by Evan Mehlenbacher
I just paid over $36 to fill up my gas tank.
Ouch! The expense hurt in my pocketbook.
Not too long ago gas was $1.50 a gallon.
While standing near the fuel pump and watching the digits on the gas meter click upward at mind-numbing rates, I started to criticize how expensive gas has become. What’s going on? I’ve read newspaper articles about the billions and billions of profits piling up in oil company coffers. I thought about conflict in the Mideast, much of it arguably centered on protecting oil supplies. And then I started to sum-up the hundreds of dollars I would spend this year at gas stations and it was a lot!
As I stood under a gas sign that cynically labeled the price of regular gas, “An arm,” the price of premium, “A leg,” and the price of supreme, “Your first child,” I was getting heated up about the squeeze oil companies were putting on my wallet.
A subtle tide of resentment began to sweep through my mind over the high price of gas. What could I do? I wondered.
Suddenly, I thought, “Wait a minute! Something is wrong here. I can’t let the cost of fuel steal my peace of mind.”
One of my daily goals is to keep my thinking inspired and not let it get pulled into negativity. I believe God has given me a good life to live, and I can live it. It’s a choice I make. But I’ve learned from experience when I let anger or resentment take over, that good life has a way of disappearing. Negative emotions rob me of my joy and positive outlook.
Stop! No more anger! The angel message arrived and it was “Fill’er up with love!”
It wasn’t what poured into the tank of my car and its effect on my wallet that mattered most, but what was pouring into my consciousness.
I needed to keep my thinking filled with love.
Fill’er up with love! I liked that order! I could keep my thinking flooded with positive impressions no matter what price gas reached. The cost of anger was too expensive in terms of lost well being and joy to justify getting upset about oil prices that jet up and down.
I wasn’t resigned to living with it, though. Fill’er up with love! The pronouncement kept repeating and I obeyed.
There were many practical steps I could take to adjust my budget for this expense. I could drive less, spend less on other items, plan for buying a car with better gas mileage, or carpool. But even more importantly, I could trust that God would meet whatever need I faced in the future. The resources of divine Mind are infinite, and can take any number of forms, including wisdom, inspiration, and insight to solve problems in original and creative ways. I was not stuck in my options.
Christian Science has taught me to pursue spiritual mindedness as a top priority. “To be spiritually minded is life and peace,” the Bible tells us. Anger and resentment are enemies to peace of mind and need to be displaced with love and goodwill to preserve life.
So, I dropped the resentment toward the oil conglomerates. I quit moaning over the flying digits on the gas pump, and stopped fretting about how to pay for gas over the next year. I ended the negativity and became grateful that I had a car, that gas was available, that I had money to buy fuel and that I could expect answers to come from God on how best to prepare for the future. I filled my thought with love, and I felt a whole lot better.
Next time you pull up to the gas pump and prepare to shell out a fistful of cash, you, too, can “Fill’er up with love!” It’s a lot more enjoyable, and the effect on your health and well being is much better than getting angry and upset.
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gas might be pricey, but fill’ing up with love is priceless!
Hey, I like that thought!
I don’t have a car and haven’t felt like I’ve been affected by the gas price hike, but I’m going to think about these ideas in connection with other expenses that I have to deal with. Thanks!
I don’t get it. It’s easy for people who are loaded to say fill it up with love. But look around at the world. There are millions of people starving to death, living in poverty, not having the basic of needs met. Students have trouble strapped with student loans and debts too. It just doesn’t seem realistic at all that Love will meet every human need. There’s no proof of it at all. If Love was truly all, there would be no wars, no pain, no poverty, no violence, hatred. Love meeting every need would not allow this, would it?
Thanks, Evan,
Now that’s the right Spirit, and there is only one.
For some reason,after I bought a mini van, each time I went to the pump I always filled the tank, and I always said,” Fill’er up”. Now I can say with confidence, ” Fill’er up with love”, and at the same time know that God is the source of my supply, and that love has no begining and no end, it’s infinit, and is pouring forth to everyone, everywhere, even to them who have a small sense of it.
Thank God, the sun shines on everyone, everywhere. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!
To anonymous,
I can relate to what you are saying because I used to think the same way. It took a major shift in my thought about what love was to help me understand the possibilities of an all-encompassing Love that meets every need.
What helped me was starting to equate love with other principles like math or music. I know nothing about calculus or trigonometry, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist and can’t be used for good in this world. Everyone knows about and and enjoys music on some level, but the vast majority don’t know enough about it to control it or make it with any certainty of skill unless they’ve studied and practiced it’s skills — usually over a very long period of time. That is something I teach people to do and as their skill level increases so does their understanding and appreciation for it and they are always broadening the ways they are able to apply it.
