Sympathy

 I’m reacquainting myself with a wonderful poem in Mary Baker Eddy’s autobiographical work Retrospection and Introspection. 

The poem begins:

Ask God to give thee skill

In comfort’s art:

That thou may’st consecrated be

It appears on page 95, and although Mrs. Eddy does not name the poem, I can state that it is called “Sympathy”.

 

Mrs. Eddy gives the name of the poet as A. E. Hamilton. Last year I read Ron Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton, one of the Founding Fathers of the United State of America, and noted that he wrote poetry, so I wondered if this poem could possibly have been written by him. (The title of the book is simply Alexander Hamilton. It is a very fine read indeed. And there is a musical Alexander Hamilton!!)

 

As I have written next to the poem in my copy of Prose Works (by Mary Baker Eddy), my research told me that Alexander Hamilton did not write it. Annie Hamilton did. And that Annie was from Dublin, Ireland, and that her dates were 1843-1875. She died at Castle Hamilton, County Cavan, Ireland. She published under initials only.

 

And now I cannot verify that information through the internet!!

 

How the student of Christian Science yearns to be given the “...skill / In comfort’s art”, spoken of in the poem. He knows so well that “...comforters are needed much / Of Christlike touch.”

 

Let us never stop yearning for such skill. And appreciating the wonderful poem.

Joyce Voysey

Outcome and income

Many poems have helped me over the years. One is called “Mind’s outcome: income” by Steven Alan Avey, published in the May 1979 issue of The Christian Science Journal.

The poem employs a lovely rhythm and repetition that invite me to press on to the next idea and are helpful in memorizing. It also employs all seven synonyms for God found in the Christian Science textbook (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy). This encourages the reader to continue on to see the role of each of those synonyms in working out that our income is Mind’s outcome – what Mr. Avey calls “usable ideas that develop themselves into action”. I love this!

I couldn’t quite remember the name of this poem and thought it used the word “outgo”. (It doesn’t; it uses “outcome” instead.) Anyway in my search on jsh-online.com I found a lovely idea that seems relevant to the topic of income. Writing in the Christian Science Sentinel, 29 Jan 1979, Geoffrey Barratt states that “there is no "fixed income," because the "outgo" from God is not limited, the infinite good that floods from eternal Love is not frozen” (More than ‘millionaires’).

We can’t print Avey’s entire poem here, so here’s a morsel:

Mind’s outcome: income

Steven Alan Avey

Yield to Spirit, and

in come usable ideas

that develop themselves

into action.

 

Look to Love, and

practice kinder ways

of caring for yourself

and your community…

I hope everyone can read the whole poem and perhaps pop a copy up on their fridge, where it sat in our family home for many years.

Do you have a favourite poem? Please share it with us.

Julie Swannell

How Jesus loved his audience

Here is one of my favourite poems from the Christian Science periodicals. I pray with this poem when my church has a Christian Science lecture, as it did last Sunday.  

The poem is from the April 1971 issue of The Christian Science Journal:

IN THE MORNING, IN THE SUN By Doris Peel

I love that we have the privilege of knowing, as expressed in the poem, that newcomers are 

"...drawn

by someone who knew about them

what no man ever had known before."

How Jesus loved his audience.  

 Joyce Voysey   

Ed. Dear readers, we are hoping you will be able to access jsh-online to read the poem, because sadly, we can't quote it in full. There is much free content on this site, and non-subscribers can further access several articles or poems each month for free, we believe. Those who do not yet subscribe, are invited to contact their local Christian Science Reading Room librarian, who will be very happy to send you a free copy of this beautiful poem. By the way, trial subscriptions are free.