METAPHYSICAL MEETING, August 18, 2014
Contents
| - Topic | |
| - Call to the meeting | |
| - Readings | |
| - Participant contribution A | |
| - Participant contribution B | |
| - Participant contribution C | |
| - Participant contribution D |
Topic
Pausing, listening, and waiting on God
Call to the meeting
Our next metaphysical meeting will be on Monday night, August 18, at 7:30 p.m., in the Reading Room. The topic for research and discussion will be: “Pausing, listening, and waiting on God.”
Summertime for many is often a time for reflection. As members, we find ourselves in a period of waiting on the agent of change with regard to our church. In this regard, let’s consider the merits of turning to God to fill that void of activity and provide us with fresh insights as to remaining productive in thought and action.
As always, you are invited to give some thought to these concepts and share your contribution on August 18, or simply attend and join in the discussion. Everyone is very much appreciated and welcome.
Readings
Ps. 143: 7 (to 2nd:), 8
Prov. 18: 15
John 4: 35
S&H 2: 15-16
S&H 332: 9-15 Christ
S&H 316: 21
S&H 587: 19
S&H 256: 2-5
S&H 454: 17-21
S&H 323: 9-12
Un. 11: 24-6 n.p.
Participant contribution A
Perhaps you’ve heard of the analogy about God and a theatrical production. God is the producer, the writer, and the director. I suppose that one could argue that He is also doing the acting. But how true it is that we often write scripts in our minds and step onto the stage as the director to control the dialog and to manipulate the plot. Even when nothing seems to be happening, we assume the actors are on strike and the Producer (with a capital P) has lost His will and the ability to pull it all together.
Times like this cry for humility. We can do nothing. These words sound vaguely familiar. Where have we heard them? These are Jesus’ words:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.
Oh, now I get it. We have to see what the Father is doing. How do we do that? Surely, after everyone has shared their inspiration tonight, we will have a pretty good idea of how to get closer to God and begin to see what God’s plan is.
Participant contribution B
WAITING ON GOD
We seem to be in a period of waiting for activity to occur. The danger in times like this is that we may sink into a state of mental inactivity, too — that we don’t embrace the urgent need to keep praying, because there’s no material activity against which to measure progress. Therein lies the first mistake! Spiritual progress is never measured materially. An adjustment in our church’s physical plant can only be the result of an enlightened concept of church and its enduring value in our community.
This is broader than our immediate situation. As I thought about it, I was reminded of the many testimonies that have told about handling the world beliefs regarding a particular problem as the key to obtaining healing. In metaphysical language for our situation, this is the task of handling ignorant (and possibly malicious) mental malpractice against Church, in general, and against our branch church, in particular. In our current seeming inactivity, defending the idea of Church from world belief will certainly speed our progress as a result.
What are some of these world beliefs? I’ll discuss only a few.
World belief: Church isn’t needed any more, because all the spirituality one needs can be found on the internet.
Counterfact: Church provides the foundation for all spiritual activities. Church is founded on the Rock, Truth. Nothing can shake it, not even the belief that it is irrelevant. Church reflects the qualities of spirituality, inspiration, relevance, hope, trust, faith, and so on. These qualities are a magnet to seekers as well as those do don’t even know they are seeking.
World belief: Attending church is really about making business and social contacts.
Counterfact: 1. All of man’s needs are met by God, not by a human institution. Christ makes the connection between God and His ideas. Angels whisper the answers, which are heard. 2. Church cannot be adulterated or misused. Church is proving its utility by “rousing the dormant understanding.” This enlightened understanding will raise “the thinker into his native air of insight and perspicacity” (128:4) so that he will see that the spiritual education gained through church will benefit his entire experience.
World belief: Christianity doesn’t heal.
Counterfact: The Science of the Christ is eternal. It is based on divine Principle. Obeying and applying its rules result in healing, which have been proven consistently since Old Testament times. Nothing can stop the forward movement of Christian healing. It is divinely natural activity.
As you can see, while we are waiting, there’s plenty of work to do.
Now, I wanted to talk a little about the word wait. As I said, it isn’t a period of inactivity, but rather a time when we are actively aligning ourselves with God. The etymology of the word is quite interesting. It’s from an Anglo-French word meaning to watch over, similar to Old High German and Old English words meaning to watch. So, waiting could be considered to be a similar activity to watching. We know how much importance Mrs. Eddy put on watching. Our period of seeming inactivity can be full of active watching.
