Sunday September 5th, 2021 Roundtable

The Pruning Knife

This week’s Lesson Sermon Subject: Man

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Morning Prayers

You are the child of the loving God, surrounded and protected by infinite Love. There is no hatred or evil to frighten you. You have no disease, you have nothing to fear, you are not in danger, you are entirely well, and continually held in the presence of God. … Abide in Love. Nothing can touch or harm you in Love. Know that you live in Love. Love is God as Life itself. Take this understanding with you and bless others with Love.

— from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, (the “Blue Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, page 229

Discussion Points

123 — WATCH lest, in your desire and effort to grow and improve yourself spiritually, you gauge your progress by comparing yourself with man instead of with God. When you compare yourself with man, you are in danger of becoming complacent and self-satisfied, because you find so many that are so much worse than you are. When you compare yourself with God’s perfect man — which is God’s idea of you — you are in no danger of a premature satisfaction, or sense of lethargy.

When you use God’s idea of man as your standard of perfection, you will gradually expand the compass of your efforts to include all mankind and to see them as perfect ideas of God; whereas as long as your basis of comparison is mortal man, your efforts will remain limited and personal.

— from 500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter

Golden Text — “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” — I Psalm 133 : 1

A testimony — “Grateful For What Man Is” by Florence Roberts

Whenever we make the statements that “God and man is one inseparable Being” or that “Principle and its idea is one,” these statements may mean much to us in Christian Science, or they may be mere words to us.

— from “The Power of a Right Idea” in Addresses by Martha Wilcox

Today’s Roundtable packed a mighty punch and shook me out of my stupor. What faith I have MUST be the cornerstone to grow in courage and strength in the knowledge that I am NEVER out of the presence of God! He is the only power! I have been mesmerized, duped, distracted by evil mortal mind and this has to stop. It is not enough to get to the point of pacifying the old man (Watching Points) – he must be kicked out of the house or he won’t leave.

My mother and grandmother only sought the loving aspects that Christian Science had to offer; little did they realize that complete dominion and annihilation of error must accompany the Spirit. This is the work and it is nonstop.

I am so grateful for this bucket of cold water which I intend to listen to all night and grateful for those who have walked before me and proven this out.

With the greatest of gratitude to you and all the members of Plainfield Christian Science church.(First Letter)

I took the advice of the Roundtable discussion this past Sunday and spent yesterday damning to hell every single symptom/false belief that came to mind. I always thought aggressive responses were contrary to healing. But can you believe that by the end of the day of storming about vehemently denying all erroneous claims that I felt so much better? Mary Baker Eddy says in the Key to the Scriptures that we must “annihilate” error – this is the word she uses. This word means “destroy utterly; obliterate” – there is no obscurity to the definition and it is certainly not “kind”. I felt empowered that I could eliminate error to clear the way for God’s work to be unfolded. It has built up my courage to fear not error and all its disguises and to face them head on!

I am so grateful for all the instruction and insight I am gaining from Plainfield, and every single one of you choosing to stand courageously and unflinchingly in the eye of the storm.(Second Letter)

— Letters from Listener

Listen here — “The Healing Power of the Christ” Sunday August 29th, 2021 Roundtable

Forum post — Repudiation Of Human Theories by Peter

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.

— Isaiah 26:3 from the King James Bible

Be a terror to the error.

— Plainfield Roundtable

Jesus was no ascetic. He did not fast as did the Baptist’s disciples; yet there never lived a man so far removed from appetites and passions as the Nazarene. 6 He rebuked sinners pointedly and unflinchingly, because he was their friend; hence the cup he drank.

— from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 53

Fear is a virus.

— Plainfield Roundtable

Now then, the main point is to keep your watch. Matt. 26:40 & 24:43. If you stay here, until you learn to handle animal magnetism, I will make healers out of you. I had to do it, and did it for forty years, and you must do it. You must rise to the point where you can destroy the belief in mesmerism, or you will have no Cause. It tried to overcome me for forty years and I withstood it all. Now it has gotten to the point where the students must take up this work and meet animal magnetism. I cannot do it for you. You must do it for yourselves, and unless it is done, the Cause will perish, and we will go along another nineteen hundred years, with the world sunk into the blackest night. Now will you rouse yourselves? You have all the power of God with you to conquer this lie of mesmerism.

— from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, (the “Blue Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy

Forum post — The Parable of the Vine by Susanne

At a time of contagious disease, Christian Scientists endeavor to rise in consciousness to the true sense of the omnipotence of Life, Truth, and Love, and this great fact in Christian Science realized will stop a contagion.

— from “Personality Personal Contagion”, Miscellany, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 116

There is great need for the impersonalization of both good and evil. We must transfer the source and cause of Good from personality, where it is supposed to be, to Mind or God, where it now is and always has been.

To impersonalize evil, we must transfer the source and cause of all evil from things and persons, to mortal mind, which is the seeming source and cause of all evil.

When we seem to experience some form of evil, we may think this evil has its source in the weather, in food, or in an automobile, or in some person, but this is not true because all experiences of evil have their seeming source in mortal mind. So-called mortal mind is always the culprit, and evil once reduced to mortal mind can be proved to be nothing. When we detach the source and cause of evil from things and persons, and keep evil as negation, as mortal mind, or lie, then evil does not have a foot to stand on, and fades out of consciousness, having neither power nor place nor existence.

— from “Evil Obsolete” in Addresses by Martha Wilcox

The gardener who at the approach of spring goes forth with pruning-knife in hand to put his shrubs, trees, and vines in order for the coming season, probably does not think of his task as a lesson in metaphysics, but the lesson is there for those who are alert to heed it. With practised eye he notes the need of each shrub or vine, and in his skilled hands the keen blade quickly yet tenderly does its work. The dead wood is cutaway, unsightly excrescences are removed, scraggly branches are trimmed into shapeliness—steadily and unsparingly the work goes on and the pile of debris grows, until every last bush and vine has felt the friendly touch. And all to what end? That the rose may bud and blossom in greater beauty and fragrance, and the vine and fruit tree yield more abundantly, in fulfilment of Jesus’ words: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.”

— from Christian Science Journal, March 1915 By Archibald McLellan

Animal magnetism, I acknowledge your claims, but I denounce your power. When error speaks, nothing is said. Stop justifying yourself in error.

— from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, (the “Blue Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, page 199

Forum post — Citizens of the World by Patricia from Ontario

Final Readings

And they turned not when they went.—ezekiel i. 12.

What a description of directness, of sincerity, of truthfulness, of straight forwardness.

This is part of the prophet’s description of the Living Creatures whom he saw in his vision; but how well it applies to men,—not to the Iscariots and Arnolds, but to good and true men, who go straight to their work, like an arrow from the bow. Such a man was Garrison. Such another man was John Brown. Such men were Judson the missionary, Bishop Heber, Father Mathew, Dr. Hopkins. Such men have we among us today,—aye! and women also. Having once embraced a cause, they obey the injunction of Jesus, and never look back or turn back. An arrow never looks back. It is no boomerang! It never returns on its course. But the arrow falls to the ground; whereas Ezekiel’s Living Creatures never fell to the ground, but flew on and on, sailing, like some strong albatross, beneath the blue sky, in the blaze of sunlight.

Give us such men and women, living creatures, in Christian Science. Such a woman is Mary B. G. Eddy. Such Christians she wants as followers, friends, and disciples. Art thou a Scientist? Be firm, unswerving, undeviating, steadfast! Choose the path, and walk in it. Nay, let it be a skyward path, and fly thou in it. Do not turn back! Do not turn to right or left! Fly straight toward the sun of your spiritual aim, eyeing it like the eagle in his plumed flight.

Thought is as swift as a cannonball, yea, as the lightning. Let your thought fly upward with a mighty bound. Take then your sight, and shoot toward it with the speed of God’s mighty pinions. “I’ll put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes,” says Shakespeare’s Puck; but the telegraph is quicker, and swifter still is thought.

— “Living Flight” from Christian Science Journal, January 1888 by C. O. M.