METAPHYSICAL MEETING, July 15, 2013
Contents
Topic
Realizing the permanence of our church
Call to the meeting
At this important moment in working for our church’s place, we have a metaphysical meeting topic that reaches to the core of things: “Realizing the permanence of our church.” This topic is not a question, nor does it refer to options and alternatives. Church as “The structure of Truth and Love” (S&H 583:12) is an established fact. We can rejoice in understanding the permanent presence of activity originating from divine Principle, the Life that is expressed in church, inevitably.
Please join with fellow members and friends in considering this topic, and in being with us for the monthly metaphysical meeting on Monday, July 15th, when we can share inspiration and ideas about the permanence of our church. The meeting will be at 7:30 p.m. in our Reading Room, and usually lasts no more than one hour.
The consideration of Church as an active outflow of divine Principle and Life leads to a range of pertinent questions, such as: Exactly what is church in its highest sense? Is that sense practical, and why? What makes church permanent and undeclining? In what ways is this permanence already evident in our church organization, and to you as an individual? How can we nurture this permanence? You’ll no doubt have your own equivalent of these questions, so please bring them along and share your responses at the meeting.
“Rest assured you can never lack God’s outstretched arm so long as you are in His service. All that is true is a sort of necessity, a portion of the primal reality of things.” (Message to The Mother Church, 1901, 1:4-6, 18-19)
Readings
Hymn 144 (“In atmosphere of Love divine”)
Jer 31:3,4 I will (to 2nd ,),6 Arise,7 Sing (to :),14 my people
II Pet 1:2, 3(to 1st ,),4 (to :),10 give,11
Ps 106:48 (to .)
Un 8:11-12
Mis 336:27
Mis 140:28-29 (to :)
Mis 152:16-29
Mis 196:17-19
Participant contribution A
A number of months ago I began serving on the board of directors of a non-profit that supports the poor and homeless in Pasadena. It has been in existence for over 100 years and until very recently it was an inter-faith council of churches in the Pasadena area who primarily supported the organization. In the last few months, they have felt the need to expand their appeal for support to the Pasadena business community and other organizations and individuals. The reason given is that the churches are in decline and can no longer provide sufficient support. It was cited that this decline was due to a feeling in the general population that churches were no longer relevant along with a distrust of organized religion. All of which is attempting to say that church is not permanent.
How do we counter this general belief which seems so pervasive? I went to our textbook to page 155 where the idea of general belief is discussed. The important point to me is this sentence: “The human mind acts more powerfully to offset the discords of matter and the ills of flesh, in proportion as it puts less weight into the material or fleshly scale and more weight into the spiritual scale” (Science and Health 155:21-25).
So this has become my practice — to realize the substantiality of good, of spirit, of God and the complete insubstantiality of the counterfeit. Good, God cannot decline. Truth is trusted and trustworthy. God is eternal, always unfolding good, truth, intelligence, beauty — what could be more relevant than that? And this is really church in action as described by the second paragraph of the definition of Church in our textbook: Church elevating, rousing, apprehending, demonstrating, casting out error, and healing.
Participant contribution B
God is eternal, therefore permanent. So, all that He creates is permanent. Therefore the idea of church is permanent. As Jesus said, his church is built on the rock, a firm foundation that cannot be shifted regardless of the storms that rage around it.
Matter is never permanent. So, if we base our concept of church on a building, a location, a particular group of people, then we're basing our concept of church on the shifting sands of time. Eternity, permanence, knows no time. If our concept of church is built on the solid foundation of Truth and Love, its manifestation in La Cañada can never be destroyed.
Mrs. Eddy wrote about The Mother Church extension, “Methinks this church is the one edifice on earth which most prefigures self-abnegation, hope, faith, love catching a glimpse of glory” (My. 6:27). These qualities are permanent and will ensure the permanence of our church.
Participant contribution C
Today I thought of the idea of humility when I cherished the spiritual progress of our church. As we persevere, we can cherish humility as well. In Mrs. Eddy's article, "The Way," she writes: "Humility is lens and prism to the understanding of Mind-healing; it must be had to understand our textbook; it is indispensable to personal growth, and points out the chart of its divine Principle and rule of practice. Cherish humility, "watch," and "pray without ceasing," or you will miss the way of Truth and Love" (Mis. 356:25, 30-31).
Our church is already a perfect, complete, and permanent idea in Mind.
Participant contribution D
With regard to the definition of church (Science and Health 583:12-19) we see that church is a spiritual idea that cannot be harmed, like a sunbeam.
Our pastor continues. It's not a person. We always have our pastor with us. In Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy says, “While respecting all that is good in the Church or out of it, one's consecration to Christ is more on the ground of demonstration than of profession. In conscience, we cannot hold to beliefs outgrown; and by understanding more of the divine princpile of the deathless Christ, we are enabled to heal the sick and to triumph over sin” (28:9-14).
In the Old Testament, Isaiah says: “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from by mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I prupose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song. and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off”
(Isa. 55:10-13, New Revised Standard Version).
