Fight for right

Book Club for September. Retrospection and Introspection by Mary Baker Eddy.

I had a thoughts: why not look up "retrospection" and "introspection" in the dictionary? Mrs. Eddy doesn't use words lightly.

Noah Webster has: 

Retrospection: the act of looking back on things past; the faculty of looking back on past things. 

(Ho Hum!)

Introspection: a view of the inside or interior. 

(Ho Ho Hum!)

Merriam-Webster has:

Introspection: A reflective looking inward; An examination of one's own thoughts and feelings.

Mrs. Eddy wasn't all that keen on writing about what some would call “normal life.” The inner life was what was important to her; the life revealed to her as spiritual, not material.

The Chapter Ancestral Shadows speaks of ancestors who came from England and Scotland. It seems to me that the point she was making about them was that they were fighters for right. There is a sort of war-like tone. They were important figures in the battles they fought. It wasn't pride in her ancestry but a recognition of values passed from generation to generation, of battles already won. Mrs. Eddy took up the banner of that fight for right – for freedom from all wrong, from sin, disease, and death. Her battle is against spiritual ignorance.

In the Chapter Voices Not Our Own we read about the much recorded story of Mary Baker being "called" in a similar fashion to Samuel in the Bible. One remarkable aspect to me is that another person also heard the call.

The Chapter Marriage and Parentage gives a rough account of her brief marriage to George Glover, his death, and her return to her family home for the birth of her baby. But with all her earthly trials there is no mention of her own health.

And The Great Discovery! Just a few pages to tell of her discovery of the great truth that is the Science of Christianity. Oh, what a learning curve! I think I am right in stating that she kept on learning more about God throughout her long life on earth.

Ret. 28:9-12 particularly takes my fancy: 

"I had learned that thought must be spiritualized, in order to apprehend Spirit. It must become honest, unselfish, and pure, in order to have the least understanding of God in divine Science.” 

There never was a woman, before or since, who lived those qualities as she did – the honesty, the unselfishness, the purity. She was so honest, so pure, so unselfish that she must find a way to present this great truth to the world. What a task God had set for her. She gives us a taste of what it meant, and other authors have expanded on her journey of discovery and foundation.

I keep going back to one sentence in Foundation Work, “Erudite systems of philosophy and religion melted, for Love unveiled the healing promise and potency of a present spiritual afflatus” (Ret. 31: 28).

Joyce Voysey

Ed. From my dictionary.com app: 

Afflatus - inspiration, an impelling mental force acting from within; divine communication of knowledge (from the Latin afflatus - a breathing on - flare = to blow; tus = action) 

Something troubling your thought?

Whatever situation may be troubling and consuming the thought of our community and occupying our own thought - be it government tussles, family troubles, security concerns, ageism, physical stress-points, or something else - that situation can be considered spiritually and met humanly with the application of the teachings of the Bible, which enable resolution, peace, and well-being.

Mary Baker Eddy's Retrospection and Introspection constantly turns the reader to the Bible. Its pages are full of inspiration, wise counsel, and warm uplift, and the reasoning is always based on Scripture.

Consider the essay Exemplification (pp. 86-92) where Eddy amplifies Jesus' instructions to "heal the sick" (p. 87), "raise the dead" (p.88), and "preach the gospel" (p. 88). She even contemplates where his sermons were preached: "When he was with them, a fishing-boat became a sanctuary...the grove became his class-room, and nature's haunts were the Messiah's university" (p. 91:23).

In her final comments on Jesus' example, Eddy refers to a passage from Mark 4:28 "first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear" (p. 92). I was fascinated to read about the growth of corn in a delightful article titled Seeming Standstill by Anna Goeritz in December 27, 1913 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel. Ms Goeritz writes: 

"When the young plant first leaves the ground, it springs up as a light green blade; but soon its growth is arrested, for it has to form a joint that shall become a support for the next section of the hollow stalk. After a little while this new piece stops growing so that a second joint may be formed, and the process is repeated as many times as is required to give the stalk its full height..."