I’ve come more and more to understand that love is the same kind of principle. Everybody knows what it is and has some basic access to it, but it takes skill and practice in how to recognize it and use it to really unlock it’s power. As my skill level in understanding and using Love increases I impact the world in ever widening circles of good, as do we all.
Just thought it might help you to see how someone else worked throught that. Best love to you….
Like the comments in #6 — they explain the issue well! Thanks!
Sometimes when I’ve been driving, the thought comes to me that it’s not really a hunk of metal or engines or gas that’s transporting us-it’s Love. Love puts us where we need to be! Just as Jesus was instantly transported to where he needed to be, we can trust God’s love to put us where we need to be.
To Anon #6,
Who cares if the principles exist if they can’t be demonstrated every time? Just knowing that the principle of Love exists isn’t any comfort to me if it can’t alleviate pain, homelessness, illness, suffering, poverty, hunger, warfare, right here and now.
Principles of science and mathematics works. You learn it and every time you can solve it. But that’s not the way the principle of love works. You maybe able to demonstrate over something once, but the problem can recur over and over and in more severe forms. It doesn’t seem to be a principle at all.
There’s something very discouraging about hearing that Love is all and Divine Love meeting all needs when suffering is all around. It sounds like we are quacks or putting our heads in the sand. Also, people say stuff way beyond their demonstration and that is the worst.
I sure do understand your contempt for the idea that crime, injustice, and horrible tragedies keep occurring in the world. Mrs. Eddy weathered through prayer many tragedies in her life - broken heart when her husband and later her fiance died, another husband cheated on her, betrayed her trust, and her “friends” attempted to take over her financial holdings to name just a few. I have been considering what she must have meant when she wrote “God has been graciously preparing me during many years for the recepton of this final revelation of the absolute divine Principle of scientific mental healing.” Gracious preparation through years of trials and defeats? Her sense of eternal Love surpassed all tragedies and she was able to heal cases of death - the worst enemy. Is God “graciously preparing” us to heal car bombers, flood victims, murderers, kidnappers, and droughts? Love is so powerful that no matter how often the the myth of Sisyphus returns (Sisyphus ceaslessly rolled a rock up a mountain only to have it roll back down causing him to start all over again and again - a punishment of futile and hopless labor) - it is still a myth! Love does triumph and there are many stories of how so from folks who graciously take a moment to share them with us in the CS periodicals. Try listening to the story on Sentinel Radio Program “Undisturbed” to hear about a college student who was kidnapped and how she did her part however small to stop crime. Take heart, friend, you are not alone in the question of good over evil and its reoccurance. But we all want good to triumph and so it does…moment by moment “It begins with moments, and goes on with years; moments of surrender to God, of childlike trust and joyful adoption of good…” MBE …Just like the moment Evan took to be grateful and fill’er up with Love. I’m grateful for that reminder and for all the bloggers who replied.
To anon #9,
I can tell you are troubled by several things you’ve observed over time in different people’s practice of CS, and it’s healthy to get it out and seek resolution. I applaud that.
I have a couple of comments to add onto your above conversation…
I agree with you, that just knowing a principle of Love exists isn’t any comfort if it can’t alleviate pain and suffering. Thing is, I’ve seen so many times in my life that this Love does heal pain and suffering. You may not have experienced this in your life. I don’t know. But I sort of doubt it. I bet there is a time in your past when you were suffering, someone loved you, and it helped. At least once! Can you think of a time? If so, that is the principle of Love in action.
And I’ve seen in my own experience, that as one understands this principle better, healing comes easier, that Love does have an increasing good effect in one’s experience.
You mention that the principles of science and math work, and that you can prove them every time, but that this is not true for the principle of Love. I’m not sure I agree with this, in that proving the principles of math are any different than proving the principle of Love.
I know many people who struggle with math and have a very hard time figuring out math problems. And I know others that breeze through math problems because they understand the principle very well. And I’ve seen the same with the principle of Love. I’ve seen some people struggle immensely with trying to put love into practice, and fail often. And I’ve seen others easily demonstrate the power of Love because they have such a clear understanding of the principle. So, as another commenter above wrote, it does depend upon one’s understanding and where one is coming from.
You say that if the principle of Love is true, we wouldn’t have wars and suffering all over the world. Well, to follow the same logic, if the principle of math is true, we’d never have a mathematical mistake anywhere in the world. But this is not the way it is. People have to apply the principle, and with understanding, to eliminate the mistakes and solve the problems. The same rule applies to practicing and demonstrating the principle of Love.
It takes practice, humility, patience, and increased understanding to conquer all the world’s problems. Love does have the answers, but we have a lot of learning to do to discover those answers and see the full benefit of them manifest.
I look forward to working these answers out with you for the benefit of all!
