Stop Living in the Past

Ever wonder why things are not going the way you think they should? Ever get tired of being spiritually minded and yet feel like you are walking around with a pebble in your shoe, reminding you of some unhealed situation? Yah, it stinks, but I’ve found, if what you are doing isn’t workin, quit doing it. Sure, I’ve had those amazingly uplifting indescribable moments of spiritual grandiose-ness, but they don’t cut the mustard. And, I can talk up a pretty inspirational picture but things in life straighten out only when my thinking straightens out. Let’s look at living in the past.

Take 19^th century spiritual leader, Mary Baker Eddy. She warned against living in the past, referring to it as a hypnotic state of mind that “entices its victim by unseen, silent arguments.” A mind in the past becomes suspicious, relies on that which they should avoid, or becomes confused. “Other minds are made dormant by it, and the victim is in a state of semi-individuality, with a mental haziness which admits of no intellectual culture or spiritual growth,” writes Eddy. (Miscellany) Living in the past misleads the religious practitioner to assume they are spiritually successful when in fact their mentality regurgitates long out-grown knowledge and produces evidence of a self-sabotaging behavior, all the while claiming to be following a religious leader.

Paul told the Corinthians, “When one says, ‘I follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos,’ are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.” Spirituality and its healing power increases as we follow God, Love, not Paul, Eddy, Joel Osteen, or Joyce Meyer.

Yes, we can be thankful to these religious leaders however living in the past is not gratitude, but idolization or obsession, leading to a huge let down. When I first considered revising Eddy’s book, Science and Health, the living in the past mentality reacted and troubled me until I carefully analyzed its arguments and found it had no credibility whatsoever. My book, 21^st Century Science and Health, epitomizes the seed within itself, an outgrowth of Eddy’s book explaining Christian Science. The book introduces new thoughts however future ages must hone and shape the ideas in order to make them understandable today.

The revision work dissolves the hypnotic state of living in the past and I not only share in today’s world an increase in unity and spiritual steadfastness but I also more so experience spiritual healing traceable to Christ, God with us.

“Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. (Deut. 8:1, NIV)

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Unclogging the Wheel

People ask me if I teach classes on Christian Science. Currently, the Christian Science milieu is awkwardly moving into a new phase and so I answer, “No, I don’t teach Christian Science in a formal setting.” The demand at hand is to generate tools for continued learning and that is where my energy is placed. Teaching Christian Science requires more than a love of its logic and beauty. It requires honesty and a serious boldness to challenge some of the decades-old tenacious myths and misinterpretations that have grown up around Christian Science, around the book most commonly used to study Christian Science, and its discoverer, Mary Baker Eddy.

The book most commonly used to study Christian Science, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, requires a pre-requisite course on 19^th century history and language in order to be understood effectively. The history course allows for the undoing of established fiction that calcified into fact during the last half of the 20^th century. Fiction, created and sanction by human beliefs, clogs the flow of understanding Christian Science. A few fictitious blockages are: the King James Version of the Bible is revered as closer to the truth than other Bibles, medical professionals work against Christian Science, the common person can’t discover and write about Christian Science, and Christian Science is authorized by members of a Church.

The resurgence of interest in spirituality and Mind-healing begged for a revision of Science and Health. Following Eddy’s pattern of revision and update (she revised her book over 300 times) 21^st Century Science and Health was produced and is now going into its 4^th edition. Click here for a free download of Some Misconceptions Debunked, to join the forward movement that is unclogging the wheels of Christian Science and discovering our innate ability to understand and practice Christian Science effectively, on our own with God.

Here is a recent letter I received:

Cheryl,

I got the kindle version of 21^st Century Science and Health. I appreciate your work and your path. I am an acupuncture doctor. I have always been acutely aware of Mary Baker Eddy’s work. Until I ran across your work, though, I didn’t think a bridge could exist between my path, Eddy’s path, and especially the path of the institution currently designated as Church of Christ, Scientist. The fact that you recognize that doctors are often on a spiritual path (and NOT just evil mesmerists) is of immense importance!!

Your work is a breath of fresh air. Many thanks.

Sincerely,

R.N.

