds us that God’s promise to the children of Israel as they wandered in the wilderness looking for rest is our promise too. The writer is plainly somewhat frustrated with his audience when he/she writes (Heb 5: 11):

I have a lot more to say about this, but it is hard to get it across to you since you’ve picked up this bad habit of not listening. (The Message)

This exasperation is shown gently in the nudge to us all to go beyond the babe’s milk and on to meat. Eugene Peterson helps us here where he paraphrases Heb. 6:1 -

               So come on, let’s leave the preschool fingerpainting exercises on Christ and get on with the grand work of art. Grow up in Christ.  (ibid)

Now we’re given a history lesson. We are told that Christ Jesus now has the role of high priest “after the order of Melchizedek” (Heb 6: 20 Message). We learn that Melchizedek was king of Salem, which means peace. So Jesus has ushered in a brand new order which builds on the commandments of Moses and re-invents them because the old priesthood system simply didn’t work. It was based on personalities. The new way, the text tells us, provides us with an eternal priest. This is all according to prophecy (Heb 8: 14 cf Jer 31:33).  The “old laws” were written on tablets of stone, and later inscribed on door posts as daily reminders. Now God will inscribe them into our hearts and minds (Heb 8:10)!

Julie Swannell

Who was Melchizadek?

Melchizadek seems to be one of the enigmas of the Bible.  I began to wonder if he was a real person.  So I looked him up on JSH-Online.com.  Some folk may remember a series of short articles by Thomas Leishman which was published in the Christian Science Journal, titled The Continuity of the Scriptures. He speaks of Melchisadek as a real person. 

Mentions of him are very rare in the Scriptures, but Psalms, and Hebrews Chapters 5, 6, and 7 have the most.  My Bible Dictionary speaks of him as a supernatural figure having miraculous origin and indestructible life which foreshadowed the eternity of the Son of God.

Now this reminds me that Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (by Mary Baker Eddy) has a remarkable paragraph about kings and priests (see page 141) –

    All revelation (such is the popular thought!) must come from the schools and along the line of scholarly and ecclesiastical descent, as kings are crowned from a royal dynasty. In healing the sick and sinning, Jesus elaborated the fact that the healing effect followed the understanding of the divine Principle and of the Christ-spirit which governed the corporeal Jesus. For this Principle there is no dynasty, no ecclesiastical monopoly. Its only crowned head is immortal sovereignty. Its only priest is the spiritualized man. The Bible declares that all believers are made “kings and priests unto God.” The outsiders did not then, and do not now, understand this ruling of the Christ; therefore they cannot demonstrate God’s healing power.  Neither can this manifestation of Christ be comprehended, until its divine Principle is scientifically understood.

I found it difficult to single out the sentence, “Its only priest is the spiritualized man.”  Hence my quoting of the full paragraph.

These chapters from Hebrews are big on priests.  I have just read the Bible Dictionary on priests.  My goodness!  There is a lot to comprehend.  So complicated, with all the duties and rituals to be held to.  During the Hellenic period (ca. 333 BC – AD 70) priests dominated the nation. The High Priest, as head of the temple, was the de facto head of government of Judea.  He dealt with the ruling powers, collected taxes, and was responsible for the spiritual welfare of the people.

I am interested that the writer of Hebrews must have given his or her readers credit for knowing the Hebrew Scriptures well to be acquainted with Melchisadek and with the functions of priests and kings throughout their history.

I certainly haven’t grasped all that this book has to teach me yet.

Joyce Voysey