Hey, to anon, I here you but let me say this. I felt just like you for years. Didn’t get it. Heard it in church. God is Love. We need more Love. Love meets every human need. Like the Soprano kid, it got depressing when you see all the hate, killing, atrocities in this world. You know what, it’s there as you see it. As long as you see it with the five senses, you will suffer. Metapysics is above physics. Math is not absolute as the best physicists in the world still can’t put the whole thing together (The birth of the universe) because it is above them, human thinking and not divine. The Christ (understanding) appears as you exchange the hate for love, love in the sense that if you believe in God as all good , then this matter world is the illusion. My goal on earth as a Chrsitian Scientist is to prove this through spiritualizing thought to the point where I think as God does. This is where you will say, please. Right? And the evil is still there. Well, like Jesus, Paul et al. We are here to demonstrate the illusion of matter and prove thought (our own individual conciousness) rules out over what we “see”. Only as we do this collectively will the suffering cease, because there is no basis for this suffering. Where does it come from? Who creates it? Certainly not God!!!! We all have to do our own work. Think big and as God does, if we all do it the world will be nothing but Love-not a human love but a divine love. I am not in any way trying to convince you, we all have to do it for ourselves and there is no formula. This mateial world view is by the far the majority right now but it will change. It takes Love and a lot of humility to know we don’t know anything except through trust in God, the answers are there and they are based on Love. That I do know. Christian Science is not a “feel good” religion but a radical, scientific way of thinking that is only now being more understood in today’s world.
To Anon #9 –
The rules of mathematics aren’t demonstrated all the time — just ask any third grader! — but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t there and or that they’re not useful. Once you learn how they work, you can rely on them, and they make your life much less confusing.
That’s true with the laws of Love and Principle, too. They are there–and operative–but when we aren’t familiar with them, and we don’t understand them, love seems haphazard and subject to the ebb and flow of human experience. Getting a good grip on the laws of Love changes our day to day experience and can change the lives of those around us, as well.
But it’s the work of a lifetime (and longer) to demonstrate these laws of good. It takes time and effort to understand all math rules and the same is true about the laws of God. But understanding a little brings good into our present experience. And practice brings it clearer into view. Each demonstration builds on the last, so for me, it’s really worth the effort.
To Anon #9
Well, in my experience love DOES work like the principles of science and mathematics. The better I’ve gotten at learning and applying it the more accurate and consistent the results.
I can see your perspective is different. It wouldn’t work for me, but I can see how it could look to you. Best wishes in your search for understanding.
It says in the Bible that Jesus sometimes didn’t do “many mighty works” in certain places because of the “unbelief” of the people.
In order to overcome this “unbelief”, we have to immerse ourselves in God’s love and goodness and to practice being grateful and aware of good in our lives and as we do this we become more and more conscious of the Principle of Love which always has been and always will be there.
If we keep focusing on despair and rejecting goodness and love, all we’re going to get is more despair. However, if we do the opposite and focus on goodness, then we’ll experience more goodness and harmony in our lives and others will too.
I was raised as a child, in a religion other than Christian Science, and non of my relatives have ever been members. At one time in my life, I felt that God did not love me anf had forsaken me, because he/she (corporeally speaking) had allowed me and others to go through, and see so much suffering, and I was in much pain, physically and mentally. I didn’t know how to stop the pain until one rainy night, after a math tutoring class,a friend and I were running toward the bus stop to catch our bus home.
I suddenly looked down in the rain and stepped over a journal lying on the ground. In a flash, the words on the cover seemed to jump out at me; love,peace,unity,understanding, peace. I had never heard of Christian Science before.
I ran a little farther, but decided to go back and pick the journal up off the ground. It looked very new,and I guessed someone had accidentally dropped it in a rush. I took the journal home with me and read articles and testimonies of healings in it most of the night.
After studying the journal, I looked in the back of it and call a journal listed practitioner the next morning. I was kind of afraid at first to call,but I had already tried medicines and doctors, and my problems still kept gaining on me. I had read the Bible Throughly, but bad things kept happening in my life. I thought God was just having fun, up there,in his big sky, playing games with me, and laughing while I/we suffered down here.
After going to the practitioner’s office,talking to her,and asking her many questions about God, and principal, and love, I really heard and understood what she said to me.
She said that I needed to began to look for, appreciate and be thankful for the good thats going on around me, (especially the very small good things)and that the more I recognized and acknowledged these things, the more good things I would be able to see, and I would be worshiping God, good,and my health would be renewed. She prayed for me. While she prayed silently for me, I felt such an overwhelming sense of God’s healing presence and love and good all around me that I was convienced that, “God is love,not hate,and that God is good, not evil “,and I really wanted to understand this God more (as Principal) in a much different and better way than I had ever known him/her. That was how I came into Christian Science, and that is when I was born again. As I daily work to keep my thoughts focused on the truth,(the good things), this keeps me well, and it helps to heal world problems. It is the truth that makes us free of sin,sickness, and disease and death. Thanks for reading this reply. God loves you!
Evelyn, This is what it’s all about. You should submit this tremendously uplifting experience to one of the periodicals. E-mail Evan as he has written many wonderful articles over the years. (if you need help) I was very moved by it and glad I dropped by the blog today. Thanks for sharing!!!!
Bill — you’ve got a good idea for Evelyn. She — and anyone else interested in writing for the Christian Science magazines — can submit articles via email to jshwrite@csps.com.
We’ve got some information on this in our Editors Desk section: http://tmcyouth.com/inspire_editorsdesk.php.
To Bill, and all who saw my previous testimony; I was praying that it would reach all who needed it, and it is reaching and healing.
Although that is enough for me,now that Bill has so lovingly responded and suggested that I write more, I guess I will just have to be obedient to the guidance of Principal, and put First things First. I will begin sending articles to the Christian Science periodicals,immediately, and As Mrs. Eddy, writes, “Look for me in my writings “, Bless You!
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about love with this blog conversation.
My summer read has been a book called Three Cups Of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Relin.
It’s about Greg Mortenson, an American man who promotes peace by building schools for girls in the super impoverished mountain communities of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Basically he fights terrorism with relationships and a love that is lived. Moved by the kindness of the locals when he failed in his attempt to climb K2, he promised to return and build them a school. In the last 10 years he has built 55 schools mostly for girls in the heart of Muslim Central Asia.
What I liked about this book is it helped answer something that has bothered me for a long time. It seems like no matter how much I learn — the mass of error in the world is so huge it appears to overshadow any good I could possibly practice. That’s one of those things you sometimes have to put on the back burner of thought and come back to when you have more experience and understanding. Recently someone said to me that you can’t fight organized evil with random good. I started thinking about this again and realized the Three Cups Of Tea book was a huge example of what the principle of love looks like in everyday practice. His schools have been nurtured and are thriving right in the shadow of the jihad training schools and the quality of life in all the communities where he works is improving. It demonstrates how, rather than random do gooding, a consistently lived and practiced love/good works. It doesn’t try to overpower evil with might — it defuses and deflates it and shows it to be powerless.
It helped open my thinking to a new way of looking at the way love/good would have to be practiced to defeat organized evil. I thought perhaps some of you out there might find these ideas helpful.
Thanks for the lively, inspiring chats lately. I’ve found them quite useful.
Wow - no wonder Mrs. Eddy said “What a word (Love) and was in awe of it.” The comments were very inspiring especially as I was having a rough day and trying to turn it around myself. Indeed my tank was filled with Love. Thanks to Evan and all of you……..
This is a neat concept:
“Indeed my tank was filled with Love.”
We’re all filled with Love, right?
I just skimmed through this thread. It was pleasing to watch how things opened up for all participating. What appeals to me most about this series of thought sharings is the sub theme of how change comes when we challenge something we don’t like in our material/human circumstances.
My response to escalating gas prices is a bit different than Evan’s. Maybe a bit more like Greg Mortenson’s. I ask…. what can be done so that I don’t have to endure this kind of discomfort in the future. I start to look around for alternatives.
Evan is absolutely right on in his immediate response to get out of the critical side of human thinking and put things on a metaphysical basis. It is important to keep in mind that even though gasoline powered vehicles seem to be the prevailing mode of transportation in our society there are many alternatives …even some that are under development or remain to be discovered.
Starting from the premise that God gives each of his ideas an appropriate
(infinit-t-t-te?) supply of transport modes we can exercise our choice over the modes we use. Evan pointed out that he could save by driving less. That seems like a kind of sacrifice. What if we turn to God and ask to be shown the appropriate mode for each of the daily activities that we plan to participate in.
Maybe there is a grace to be found in turning this over to God in a way
where the still small voice can have the opportunity to say, why don’t you try walking to this event, bicycling to another, asking to go with a friend or a suitable stranger like a neighbor who might be headed in the same direction. Rather than sacrificing… you start to open your thinking to divine
opportunities.
It is our practice to make our transportation decisions based on time and cost and we tend to get set in our ways as to how that must work for us. It can be really exciting when grace presents you with a total surprise and you find you are flying instead of driving, taking the train instead of flying, or traveling by some mode that you find was totally right for the occasion, but would not have been your first choice or something you’d even thought of. That kind of openness does tend to invest each day with a certain degree of Love’s divine adventure.
