Mrs. Eddy's poems: prayerful driving companions

The other day I was driving to the Gold Coast to attend a Christian Science lecture. It's a 90 minute drive if the traffic flowing nicely - it was! ☺ 

I didn't feel like listening to anything, and wanted to pray, so I decided to sing the hymns that have words by Mary Baker Eddy.

After a while I stopped singing and just recited the words. Slowly and thoughtfully. It was a joy and so uplifting.

Readers probably know there are 7 of Mrs. Eddy's poems set to music in our hymn books.

I grew up with them. One of my Sunday school teachers gave me a pamphlet with the those words in them. I'm not sure how old I was. (Gift idea: Hymn books make a welcome gift for those of all ages! Check out the stock in your local Christian Science Reading Room.) I soon learnt them by heart and they have come to my rescue many times. I also learnt to recognize the hymn numbers for these and other special hymns, at least those in the 1932 hymnal - I have yet to come to grips with the numbers in the "new" hymn book.

Here are the titles and introductory lines of those 7 poems:

"Christmas Morn" - Blest Christmas morn, though murky clouds / Pursue thy way

"Love" - Brood o'er us with Thy shelt'ring wing / 'Neath which our spirits blend / Like brother birds

"Satisfied" - It matters not what be thy lot / So Love doth guide

"Mother's Evening Prayer" - O gentle presence, peace and joy and power

"Christ, my Refuge" - O'er waiting harpstrings of the mind / There sweeps a strain

"Communion Hymn" - Saw ye my Saviour? Heard ye the glad sound?

"Feed my Sheep" - Shepherd, show me how to go / O'er the hillside steep

The Mary Baker Eddy Library has an excellent page about the background of these hymns. You might like to guess which hymn was written first...it's in the MBEL article.

Also on the MBE Library site is a page of research regarding the frequency of having Mrs. Eddy's poems - as hymns or solos - in church services.

What is sure is that each word and each line of these poems is a healing prayer.

Julie Swannell

Nahum on a lecture tour?

What a puzzler this book, Nahum, is to me.

I like the way the New Revised Standard Version’s sets it out as poetry.

So far I haven’t discovered how the book was shared. Did Nahum go on a Lecture Tour with it. Did he have it “published”? How?

The one angle that satisfies a little is that it is the error that God is punishing, not the people or the country.

We know from the book of Jonah that the Ninevites did reform in his time, but we are told that at a later time they went back to their old ways.

Joyce Voysey

A bully nation collapses

BACKGROUND

"The 7th century BC (700-601 BC) was defined by the peak and sudden, violent collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which dominated the Near East before being destroyed ... by 612 BC." - British Museum

NAHUM’S VISION

In his Introduction to Nahum, Eugene Peterson (The Message) writes: 

“The stage of history is large. Larger-than-life figures appear on this stage from time to time, swaggering about, brandishing weapons and money, terrorizing and bullying.  ... They often manage to get a significant number of people watching and even admiring ... [In contrast], God's characteristic way of working is in quietness...

“Assyria had the whole world terrorized... Assyria (and its capital, Nineveh) appeared invincible. A world free of Assyrian domination was unimaginable. Nahum's task was to make it imaginable...”

NINEVEH (ASSYRIA) FALLS

Writing in the NRSVUE* Study Bible, Peter Dubovský explains the situation:

“The true nature of Assyria, stripped of the veil of propaganda, is revealed, and Assyria ends up humiliated and destroyed. Assyria collapses, while the whole world rejoices. 

“Nahum reverses Assyrian propaganda…”

Assyria – the aggressor-enemy – is punished, and Judah is liberated.

Dubovský explains that the symbols of power, like chariots (Nahum2:13, 3:2), swords (3:3), and lions (2:11-13) were used as propaganda, carved in clay and stone. Today, we would see that on our television screens or posted on the Internet). Nahum calls out these boasting subterfuges.

IMAGES

Nahum gives us a sense of God’s mighty power. In particular, I like the images which relate to water (NRSVUE) —

1:4 He rebukes the sea and makes it dry, and he dries up all the rivers…

1:7-8 The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he protects those who take refuge in him, even in a rushing flood…

2:6 The river gates are opened; the palace trembles.

WHAT GETS DESTROYED?

We learn in Christian Science and that sin punishes itself. Mary Baker Eddy writes:

“This is a period of doubt, inquiry, speculation, selfishness; of divided interests, marvellous good, and mysterious evil. But sin can only work out its own destruction; and reform does and must push on the growth of mankind.” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896, 237:19)

Nahum was a reformer. His writing enabled a new vision. We can catch that vision too.

Julie Swannell

*New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition