METAPHYSICAL MEETING, November 15, 2010
Contents
| - Topic | |
| - Call to the meeting | |
| - Readings | |
| - Member contribution A | |
| - Member contribution B | |
| - Member contribution C | |
| - Member contribution D |
Topic
Being childlike
Call to the meeting
Let’s think a minute about our own childhood. For most of us, we asked a million questions (most frequently “why?”), we were filled with wonder at the sight of the smallest bug, we loved to climb up on the lap of a parent or grandparent in order to be read a story. And, if we were enrolled in the Christian Science Sunday School, we knew there wasn’t anything that couldn’t be healed! We were open to new ideas and freshness. Everything was special.
Aren’t these the qualities of thought that Christ Jesus recognized, especially in his recognition of children throughout his mission; of course, a careful study of Mrs. Eddy’s definition of “children” in the Glossary amplifies and guides us down this same road.
So – here are some questions for us to consider at our next metaphysical meeting on Monday, the 15th, at 7:30 p.m. in our Reading Room:
- How can we best claim for ourselves the innocence and freshness that Jesus welcomed?
- Do we include all children, including ourselves, in our prayers for our community?
- How can we work together better to embrace our Sunday School?
We’ll share ideas about these questions, and then we’ll apply the truths to our own community, especially to our own Sunday School.
Here are a few references you can use in your study and preparation:
Isa 11:1-6
Matt. 18:1-5; 15-17
S&H 323:32
S&H 582:28-9
Hymn 318
We’ll see you all on Monday, the 15th at 7:30 p.m. in our Reading Room. Bring your childlike thinking and inspiration.
Readings
Mis 189:3
Mis 110:4
My 230:15-30
Mis 400:12-25
Hymns:
318: “Suffer the children to come to me”
438: “Father, we Thy loving children”
Member contribution A
Children: Truth’s representatives. “The spiritual thoughts and representatives of Life, Truth, and Love.” (S&H p. 582: 28-29)
1) How can we best claim for ourselves the innocence and freshness that Jesus welcomed?
See children as the spiritual thoughts and representatives of Life, Truth, and Love.
See children as God sees them. Children are perfect, pure, and complete ideas.
See ourselves as the complete and perfect reflection of the one Mind, also.
2) Do we include all children, including ourselves, in our prayers for our community?
Yes, we are all children of God. We include our prayers that there is only one Mind guiding, governing, and protecting each of God’s children. “God, good, guides, guards, and governs, me, and mine, and all.”
The whole community is blessed, as we see divine Love in operation.
3) How can we work together better to embrace our Sunday School?
The Sunday School is a Church Manual activity. We can know that the children in our community can be blessed by this unique spiritual education as provided in the Christian Science Sunday School. The whole Sunday School is already filled with God’s omnipotent Love and Truth. The Sunday School children are guided and governed by this divine Principle, which heals and blesses the whole family of man.
Each child is in his/her right place.
“I know that God is where I am, beneath, around, above, protecting, guarding, guiding, encircling me - (everyone) - in Love.”
Member contribution B
1) How can we best claim for ourselves the innocence and freshness that Jesus welcomed?
Mrs. Eddy states in Miscellaneous Writings (p. 110):
Beloved children, the world has need of you, — and more as children than as men and women: it needs your innocence, unselfishness, faithful affection, uncontaminated lives. You need also to watch, and pray that you preserve these virtues unstained, and lose them not through contact with the world. What grander ambition is there than to maintain in yourselves what Jesus loved, and to know that your example, more than words, makes morals for mankind!
In our warfare against materialism, our best defense is a strong offense. To be “about our Father’s business,” recognizing and nurturing the qualities of innocence, freshness, purity, love, and meekness, in ourselves and others, we can “maintain what Jesus loved,” and heal at the same time.
2) Do we include all children, including ourselves, in our prayers for our community?
To answer this question, let’s utilize the definition of children found in the glossary of Science and Health:
Children. The spiritual thoughts and representa tives of Life, Truth, and Love.
Sensual and mortal beliefs; counterfeits of creation, whose better originals are God's thoughts, not in em bryo, but in maturity; material suppositions of life, sub stance, and intelligence, opposed to the Science of being.
We can rest securely on the first part of the definition with respect to our prayers. The world has need of the “representatives of Life, Truth, and Love,” and we can affirm the presence of these in every situation. It is important not to cloud our outlook for humanity with the second part of the definition. The counterfeit holds no real place nor power as we expand the kingdom of heaven to embrace the true ideal before us.