I’ve been doing some research and it certainly seems like biofuels will
be coming to our rescue in a modest way, eventually. Oddly, it looks like
they are likely to cost even more at first until there is an adjustment in the production and distribution systems. So I’m doing more research and I’m
asking God how can I speed the implementation of this higher understanding of fuel for our transportation needs? Where/how does this fit into my daily demonstration?….my daily ‘walk?’
Principia College has been doing a great job with its solar car, but solar
cars are still a long way off and may require some radical technological
breakthoughs before they become the preferred mode of transportation.
What looks very promising at this point is the development of light weight
2 cycle diesel engines used in combination with an electric drive. The diesel
will use mostly vegetable oil so it will pollute less and the noise factor has
be lowered considerably.
Maybe some department at Principia or other forward thinking school will start a project where they can speed the development of this technology also. At a minimum such a project would help educate the public as to how such technology will eventually impact their lives.
As far as i can tell the movement of this diesel electric technology from the drawing board into the market place is being left up to the government
to develop under military contracts and for big corporations such as Toyota
and Honda to bring forth in a year or two.
There is merit in exercising patience when seeking to bring forth technological advance and there are times when technology can’t and shouldn’t supply the needed answers. Our demonstration is still very much “in the now” and we can always strive to find the nearest right thing under the circumstances until the higher ideal can be fully realized.
Eventually, we will leave all material modes of human transport behind,
but until that time comes we can seek out and work for the next advance
in the stage of human progress out of its dependence on material systems, which invariably seem to find ways of exasperating us with their short comings …..such as painfully high (in our view) gasoline prices.
hey, thank you all, who have posted in reply. I have learned some thngs and I appreciate it.
My question about math and its principles, no one addressed though. What I meant was, when you learn to add, you’ve learned the principle of addition and you can do it every time. You can solve 2+2 every time, and even harder addition problems.
Well, how about in Christian Science? I remember reading somewhere in Sciencce and Health about how once you’ve solved a problem, you’ve demonstrated it and you’re that much higher in your understanding. But you might have been healed of a cold, and obviously you understood something to have it healed once (unless it was just coincidence). So why is it that people do have colds again? Maybe not everyone, but you can’t tell me that once healed of a cold, you never get one again for all Christian Scientists! So this is what i mean that the principle doesn’t work every time. The law of gravity works on earth every time, but the law of God, even when once understood and demonstrated, doesn’t work again and again consistently.
And I also think of the disciples of Jesus who were able to do many healings and obviously had great understanding. yet their lives ended tragically. There was no ascension for them, and no demonstration of a harmonious life. So is this what it means? Someone wrote that Christian Science was not a “feel good” religion. I agree with that. It’s tough! So what can we expect? A better end than the disciples? Or are we supposed to get to the point where we don’t care what terrible thing happens to us in our material world?
Glad you are back.
I wondered if that wasn’t your question.
What is the difference between a” law” like gravity that forces everyone to comply whether they want to or not and a principle like harmony — which is universal and never changes, but doesn’t mean my finger won’t slide off the right note sometimes and I hit a clinker that has to be corrected. I can”t wait to hear some of the responses to this, but obviously Jesus lived superior even to the law of gravity or there wouldn’t have been walking on water and disappearing inexplicably out of hostile crowds. This should be good….
In regards to cold,flu season, we are so barraged in this country with advertisements FOR colds, etc that it’s not always easy staying above the fear of contagion. This kind of advertising I really hope becomes illegal at some point!
However, in my own experience, I’m learning that the illness that can seem so real and disturbing is really just a suggestion coming to my thought which I have the power and the right to vigorously reject. This has worked for me many times when suggestions of illness have comes to me and I don’t care how many times I have to face down the same suggestions–I’m just glad I know about Mrs. Eddy’s system. As we realize that life is only spiritual and worship one God of Spirit and aren’t phased and frightened by all the noisy threats of the world, we’ll be better healers.
“The great truth in the Science of being, that the real man was, is, and ever shall be perfect, is incontrovertible;”(S&H p200) Does the world agree with this statement? No! And that is why healing is not always easy. It takes work (at least for me) to get above what the world is thinking and doing, but it’s worth it and it takes me to where I want to live. (In Spirit–where life makes sense.)
Ooo…boy! Anon #9 you a-r-e a hardcase. : ) I like that. Kind of reminds me of how I was in sunday school. Let me try to give you an illustration in terms of the math example you request.
-1 (the absence of an understanding of the presence and power of the One Mind) + (+)1 (a –simple mustard seed type–truth about the all presence of the One Mind and its’ essential (divine!) goodness = 0
-1 + 1 = 0
That’s a bit like ordinary math in that you can see how the positive cancels the negative and a neutral (harmonious, normal, healthy) state is restored.
In the metaphysical version the math rules change because the Principle Love is different.