May your crop grow gracefully and sturdily.

Julie Swannell

P.S.
Readers will surely discover just what they need in this little book, Retrospection and Introspection, but here are some other passages that caught my attention:

p. 86: 21 No one can save himself without God's help, and God will help each man who performs his own part.

p. 90: 1 The student should be most careful not to thrust aside Science, and shade God's window which lets in the light, or seek to stand in God's stead.

p. 90: 29 It is safe to leave with God the government of man. He appoints and He anoints His Truth-bearers, and God is their sure defense and refuge.

A steady continuous effort - legacy of a great reformer

Retrospection and Introspection – a great reformer’s legacy

Each of us leaves a legacy of some sort – an impression or at least a memory. Some legacies are longer lasting than others; some may be misunderstood.

The life of a great reformer provides a legacy of inspiration and instruction, and the most helpful life is, perhaps, one that is dedicated to the welfare of others. Thus, when we hear of the winners of the “Australian of the Year” award, for example, we expect recipients have made a difference to others through their unselfish and persistent efforts in a particular field of endeavour. These days, such distinctions often go to those involved in medical or scientific research, but what about religious reformers. What is their legacy? Could it include an example of persistence and perseverance?

As far back as 100BC, the Romans were grappling with questions of effective behaviour. Plutarch writes that Quintus Sertorius (125-72BC) once explained the difference between raw brute strength and patient persistence. He had two horses and two riders. One horse was large and handsome and his rider was short and not strong; the second horse was weak, while his rider was tall and powerful. The strong man pulled his horse’s tail with all his might, but could not pull out a single hair; the weaker man pulled out the hairs one by one until the whole tail was bare. The moral of the story, said Sertorius, is that “a steady continuous effort is irresistible” (Plutarch Lives paragraph 7.16).

Mary Baker Eddy was a religious reformer. She epitomised this steadiness and continuity of effort over many years, day by day, moment by moment, in her determination to proclaim and share her discovery of Christian Science – the science of Spirit or the infinite – with the world. Century after century had passed since Jesus’ advent on earth, and Christianity’s impact had been mixed. Eddy longed to see a more practical Christianity in the world and she dedicated her every waking moment to that end. This practicality, though humanly demonstrable, nevertheless followed a wholly spiritual path. Her radical contribution to religion and science was to include the demand to patiently and persistently reason from the basis of the omnipotence of Spirit, not matter. She wrote in her autobiographical work Retrospection and Introspection, p. 58:

               Stating the divine Principle, omnipotence (omnis potens), and then departing from this statement and taking the rule of finite matter, with which to work out the problem of infinity or Spirit, - all this is like trying to compensate for the absence of omnipotence by a physical, false, and finite substitute.  

               With our Master, life was not merely a sense of existence, but an accompanying sense of power that subdued matter and brought to light immortality, insomuch that the people “were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” Life, as defined by Jesus, had no beginning; it was not the result of organization, or infused into matter; it was Spirit.

Eddy’s legacy continues to bless and inspire, and the legacy includes eminently practical results. One recent example comes from a woman in California who was diagnosed with glaucoma. After deciding to rely wholly on her understanding of Christian Science to help her solve this problem, she stood firmly and persistently with its basis of the omnipotence of Spirit. She writes:

Life is not a mixture of the material and spiritual… the only true account is the spiritual… I will say, during those many months not a day went by without my giving myself a Christian Science treatment. I didn’t have one glowing spiritual truth that I worked with during this period, and there was no proverbial silver bullet. It was consistency; it was expectancy; it was a refusal to give in to a material diagnosis of deterioration and incurability that resulted in a complete healing of the physical condition. 

(Christian Science Sentinel September 4, 2017 - https://sentinel.christianscience.com/issues/2017/9/119-36/persistent-prayer-brings-healing-of-glaucoma?s=e)

Retrospection and Introspection offers insights into the life of a great reformer.