 

Spiritual Thoughts Replace Depression

At work, in the break room, a pill box was laying next to the sink. Someone has been taking those pills. Then, Judith sprinted into the break room and with a relieved look on her face, picked up the pill box, said, “Thank goodness, my pill box is still here,” and looking up at her co-worker, continued with, “ I have depression.”

Judith’s apparent nobility at managing the fashionable condition of depression was, well, depressing. Most of us have felt sad and worthless. During those times, our thinking gets muddled and in general, life feels like a black hole. Oddly, Judith’s therapy for her clinical depression includes pills that come with the side effects of muddled thinking and constipation.

An increasing number of doctors, psychiatrists, and psychologists are concluding that the way we think, act, react, and feel can be a powerful influence on our physical and mental health. This conclusion is not new. In Old Testament Biblical times, “Hezekiah repented of the pride of his heart,” and life got better. To repent is to think and act different.

However, thinking different isn’t assuming positive thinking is an elixir, although optimism is better than pessimism. Thought is very powerful on the mind and body, but the key to healing is to know the thought of Truth, not the positive thoughts of human. Medically speaking, there is no universal standard of chemicals in the brain that can guarantee happiness for every human being; neither is there a set of human thoughts that can produce wellbeing scientifically. Religiously speaking, faith, focused on the scientific sense of God, benefits body and mind. The medicine of Truth can erase depression.

Administer this alterative Truth with a faith or conviction in a spiritual reality: “God never made depression. Depression is not necessary.” This truth understood can remove the mistake that people are bound to be depressed and our thoughts and actions can be grounded on the truth.

 

 

Fortunate Events Swirled with Hurricane Irene

The impact of Hurricane Irene wiped out electricity around here for 3 days…unfortunate.

My daughter, Carly, who was visiting from Seattle, Washington, and I got to talk and laugh in candle light….fortunate.

Carly’s plane was delayed to go home…unfortunate.

Carly and I got to spend an extra 30 hours together. She cooked me dinner and made tiramisu….fortunate.

From 21st Century Science and Health, “As we become better acquainted with the Science of being, we are better able to communicate with the divine Mind. Spiritual knowledge not only allows people to foresee and foretell events which concern the universal welfare, but it also inspires people divinely to reach the dimension of unfettered Mind, Spirit….The events of spiritual ascension are the days and seasons of Mind’s revelation, in which beauty, magnificence, purity, and holiness (the divine nature) appear in spiritual beings and the universe, never to disappear.”

Carly's visit was fortunate, fun, fabulous, full

 

I am Back, but I Won’t Promise You Anything

What a day yesterday turned out to be. It felt as though I was digging my own grave.

Remember? I felt as though I was dragging, digging in the sand? Well, that anguished dragging turned into a full-blown head pain. I couldn’t even think, let alone pray.

A friend felt terrible for me and offered me a pill for pain. I took it. Thankfully, this friend didn’t promise the pill would heal me. Because the pill didn’t heal me. But, within an hour my head pain subsided enough that I could tap into my spirituality and find a Godlike promise intent on peace and health.

I am not the only person who taps into spirituality. My friend does also, along with a multitude of people in the world. It’s almost as if in the 20th century, human beings began emerging from a spiritual incubator designed to accelerate and develop successful metaphysical healing. Amazingly, this incubator was all-inclusive, it didn’t serve only a select group.

The incubator included religious followers, doctors, scientists, waitresses, accountants, travelers, and people who thought they were a nobody. However, these people have gone on to demonstrate a spirit of universal peace and health, available to everyone for healing, through Mind.

I eventually read in Science and Health, “It is a severe mistake to suppose that mortality is any part of the reality of intelligent being…Human beings can’t be made the mouthpiece of the spiritual, and the finite can’t become the channel of the infinite.”

Our spirituality seems to be surrounded by finite human beings, drugs, books, ceremonies, prayers, and so on. It is a painful mistake to believe the finite is full of promise or able to go bad and become a threat.

Tapping into our spirituality (the reflection of divine Spirit) allows for human decisions to be made with common sense and an honest respect. Acting on these decisions helps to dissolve the false promises and threats.