-1 (an illusory false belief of sin, sickness, and/or death confronts the problem solver) +1 (the seeking and finding of the Truth that displaces the error) = +1 (the illusion has been totally displaced from the equation as if it had never been there to begin with)
thus (-1) + 1 = 1 or a tautology 1 = 1
which is always true as God is always the FATHER-MOTHER Loving self and nothing less. Put another way God can never be not-God or he would destroy himself….no sweet waters and bitter from the same fount. That’s the simple logic of the exercise.
When is a cold NOT a cold? Susan made the point I would have made. It’s all about your beliefs. Error appears to be opportunistic. It attempts to insinuate itself or attach itself to sinful thought….thought that is “missing the mark” of realizing the everpresence of God’s all power in some way. So even though colds are attributed to certain “infecting agents” which must be destroyed or removed in order to return to “wholeness” or lack of dis-ease in human terms; Christian Science doesn’t deal with the bugs so much as the fear of their apparent power to affect you. In addition it may also deal with the elements in your thought that are unGodlike and offer a point of attachment for some agent of misery….of which cold symptoms are just one of many….’we are legion.’ The blessing of Christian Science is that it teaches you that you are subject to NONE of them when in a plus 1 and Only ONE state of thinking.
To anon #9
It’s easy to say you know 2+2=4 so you have the principle of addition and can do it everytime and it’s the same for everyone. I can find hundreds or thousands of people who don’t know it and wouldn’t believe it. Granted, most of them are under the age of 7, but with all due respect, it is not as easy or certain as you are implying.
The road to 2+2=4 is long, sometimes arduous and fraught with pitfalls. Why do you think math is a subject so much time is spent on in school? Not because it is easy or automatic (like gravity). And, just because you finally have 2+2=4 down doesn’t mean the kid sitting next to you does. Does that mean your mastery of it is worthless, discounted, or the principle isn’t true? No. Also, just because you can do 2+2=4 doesn’t mean you are ready to work out 3+3 or square roots or complex algebraic equations. 2+2=4 is just one step of understanding. Let me tell you from experience, I”ve had rooms full of kids who can take two m&m’s and two more m&m’s, put them together and count four m&m’s. But, if I write down 2+2 their answer is 22. That’s because they have a concrete understanding of what’s happening, but to take it out of the physically touchable and apply it in the abstract or mental is a huge leap for everyone and some master it more quickly than others. It is also something that has to happen for math to become useable knowledge. All learning includes the ability to move back and forth between the concept of it and the expression of it. It takes a lot of patience and understanding to teach people to overcome the mental distractors to understanding the concepts and principles of math. And yes, they say exactly the same things about math you do about love until they have more mastery of it.
I know plenty of people who have permanently handled chronic and accute health beliefs that I haven’t and I’ve handled beliefs they haven’t. It doesn’t mean there is no principle involved, it just means we are in different places of understanding and practice of the principle. We are on different steps of advancement in thought. I wouldn’t expect a high-schooler to be fooled by 2+2 but a pre-schooler? Hard concept… While you are doing algebra, some are learning to count and some are starting to recognize numbers.
I’ve heard many an argument as to why 2+2=22 and with math and with understanding your spiritual being, the arguments will keep you where you are as long as you are willing to stay. At some point you have to take that leap of trust, faith, and spiritual growth to move beyond what the senses tell you to what the actual practice of the principle demands of you.
To #24,
I admire your questions. They are good ones.
On your wondering why it appears CS works sometimes and not other times…and then you mention the example of being spiritually healed of a cold…but later another cold happens again. That, you say, is proof that the law doesn’t work consistently.
It’s interesting that you used the example of a cold, because I can speak directly to that one.
One point to understand is, that you assume what you call a cold, is the problem the person is suffering from. And if a cold returns, the person has the same problem again.
Obviously, if a person has a cold, they are suffering from certain physical symptoms, and would like those symptoms to be gone.
In my experience over the years with colds, though, I’ve seen that a cold is not a cold–if you can follow that line of reasoning! Let me explain…
I used to pray about colds from the point of view of it being a physical condition. I used to have terrible and long bouts of suffering when a child. But over the years, I began to notice that a cold followed typically a weak state of mind on my part. Like if I got mentally down, or feeling a bit under mentally, then a cold followed. So, I paid more attention to my state of mind to keep it spiritually inspired and in-tune with Truth better. And it worked. I found myself healed much quicker of colds and even immune from getting them. So, the original problem never was what an observer would call a “cold.” It was demonstrating the law of God better and more consistently. And as I did that, the whole cold issue became less and less over the years. It’s been many years now since I’ve suffered much from a cold.