Participant contribution E
Having studied the dictionary’s usage I started with the thought of permanence as “durability, remaining throughout, continuing or enduring without fundamental or marked change” (Merriam-Webster) – stable. So I pondered our first question about church and it’s permanency, “What is church in its highest sense?” Church in its highest sense is light, Truth revealed, it is divine revelation of God’s love for all mankind. It is like a beacon of light coming to all mariners looking for guidance, safe passage, direction. One might say TRUST as in this week’s lesson where Abram puts his trust in God looking for the right pathway of life and trusting God’s directing.
From Sunday School on I’ve leaned on church, the structure of Truth and Love, to guide me in my adventure of life. The permanency of church has supported me with knowledge of who I am and my relationship to God as solid and inseparable, it was stable and always present as my haven (peace, protection joy). I could count on the permanence of church to remain and endure in being a stable factor wherever I was or whatever change I endured. The Christ changed not but was constant. “I am the Lord, I change not” (Mal. 3:6).
I always enjoy reading Eddy’s letters in Miscellaneous Writings and on page 139 she writes of her prayerful support for the land she gave in 1889 “for the purpose of having erected thereon a church edifice to be called The Church of Christ, Scientist.” She states “As with all former efforts in the interest of Christian Science, I took care that the provisions for the land and building were such as error could not control” (Mis. 139:20-22, 29-1). Through her prayers she had safeguarded her idea or gift, and later on she writes: “The First Church of Christ, Scientist, our prayer in stone, will be the prophecy fulfilled, the monument upreared, of Christian Science. It will speak to you of the Mother, and of your hearts’ offering to her through whom was revealed to you God’s all-power, all-presence, and all-science. This building begun, will go up, and no one can suffer from it, for no one can resist the power that is behind it; and against this church temple ‘the gates of hell’ cannot prevail” (Mis. 141:1-9).
In an article titled Dominion over change, Rebecca Odegaard writes, “Trusting God, giving up fears and mortal projections, always brings the spiritual growth that is recognized in blessings. This kind of trust is not naïve, but wise and practical. Practicing dominion over change reveals grace and utilizes the meek authority of the Christ. This dominion is deeply rooted in the admission of the fact that God is being God, and doing all the governing, controlling, supplying, and caring. We don’t have to micromanage our lives when we understand that Life is God, and we are the inseparable expression of that one perfect Life” (Christian Science Senitnel, Dec. 26, 2011).
This is the “continuing or enduring without fundamental or marked change” that Merriam-Webster spoke of in the definition of “permanent.” Church is always supporting us and is stable. The Christ is always comforting, and we are always reflecting our supreme and always-present Father-Mother God. Reflecting only the good, being joyful in His presence, sharing, demonstrating God’s All-in-all in everything we do, say and think, this is cherishing and having trust in the permanence of church.
Participant contribution F
While we have that important definition of Church in the Glossary of Science and Health (583:12-19), expressing the notion of church in our own words can be a solid boost to progress. For example, we can consider that church is the activity of the divine manifest in human experience. It is the unfolding of spiritual concepts within the immensity of divine consciousness. It is the for-ever unfolding of divine Principle, underpinning the development of Mind’s kingdom. The infinite strength of eternal Mind is the foundation of unending permanence that is the essence of church. And we can see this manifest in our organization and edifice. Those are ways in which we can think of church in its highest sense. In the reality of infinite Love, there is no other.
But how practical is it to think in that manner? Sometimes we use the word “practical” to describe human activity resulting from prayer. Unfortunately, that use of the word can suggest the material is more substantial than the spiritual. We know in divine Science that what we term the human experience is the objectification of ideas. As ideas become spiritualized, manifesting the Love and Life that is God, then the objectification of these ideas to human appearances is inevitable, and this constitutes the highest level of being practical.
And this practicality knows nothing about the material measurement called time. Divine Principle and Truth is, and that is-ness is independent of time, place, numbers, or circumstance. This realization implies no decline. That is impossible in the eternal unfoldment of Truth.
We see this permanence of church as a constant rejuvenating of divine ideas. I feel this thrust of Love impelling our membership. It’s not personal, it’s the divine consciousness realizing the permanence of Spirit as the one and only substance. This substance is never forgotten, never abandoned, never ignored, never isolated. It is rich in providing whatever is needed to further the activity and presence of church as part of our experience. Here is a certainty that is never broken, delayed, or impossible.
Nurturing this spiritual understanding of church is our native ability and activity. After all, realization means “to bring into concrete existence, to accomplish” (Merriam-Webster dictionary), and that necessarily implies utilization of laws, principles, resources, and opportunities that are already in place, for us to understand and uncover. No opportunity in divine Mind can be timid, tentative, unlikely, or impossible because divine Love provides only good for its ideas, and hence for its objectification.
In her Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896, in an article titled Divine Science, Mary Baker Eddy writes; “Harmony is heaven. Science brings out harmony. . . Faith illumined by works; the spiritual understanding which cannot choose but to labor and love; hope holding steadfastly to good in the midst of seething evil; charity that suffereth long and is kind, but cancels not sin until it be destroyed, — these afford the only rule I have found which demonstrates Christian Science” (Mis. 337:16, 338:9-14). This unchallengeable harmony is present now and for ever, ours to cherish and realize.