Undoubtedly, a titanic shift in thought has developed over the last few decades to a more spiritual approach to life and health. Less intrusive health care is being demanded. More thought, and less mechanics are being expected. People are learning the need to be more responsible for their own thoughts and actions.

Discovering peace and health is a spiritual journey. I can’t promise a grand finale. I just know I am back and I am not dragging. A sign that, in nature peace and health are the default.

Handle Serpents as an Eagle

Most people are startled by snakes, or are at least given the creeps. Including myself. It probably has to do with the collective mentality setting up snakes as lurking evil. In the Bible, there is a story about Moses who had a staff and was told to throw it down on the ground. Moses did. The staff turned into a serpent. Moses was scared. However, he was then told to pick up the serpent. Moses did. The snake turned back into a staff.

A staff is something we lean on. A support. A tool to help us in our daily work. But the staff can’t be leaned on so heavily that it becomes deformed and useless. A staff also can’t be guarded and horded so closely that we neglect to use it properly.

Staffs come in a plethora of forms. They can be books, social status, economic schedules, diets, time, and so on.

We do not need to fear casting down our staffs. Because we do not need to fear the serpents. A snake is defined in Science and Health as subtle deceit, a lie. And, lies will grow, and bite, and sting, if truth is not known and acted on.

As revisionist of Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health, I had to learn this lesson. A few of the staffs I leaned on were: 1) the book Science and Health; 2) a moral lifestyle; 3) church membership.

When I threw these staffs down, a glaring nest of serpents surprised me, lies such as: 1) Science and Health is not to be revised; 2) an immoral lifestyle disallows spiritual healing; 3) the church has a monoply on Christian Science.

I then picked up the serpents, with trepidation and after much research, and discovered powerful facts to work with. These facts are: 1) Science and Health states that revisions are “requisite,” necessary; 2) Science and Health was written for the public, not a church; 3) everyone, EVERYONE, has the ability to discover and understand the divine Science interpreting God and harmony. Divine Science doesn’t come through a book.

Well, I need to sign off here and get back to work. But, just a reminder, don’t be afraid to throw down what seems like such a wonderful support. Be strong as an eagle and take those serpents back up. God, divine Spirit, is right here, right now, guiding, guarding, and renewing us. And, we will find a more reliable human staff to lean on. A staff that includes everyone.

Unraveling the Snarls in Religion

Religion is associated with mixed emotions, usually depending upon how God is defined. Religion can bring great comfort, but it can also stir ire. The twists and turns of religion is due to the fact that religion is not stagnate, certainly not stable, therefore it is susceptible to getting snarly.

I crochet. And, to my incredulity, the skeins of yarn often somehow turn into wads of knotty pathetic snarls. Because movement IS, in other words, there is no stagnation, more often than not, I pick and gently pull apart the yarn to unravel the mess, making the yarn usable. Sometimes however the knot is so tight, I just throw the wad out.

Religion is generally a means of worshipping God. If it becomes the worship of a human being, a religious organization, a book, or a useless god, snarls emerge because those items of worship are directionless.

Now, this spiel doesn’t address those of you who profess no religion, but we do not have to live with snarls. On the topic of religion, we can redirect the movement of worship to respect and love God, divine Love, universal Truth, and eternal Life which unravels snarls and makes religion useful.

However, when religion resembles a tight-waded insular mess, generally it’s not religion in its broader sense, but fundamentalism, a firmness in opinion or strict zeal that isn’t focused on the big picture but is obsessed with a human ideology. Throw it out. Religion, and even science, do not produce fundamentalism, but fundamentalism tries to snarl up religion and science, which are movements of discovery and usefulness.

“Narrow systems and theories, concerning God, human being’s, health, and a religious society, are restrictive…As the true knowledge of God becomes evident, the concept of God as the Lord, or only a mighty hero or king, will continue to vanish…It requires mental restructuring and reorganization before we can adopt scientific religion and the divine healing.”–21st Century Science and Health

Untwisting Rest and Sleep

I hear my husband’s voice echo through the house, “Hey Cheryl, where are you, what are you doing?”

“I’m in the bathroom using my college degree to clean the toilet and sink,” I joke back.