Anyway, in light of the above, even though I have had many colds over the years, but I can’t remember last when, each time a cold returned it’s return did not disprove the effectiveness of my application of CS the previous time. Every time I prayed and was healed of a cold, I became a spiritually stronger person. I was genuinely better off because of my application of CS, and the growth I experienced stayed with me and made me a better demonstrator of CS the next time I faced a challenge.
So, the laws of God are consistent and constant. It’s our application of them that improves. And as we humble strive to grow in understanding, the consistency of the law becomes more evident in our lives.
Hope that helps!
Hey, I like #28. I’ve been thinking how sometimes, even when you know the math facts by heart, you can make a mathematical error because you’re not paying attention or the wrong number pops into your head. And that leads to the wrong answer.
I think it’s like that with prayer, too. Sometimes we don’t devote the time to it that we should. Or we say some truth without really thinking about it, and we think that will do the trick. I’ve found that it requires more than that from me.
I’m not saying it’s hard, but it does require some effort — at least it has for me. But it’s like math in that, too. If I have a sheet of paper filled with math problems to solve, I won’t fill it out satisfactorily if I just sit there and know that there are rules that I *could* apply. I’d have to apply them! Well, I think it’s like that with love, too. It’s not good enough to love someone, I’ve got to express it for them to feel it. And I’ve found that living love opens the way for spiritual healing and freedom from physical as well as emotional challenges.
Addendum to post #27 and response to Anon #9 continued.
Shortly, after finishing that post I realized the representations I was using weren’t as accurate as they should have been.
Maybe some of you will remember how your Sunday School teacher represented the nothingness of error by creating a circle with their thumb and index finger. Then to show you that error may seem to increase and get really impressive they made a much bigger circle with their arms reaching around and up over their head. At that point they would explain that we should not be impressed by the big circle because it still just represented NOTHING! Mary Baker Eddy also makes that point very clear. So in justice to both “teachers” I’m going to adjust my previous statement to reflect that.
Anon #9, you mentioned that you were familiar with Mrs. Eddy’s text
Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures. Allow me to share a quote
with you from her Miscellaneous Writings that represents her perception
of how Christian Science can operate with a kind of mathematical precision. This statement is found on page 210 line 4 in an article entitled
Precept Upon Precept. She liked it sooo much she even used it again in
another article with minor variations. I introduce it here because it proves
useful in the illustration which will follow.
“Christian Science never healed a patient without proving with mathematical certainty that error, when found out, is two-thirds destroyed, and the remaining third kills itself.”
I realized I was remiss in representing error’s claims of the absence of
the presence of God with a -1. A minus one is an actual value, though a negative one. Since error’s claim is always illusory it cannot have ANY value. Therefore, it should be represented by an expression like (0)-1 which is essentially always zero. MBE’s statement above indicates that in our efforts to dismiss the lie we have to achieve a 2/3s level of performance before (re)solving the equation.
When error attaches itself to human thinking we start to feel and see ourselves as being less than 1. In the equation below I will use the 2/3s fraction as the degree of “subparness,” but the representation could use any of an infinite number of fractions and still resolve similarly.
(0)-1 + .666 (+1) = 1
The illusory state of mind would look like this:
(0)-1 the lie plus 1 yields a dimished value of .666 (a false mental state)
which = (1) where the spiritual one is hidden.
A false, erroneous (matter based) lie is added to human thinking and thus
reduces it to some degree from perceiving its natural state of perfection
of the full expression of the One Mind.
In this metaphysical equation all the work is done on just one side since the final answer must be “unchanging” and therefore always the same.
The problem is to apply a mathematical operation to the equation to produce a correct answer according to the rules. The language used in
Christian Science and the Bible gives us many hints and clues as to how to go about this. In the statement from Miscellaneous Writings MBE uses the
term “uncover” which carries the sense of stripping away a disguise or
false appearance of value. She also uses terms like “cast out” and “invert.”
The Bible suggests that evil’s kingdom is a “house divided against itself.”
We find the correct metaphysical truth through prayer, study or the multitude of other avenues that Love and Truth have available to reach the human mind. That will be symbolized by the appropriate numeric value used in the operation to neutralize or resolve the terms in our equation.
This is like the practice of “giving the lie to the lie” or turning the error’s
claim back on itself.
(0)-1/.666 + .666(1)/.666 = 1
perform the one sided operations and the result is
0 + 1 = 1 or 1 = 1
For some this may have appeared to be an empty intellectual exercise,
but for me it is like a little piece of mathematical poetry which embodies
some very fundamental truths. The use of the number 666 as the biblically based mathematical symbol for evil plays into this illustration quite nicely.
I also like the way error is effectively removed from having ANY effect on the value presented on the “human picture, side” of the equation.
