Get out our dictionaries
One thing that impressed me as I read Christian Science in Germany is that the new (German) students of Christian Science had to get out their dictionaries in order to understand Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.
I wonder if we English speakers sometimes assume we know what a word means – maybe for years actually having only a vague idea or perhaps even a completely incorrect idea – instead of consulting a good dictionary to really get the essence of the meaning.
Take for instance
the word “immanent”
in last week’s Bible Lesson. (See Science and Health p. 209:13 - “The immanent sense of Mind-power enhances the glory of Mind”) I learnt the following from my clever sister: Latin "immanere" is "to stay in". So: remaining; indwelling; inherent. It seems it is the opposite of transcendent: "outside concsiousness". Now how helpful is that!
1. Arouse or elicit a feeling.[Wordnet]
2. Act as a stimulant.[Wordnet]
3. Stir feelings in; "excite the audience".[Wordnet]
4. Cause to be agitated, excited, or roused.[Wordnet]
5. Stir the feelings, emotions, or peace of.[Wordnet]
6. Raise to a higher energy level; "excite the atoms".[Wordnet]
7. Produce a magnetic field in; "excite the neurons".[Wordnet]
8. Stimulate sexually; "This movie usually arouses the male audience".[Wordnet]
9. To call to activity in any way; to rouse to feeling; to kindle to passionate emotion; to stir up to combined or general activity; as, to excite a person, the spirits, the passions; to excite a mutiny or insurrection; to excite heat by friction.[Websters]
10. To call forth or increase the vital activity of an organism, or any of its parts.[Websters]
11. Base verb from the following inflections: exciting, excited, excites, exciter, exciters, excitingly and excitedly.[Eve - graph
2. Act as a stimulant.[Wordnet]
3. Stir feelings in; "excite the audience".[Wordnet]
4. Cause to be agitated, excited, or roused.[Wordnet]
5. Stir the feelings, emotions, or peace of.[Wordnet]
6. Raise to a higher energy level; "excite the atoms".[Wordnet]
7. Produce a magnetic field in; "excite the neurons".[Wordnet]
8. Stimulate sexually; "This movie usually arouses the male audience".[Wordnet]
9. To call to activity in any way; to rouse to feeling; to kindle to passionate emotion; to stir up to combined or general activity; as, to excite a person, the spirits, the passions; to excite a mutiny or insurrection; to excite heat by friction.[Websters]
10. To call forth or increase the vital activity of an organism, or any of its parts.[Websters]
11. Base verb from the following inflections: exciting, excited, excites, exciter, exciters, excitingly and excitedly.[Eve - graph
Of course, the meaning of a word may change over time. So we might have to dig deeply in order to find out what the author really meant to say. This is especially true of our Pastor: the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.
Happy sleuthing!
5 comments:
Loved your piece this morning. It reminded me of my experience with tea and coffee. This is how it went - I believe that I was addicted to tea drinking. If I did not have a cup of tea exactly as I liked I would get a serious headache. (I went to the extreme measure of heating both the cup and the milk which was then added to the tea.) One morning, not too long after I took up the serious study of Christian Science, I was having my cup of morning tea and reading an article in the Christian Science Journal. The article told me that tea and coffee are stimulants. I looked up 'stimulant' in the dictionary, and decided that now I had Christian Science, I didn't need a stimulant. That was the end of my habit tea and coffee drinking.
The dictionary I consulted so many years ago is no longer to hand, but my Webster's College Edition has for 'stimulant': med An agent such as caffeine, which produces a quickly diffused and transient increase of vital energy, activity, and strength in an organism or some part of it; Of ‘stimulate’ it says, "To excite or arouse to action." Now I knew that Science and Health has a couple of references to tea and coffee:
1. “The depraved appetite for alcoholic drinks tobacco, tea, coffee, opium, is destroyed only by Mind's mastery of the body. This normal control is gained through divine strength and understanding.” (p 406:29) [What horrible company they keep!]
2. “A cup of coffee or tea is not the equal of truth, whether for the inspiration of a sermon or for the support of bodily endurance.” (p. 80:3)
The exciting thing is that communing with God, Spirit, stimulates us to action appropriate for each situation we find ourselves in. We are supplied through Mind with all the energy, intelligence, motivation, strength, and we know that matter has nothing to do with it for as Science and Health says, "Because matter has no consciousness or Ego, it cannot act..." (p. 368:24-25)
By the way, in last evening's searching reading of Science and Health I came up with 5 words I need to look up in the dictionary from the first 5 pages of the chapter Christian Science Practice: Sandal (as in sandal oil - oil made from sandals?); hyprocrisy, stolidity, penury, pedantry.
I think I found the actual article I had read. It is a terrific article.
Truth should cost us something by Jack A Krieger - November 1960 Christian Science Journal
A young Army officer was unable to arise from bed one morning and was ordered into the hospital by his commanding officer. A thorough medical examination revealed that he was suffering from a severe kidney disorder. He explained to the doctor assigned to him that he was a student of Christian Science and did not want to have medication.
Observing the Bible and the writings of Mrs. Eddy on the table beside the young officer's bed, the doctor declared: "As long as you study those books, I won't interfere." Then he added, "But we must have results." The student was grateful for the freedom from medical dosing. While he had to undergo X rays and other examinations for the next few days, he was not medicated in any way.
Early one morning, while reading Science and Health, he came to the place on where reference is made to depraved appetite in connection with coffee. Heretofore, when he had read the passage, he would side-step the issue involved, declaring to himself that drinking coffee was not a depraved appetite with him. He could take it or leave it. This time, however, he felt the reference had come to his attention for a reason, since he was praying for unfoldment and healing.
As he pondered our Leader's statement further, he had to admit that drinking coffee actually had become a habit with him, for he was drinking it every day. He remembered too that coffee contains the drug caffeine and that the universal claim about it is that it is a stimulant—a mental bracer, so to speak.
But then the thought came to him that real mental activity is an expression of God and needs no stimulation, for it is always functioning at the peak of alertness and perspicacity. With this thought came also a great sense of freedom, and he decided to quit drinking coffee.
He did not consider that he had necessarily been healed of the desire for it, but he was willing to pay the price of Truth and give up coffee, trusting in God to determine the merit of his action.
Later that same morning, while undergoing a complete physical examination, the young officer was declared to be free from any trace of the kidney disorder. The next day he was released from the hospital and was returned to full active duty.
Got to the sandalwood story. Here it is in its amazing facts.
Sandalwood is not made from sandals! (The information that is available on the Internet is amazing. The site is www.edenbotanicals.com/sandalwood.)
My first find was that there is Australian Sandalwood as a species of the tree and there is an enterprise at Mt. Romance in WA (Albany area I believe). This plantation is carefully managed environmentally. Trees are taken from the wild as well as from plantation. For each tonne of deadwood 400 seeds are planted. This Australian variety has different properties and fragrance from the Indian.
At Kununurra in far north Western Australia not far from the Northern Territory border, Indian Sandalwood is grown on a large scale.
The story in India is not so rosy. The report includes words like black market, murder, crimes. The trees grow in Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Pacific Islands, besides Australia. And I found that the best oil comes from the heartwood, with the very best coming from the roots.
I found on the site about the Indian Sandalwood that one method of processing the oil is Steam Distillation. Super heated steam is passed through the powdered wood. The steam helps to release and carry away the essential oils. The steam is then cooled and hey presto: wonderful, fragrant oil for anointing Jesus feet.
I guess in Jesus time it was so expensive and valuable because it had to come from India. Trade in those days is an interesting topic.
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