Physically, I was cleaning, but mentally, I was contemplating real rest.

With all due respect for a good night’s sleep, I fail to see why sleep is automatically credited to produce rest. The habitual tendency to associate a rested energized productive day with a state of unconsciousness, or oblivion, is quite misleading. Evidence abounds where valuable activity has been accomplished by people who get little sleep, whereas, some people who sleep a lot, can be real couch potatoes.

The various sleep strategies utilized to enhance sleep, such as becoming a wise balanced person; setting a regular bedtime; exercise; turning off the television; avoiding stimulants & tranquilizers; and eating properly, may symbolize common sense, however strategies are effectively different for different people. Sleep strategies are not a cure.

A unique slant, offered by 19^th century spiritual healer, Mary Baker Eddy, elaborates on rest as being the natural consequence of knowing truth and love. From 21^st Century Science and Health, a revision of Eddy’s Science and Health, “The consciousness of Truth rejuvenates us more than hours of unconsciousness.”

The metaphysical approach of investigating, discovering, and knowing a restful active divine Mind  can motivate us to find rest in the consciousness of spiritual truth and love. Of course, there is always the benefit of a clean bathroom too.

Indirect Views of Reality and Christian Science

Mary Baker Eddy, a 19^th century religious leader, wrote in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all,” a statement reiterating a universal law interpreting life and health to humanity―a universal law Eddy branded Christian Science. The affirmation of infinite Mind, manifest, demands deliberation and thoughtful consideration because with it comes the response that matter is unreal, a non sequitur unless saturated with the auspices of correct interpretation.

Some people think the teachings of Christian Science are unrealistic, as if they assert a present illusion, or nothingness called matter. As if, somehow, Mind’s manifest reality of life and health is an abstruse epiphany, a transcendent speculation. Not so.

Recall that all we think, feel, hear, and see is constantly morphing and changing. Nothing physical, including physical life and health, can be pin-pointed as absolute. Physicists have even re-defined the matter we apparently experience as no longer solid reality, but as movement. Obviously, the typical view of life and health as a state of physical matter has as much permanence as its unstable matter. Consequently, the desire for permanence in life and health seems to elude us, but that eluding is the illusion.

Life and health exist as ideals expressed indirectly through what is called physical matter or motion. Instead of trying to stabilize the unstable, the Science of Truth, or Christ, interprets our ability to prove that the changing, fluxing appearances can indirectly exhibit infinite Mind, manifest as healthy life.

Human existence, in and of itself, is a circuitous view of reality, a metaphor so to speak, similar to augmented reality as reported about in the 2010 September’s issue of National Geographic in the article titled, Revealed World, where an indirect view of the world is generated by computer graphics and seen with human eyes through eyeglasses. The view is informative, albeit not direct reality.

The key to genuine progress in life and health is not to confuse illusions, or indirect views, with the reality of an infinite ideal. The infinite ideal classified in Christian, or divine Science, is Mind, God, Principle, Love, Life, Spirit, Soul, Truth. Problem is, human beings are too quick to interpret the ideal as though Mind is divisible with beginning and end, however, divine Science interprets the ideal as one, healthy, ongoing, infinitely individualized Mind, manifest as Us.

Spirituality strengthened & renewed

Generally, strength is juxtaposed with muscles, and renewal is considered to be the aftermath of a disaster or illness, however, in Delhi, NY, a group of thinkers came together last Sunday to strengthen and renew that which already is strong and new, our spirituality.

Everyone collaborated, not to fight against the mortal human identities, but to fight on the side of truth, the truth that our spirituality is manifest on earth, here and now.

We laughed at the common reactive habit of classifying people as human beings with job status and drama. And, we smiled as we claimed our right to reverse that process and know, and identify ourselves with, spiritual qualities, such as honesty, creativity, generosity, wisdom, and friendliness.

The Science and Health open book portion of the workshop brought to our attention that with all due respect to the humaneness on earth, spirituality and its expression of health and holiness are ours to understand and experience more each day.

There was a brief meditation, further familiarizing ourselves with the fact our lives and work can continue to come into sync with a spiritual God and a good work, an idea read in Science and Health.