For those who have come this far and who have some familiarity
with the concepts of quantum reality we can take this analogy a step
further. I will write the expressions like this (0) l -1 and .666 l 1 where each term consists of a range of superposed values from which each pair has been sampled. The two terms are inversely related to one another. As
the first term approaches 0 from any value down to -1; the second term approaches 1 from any value less than 1 except 0.
The significance of the quantum reality model is that the outcome of
any given “reality check” is based on the perceptions of the observer where any of the possible superposed values could surface as THE observation. Thus, an infinite range of outcomes are possible depending upon who is doing the observing and their “state of mind.” In this example as the “value of the lie” approaches 0 the “value of the truth” becomes the prevailing value for that side of the equation. As Christian Science asserts: the effect of healing tends to come from one’s ability to take a different (spiritualized) standpoint where the net value on the left side most closely resembles the constant value on the right side of the equation.
Thanks Evan,
Your answer was really helpful. I won’t feel so bad when a cold returns but see how I can grow more.
Evan, Thanks for the thoughts on colds, very helpful. Also Mrs. Eddy’s “I’ve got Cold” in Misc. Writings is good to work with. Also to all you mathematicians out there, check out Lisa Randall’s book “Warped Passages”. She gets into gravity and how it may be leaking into our world from another unseen dimension. (Another interesting thing she mentions is that many modern physicists “fudge” their findings to get to their postulates!!!) For me, the bottom line in healing a cold etc. is what I percieve/accept into my own consciousness. Am I adhering to God’s law or the illusion of some other law that has no underlying basis. When I healed myself of some horrible addictions a while back I had to get back to the only law God has and that is there are no other god’s beside God (The 1st commandment) That is really it. Anything else is separation. 2+2 could equal 5 for all I care. It’s a man made law, from the human consciousness and not the divine. Is it useful, absolutely but does it heal? I had to fight some pretty tough stuff concerning what #’s mean when healing addiction. (only 20% off addicts stay clean when going to a recovery program) etc. Human will is not the answer either. What heals is completely giving oneself to God and understanding that as His/Her reflection (expression) you don’t have to accept the human point of view at all. This view enables you to look out from God and “see” or “feel” through a spiritaulized consciousness. It’s like putting on 3D glasses. What doesn’t seem to be is, and has always has been. From this view the addiction simply fades away. It is permanent and 100% effective- A number I can live with. It is all very well explained in Science and Heath. The spiritual dimension is where the action is and we are only now starting to see this in the everyday world.
In the last couple of years, I have heard comments similar to Anon from recently graduated Sunday School students, some of whom were in classes I taught. (I have a pretty good idea what we discussed and covered and what their reactions were.) Christian Science is not learned in Sunday School. It is not learned from parents. It is not learned by blog entries. It is learned by taking what you believe into the world and living it, having it rejected and living it anyway. Maybe never saying a word religious, but just living it.
It is somewhat like math. If you are a mathematician, you will not be satisfied until you go far into universe of mathematics. If you are a Christian Scientist, you will not be satisfied until you have plumbed the depths of this Science in the same way.
But YOU have to do it. No one will make you. No one else can do it for you. There will be arguments not to bother with the search, from you or from others. (It is pretty easy too!) Some folks, like the kindly respondents here, can help guide you. But you have to want it yourself so much that you will dig and dig and dig until you find the gold. Think what treasure awaits and dig.
The basics are incredibly simple, just like 2+2=4. God is all.
God is good. God is infinite. Therefore, there is no place, no room, no possibility of evil. Your human senses, even right now, are screaming that evil it real. “I saw the video of the bridge collapse.” That is your challenge: the testimony of our senses confirms the existence of evil. Just like my senses confirm the sun rises in the east and circles the earth each day; just like the railroad rails meet … just up there; just like the earth is flat. Our senses delude us. God never does. Find Her.
So how can you pay a mortgage, insurance, household bills, food, etc. just on love? The money seems low and the jobs seem few. Layoffs are more a norm lately than trying to get a job.
To #35
How to pay the bills on love?…
Here’s one way to answer the question:
Love is gratitude, joy, unselfish giving, generosity, caring for others, serving others, wisdom and health. When we actively express these qualities, they make us better workers and more valuable employees. Our services are in higher demand and reap greater profit. Our earning potential increases.
Once I had a job selling pianos and organs. My first month on the job, I sold nothing. Zip, and I was on commission, so earned minimum wage. I prayed for an attitude change. I learned to love my prospective customers more. Instead of looking at them as people with money I needed to earn a living, I viewed them as children of God to value, appreciate and honor. My demeanor toward them became much more joyful, warm, and generous. I befriended them much easier and they warmed up to me much quicker. The results were dramatic. I went from being the lowest producing salesman to being the highest producer.
This approach can work for job interviews too. Let your light shine, your light of Love, and employers will notice what you have to offer, and want it in their business.