It is paramount to the growth of our church to have a clear vision as to our approach to children. Taking a cue from the Committee on Publication, let’s handle any misperceptions of how Christian Scientists raise their children. While other churches may have doctrines governing how families are to act with respect to the rearing, care, and teaching of children, we need not involve ourselves with the intricacies of the human problem. The basis from which we act is the perfection of God’s creation, and this is manifested primarily in a great love for humanity. On page 56 of Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy makes it clear that marriage, as the “legal and moral provision for generation among human kind,” is for the “advancement of spiritual good.” We, as Christian Scientists, are for the “advancement of spiritual good” and we cherish and honor childlikeness in every department of life. God has furnished us a “table in the wilderness” whereby we have the divine right to demonstrate a human life of goodness, according to individual unfoldment. This is part of having “dominion” over the earth. The ongoing demonstration of this truth to the best of our ability, as well as equipping children to do the same, is exercising our dominion and holding aloft a pillar of light for mankind to follow. So then, in no way, is Christian Science ambiguous or irresponsible with respect to the rearing, care, and teaching of children.
3) How can we work together better to embrace our Sunday School?
The function of Sunday School in its broadest sense is to preserve native childlikeness and to foster maturity in the “mind of Christ.” The Sunday School staff and members at large can adopt this as a kind of mantra and apply it to all aspects of humanity, including children. With this beautiful mindset in hand, we can embrace our Sunday School as a beacon of practical empowerment for our community, and take the inspired steps to welcome childlike hearts, aching to be fed with the bread of heaven.
Member contribution C
First lessons in Sunday School: The Ten Commandments; The Lord's Prayer, and The Beatitudes. Click here to download these as a PDF file, or as an XLS spreadsheet.
Member contribution D
1) How can we best claim for ourselves the innocence and freshness that Jesus welcomed?
How do we do this? It’s the growth of mortal mind out of itself into purer concepts and more spiritual panoramas. I like Mrs Eddy’s article called The Way, in her Miscellaneous Writings. It discusses three stages of growth
a) Self-knowledge: “To strike out right and left against the mist, never clears the vision; but to lift your head above it, is a sovereign panacea. … Hold thy gaze to the light, and the iris of faith, more beautiful than the rainbow seen from my window at the close of a balmy autumnal day, will span thy heavens of thought.… Thus will a life corrected illumine its own atmosphere with spiritual glow and understanding.”
b) Humility: “This virtue triumphs over the flesh; it is the genius of Christian Science.… it is indispensable to personal growth, and points out the chart of its divine Principle and rule of practice. Watch, and pray without ceasing, or you will miss the way of Truth and Love. let Christian Scientists…long for the Christlikeness that is above the present status of religion and beyond the walks of common life, quite on the verge of heaven.”
c) Love: “The third stage of mental growth is…the greatest of all stages and state of being; love that is irrespective of self, rank, or following. Divine Love is the substance of Christian Science, the basis of its demonstration, yea, its foundation and superstructure.”
2) Do we include all children, including ourselves, in our prayers for our community?
We certainly should do. We are all the children of the one parent, omnipotent Mind, the only Soul or individuality. If we are loving our community, seeing it as the host of Mind’s creation, embraced by the arms of Love, then we can see that it includes every individual, as spiritual ideas. they are all essential elements of God’s knowledge and expression of Himself.
What about those young men who like to use our facility for skate-boarding antics, and even those of them who at times abuse the property? Are they just a recalcitrant mob that deserves to be send off with a flea in its ear, making it clear they are unwelcome? But wait a second! Did God make individuals who are not law-abiding, who do not respect others, who take advantage of the system? Well, actually, No. As Christian Scientists, we can know clearly that these individuals are God’s ideas, the image of God’s Love, expressing His purity of motive and action. The misbehaving individual is not that at all, but a lie about God’s creation. “All is infinite Mind, and it’s infinite manifestation.” (S&H 468)
3) How can we work together better to embrace our Sunday School?
Science and Health defines Church as the “structure of Truth and Love.” That definition says nothing about the human organization that we call “church”. Rather, it’s an active expression of infinite, immortal Mind. That’s what our church truly is, and that includes our Sunday School. As an essential piece of the divine structure, it possesses substance, endurance, and utility.
This complements the spiritual ideas that constitute the young people of our community. Overall we have a spiritual community of ideas expressing the wholeness of Soul, the interest of Life, and the permanency of Spirit.
We see also that all of us in our church membership embrace this spiritual structure and commitment. We all exhibit that knowledge that is divine Mind expressing its own completeness. Knowing that, we truly embrace the purpose and action of our Sunday School. It is established to be part of the spiritual structure of church, and that stands for all time.