Sunday, May 24th, 2020 Roundtable

Beloved brethren, the love of our loving Lord was never more manifest than in its stern condemnation of all error, wherever found. I counsel thee, rebuke and exhort one another. Love all Christian churches for the gospel’s sake; and be exceedingly glad that the churches are united in purpose, if not in method, to close the war between flesh and Spirit, and to fight the good fight till God’s will be witnessed and done on earth as in heaven.

— from “The Corner-stone Laid” Miscellany by Mary Baker Eddy, page 18

239 — WATCH that in your effort to see the perfection of what you reflect, you include the endeavor to see the perfection of your reflection of it. The mirror not only sees that the light is perfect, but that its reflection of it is perfect, too. In Science the thought and the thinker are both perfect. If Spirit is what man reflects, then Soul is what man reflects with. Spirit and Soul being God, in their expression in man they form a perfect whole in quality and quantity, in content and capacity.

— from 500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter

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Golden Text — “Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation.” — Psalm 62 : 1

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And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord.

— Luke 1: 46 from the King James Bible

What am I magnifying?

— Plainfield Roundtable

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We must impersonalize error.

— Plainfield Roundtable

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Keep your grin ahead of your groan.

— Plainfield Roundtable

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Christian Science is not an intellectual excerise.

— Plainfield Roundtable

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The nature of Jesus made him keenly alive to the injustice, ingratitude, treachery, and brutality that he received. Yet behold his love! So soon as he burst the bonds of the tomb he hastened to console his unfaithful followers and to disarm their fears. Again: True to his divine nature, he rebuked them on the eve of his ascension, called one a “fool” — then, lifting up his hands and blessing them, he rose from earth to heaven. The Christian Scientist cherishes no resentment; he knows that that would harm him more than all the malice of his foes. Brethren, even as Jesus forgave, forgive thou. I say it with joy, — no person can commit an offense against me that I cannot forgive. Meekness is the armor of a Christian, his shield and his buckler. He entertains angels who listens to the lispings of repentance seen in a tear — happier than the conqueror of a world. To the burdened and weary, Jesus saith: “Come unto me.” O glorious hope! there remaineth a rest for the righteous, a rest in Christ, a peace in Love. The thought of it stills complaint; the heaving surf of life’s troubled sea foams itself away, and underneath is a deep-settled calm.

— from Message for 1902 by Mary Baker Eddy, page 18-19

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The Christian Scientist loves man more because he loves God most. He understands this Principle, — Love. Who is sufficient for these things? Who remembers that patience, forgiveness, abiding faith, and affection, are the symptoms by which our Father indicates the different stages of man’s recovery from sin and his entrance into Science? Who knows how the feeble lips are made eloquent, how hearts are inspired, how healing becomes spontaneous, and how the divine Mind is understood and demonstrated? He alone knows these wonders who is departing from the thraldom of the senses and accepting spiritual truth,—that which blesses its adoption by the refinement of joy and the dismissal of sorrow.

— from “Science And The Senses” in Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy, page

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Lesson Committee story can be found

in, Memoirs of a Christian Scientist by William Curtis Coffman

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In Science, whatever interferes with man’s entire allegiance to God Is to be avoided. The lesson of Job teaches that man is permitted to have family, friends, money and health, provided that he does not allow any of these human blessings to lessen his allegiance to God, or his recognition that God must come first. But when these blessings involved Job in material thinking and acting to the point where God was being forgotten, they had to be removed for a season, until the lesson was learned.

— from Mary Baker Eddy, Her Spiritual Precepts by Gilbert Carpenter

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Almost a century ago, Clara C. Hanson experienced a remarkable healing, aided by the “Soul & Body” Bible Lesson (CS Setinel, April, 1925) – click on link below to read the complete testimony

Forum post — “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent” by Parthens

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Take time to thank the source of all good, – the Almighty God.

— Plainfield Roundtable

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The droning on and on of falsehoods needs to be shut out of our thinking becasue its intent is to mesmerize one.

— Plainfield Roundtable

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Song — Be Thou My Vision, performed by Faith, Jared, Bruce, and Craig

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Declare oneness with God. I have all that God is and my identitly includes all that God is.

— Plainfield Roundtable

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Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from us now the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.