As I researched the word wait, I found that the phrase wait on can have two meanings: to serve or to wait for. I am neither a biblical Hebrew student nor an American dialectologist, so I can’t give a scholarly opinion about what the Psalmist and Mrs. Eddy intended with the phrase wait on. However, for this period of waiting, I’m going to choose “to serve” as the meaning in the following two passages from Science and Health:
“When we wait patiently on God [that is, When we serve God patiently] and seek Truth righteously, He directs our path. Imperfect mortals grasp the ultimate of spiritual perfection slowly; but to begin aright and to continue the strife of demonstrating the great problem of being, is doing much” (254:10).
“Beholding the infinite tasks of truth, we pause, — wait on [serve] God. Then we push onward, until boundless thought walks enraptured, and conception unconfined is winged to reach the divine glory” (323:9).
So, during this period of human waiting, our job is to continue to serve God. We never stop, regardless of the human situation. We will be rewarded for our service.
Participant contribution C
Our Leader’s words that include the line, “I will listen for thy voice” always seems to me to be a promise that each of us makes as we read or sing that line. We are promising to listen for God’s direction in all we do. This includes what we do individually as well as a church body.
Pausing represents “patience” to me. We can’t tell God what we think the time table should be. We can’t rate our progress in human terms. We must patiently wait.
But this doesn’t have to be an unproductive time for us as a church body. We can all continue to pray, diligently, “importunately”, for God guidance, knowing that God never brings us halfway. Our progress with our church is a right activity and we have been led all along the way. God will not abandon us.
We know we can trust in the Lord with all our hearts and we don’t have to rely on our own knowledge, expertise, or understanding. God is only good and is blessing us every day with his unfailing love.
Participant contribution D
Waiting for something to happen, or manipulating conditions to force something to happen, is a dependence on material reasoning and the material senses. It assumes that existence is material and that life is a juggernaut of chance, an all-consuming inevitability of circumstances out of control.
Here we have a reminder that the material circumstance is always a counterfeit of what is spiritually true. Mind is never waiting around for something to happen. The divine intelligence, immortal Mind, includes all the activity there is, and it’s directed rightly and ceaselessly. That activity is never outside of divine Love’s guidance, and it’s always active.
We help ourselves and our church when we hold this firmly in thought. When necessary, we throw out thoughts of stagnation, inactivity, or disinterest, replacing those deceptions by the confident certainty of unending Principle in action. We don’t allow ourselves to be driven by inferences arising from material observation. We must, of course, negate and replace those material observations in our thinking.
Thinking about this topic led me to look at Mary Baker Eddy’s article “Seedtime and Harvest,” which begins on page 8 of her book Unity of Good. Here is some of what it says:
“Is anything real of which the physical senses are cognizant?
“Everything is as real as you make it, and no more so. What you see, hear, feel, is a mode of consciousness, and can have no other reality than the sense you entertain of it.
“It is dangerous to rest upon the evidence of the senses, for this evidence is not absolute, and therefore not real, in our sense of the word. All that is beautiful and good in your individual consciousness is permanent …To attempt the calculation of His mighty ways, from the evidence before the material senses, is fatuous. It is like commencing with the minus sign, to learn the principle of positive mathematics.
“God was not in the whirlwind. He is not the blind force of a material universe …
“Jesus taught us to walk over, not into or with, the currents of matter, or mortal mind. His teachings beard the lions in their dens … He demanded a change of consciousness and evidence, and effected this change through the higher laws of God. The palsied hand moved, despite the boastful sense of physical law and order. Jesus stooped not to human consciousness, nor to the evidence of the senses. He heeded not the taunt, ‘That withered hand looks very real and feels very real;’ but he cut off this vain boasting and destroyed human pride by taking away the material evidence.”
To material sense, there may be a “palsied” situation, with no movement. We don’t accept that. The “higher laws of God” are the only laws. God’s expression man always manifests the activity of Life, and inevitably the beauty of Soul.
We also don’t wait around for divine intervention. The divine never intervenes because Spirit is All, and immortal Mind already knows All. We go forward in the confidence of divine Love’s embrace of its own infinite creation.
In aligning thought with what is divinely true, we don’t necessarily expect a tumult of material activity. Indeed, there is not always a need for a rush of action. But we do know that what is most appropriate to the unfoldment of good, of Spirit, of divine Love, will be present and will govern our church activity in the most appropriate manner, which will benefit everyone.