— From Hymn 49 from the Christian Science Hymnal

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I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.

He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.

Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.

The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.

The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.

The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

— Psalm 121: 1-8 from the Responsive Reading portion of this week’s Lesson

“…the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.” (Psalm 121:5) This is the side that is neither carrying — nor shaded by — the shield. God is protecting every part of us and our coming and going.

— Plainfield Roundtable

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Don’t leave home without God.

— Plainfield Roundtable

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The Christian Scientists in the United States and Canada are hereby enjoined not to teach a student Christian Science for one year, commencing on March 14th, 1897.

’Miscellaneous Writings’ is calculated to prepare the minds of all true thinkers to understand the Christian Science Text-book more correctly than a student can.

— “NOTICE By MARY BAKER EDDY” from The Christian Science Journal , the March 1897 issue.

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Would existence without personal friends be to you a blank? Then the time will come when you will be solitary, left without sympathy; but this seeming vacuum is already filled with divine Love. When this hour of development comes, even if you cling to a sense of personal joys, spiritual Love will force you to accept what best promotes your growth. Friends will betray and enemies will slander, until the lesson is sufficient to exalt you; for “man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.” The author has experienced the foregoing prophecy and its blessings. Thus He teaches mortals to lay down their fleshliness and gain spirituality. This is done through self-abnegation. Universal Love is the divine way in Christian Science.

— Citation 12 in this week’s Lesson from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 266

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Take my life, and let it be
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee.
Take my moments and my days,
Let them flow in ceaseless praise.
Take my hands, and let them move
At the impulse of Thy love.

Take my feet, and let them be
Swift and beautiful for Thee.
Take my voice, and let me sing
Always, only, for my King.
Take my lips, and let them be
Filled with messages from Thee.

Take my every thought, to use
In the way that Thou shalt choose.
Take my love; O Lord, I pour
At Thy feet its treasure store.
I am Thine, and I will be
Ever, only, all for Thee.

— Hymn 324 from the Christian Science Hymnal

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Every part of you is used to glorify and express God.

— Plainfield Roundtable

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Health is not a condition of matter, but of Mind; nor can the material senses bear reliable testimony on the subject of health.

— from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 120

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Rightly understood, instead of possessing a sentient material form, man has a sensationless body; and God, the Soul of man and of all existence, being perpetual in His own individuality, harmony, and immortality, imparts and perpetuates these qualities in man, — through Mind, not matter. The only excuse for entertaining human opinions and rejecting the Science of being is our mortal ignorance of Spirit, — ignorance which yields only to the understanding of divine Science, the understanding by which we enter into the kingdom of Truth on earth and learn that Spirit is infinite and supreme. Spirit and matter no more commingle than light and darkness. When one appears, the other disappears.

— Citation 10 in this week’s Lesson from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 280: 25-6

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Christian Science … shows the scientific relation of man to God, disentangles the interlaced ambiguities of being, and sets free the imprisoned thought.” (S&H 114: 23) Webster’s 1828 Dictionary helped bring this inspired thought more to light.

“Disentangle — unravel; free; extricate from perplexity.
Interlaced — intermixed, i.e., mixed up.
Ambiguities — doubts; uncertainties.””

Before Christian Science, I was filled with doubts and questions, such as “why am I here, what is the purpose, is there a reason for all this?” I was badly mixed up, confused, constantly bound up in intellectual, godless thinking. What a relief, comfort, and joyous freedom to finally learn that God is Mind, my mind, the only mind; that God loves me and all, that God has only good for all, never condemns, and there is nothing ever to fear, and that Soul is God, not some undefinable thing inside me that is forever stained with sin. This was so very different from the religion I was raised and educated in — really “imprisoned” in. I am reminded of Hymn 201:

Truth will from error free
Your long enslaved mind,
And bring the light of liberty
Where it shall be enshrined.

— from Forum post by Joanne from Florida

We need to feel certain in our work for God for if we think we have options we won’t settle down and have the focus necessary. Feeling uncertain is a form of torment.

— Plainfield Roundtable

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Thus it is with man, who is but the humble servant of the restful Mind, though it seems otherwise to finite sense.

— Citation 5 in this week’s Lesson from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 119

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Final Readings