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Metaphysical Application Ideas for the Christian Science Bible Lesson on the subject

“Is the Universe, Including Man, Evolved by Atomic Force?”

For the week of December 17 – 23, 2007

Prepared by Janet Hegarty, C.S. of St. Louis, MO

Editor’s Note:  The following application ideas for the Christian Science Bible Lesson for this week are offered primarily to help CedarS campers and staff (as well as friends) see and demonstrate the great value of daily study and application of the Christian Science Bible lessons year-round, not just at camp!  You can sign up to have them emailed to you free — in English by Monday of each week.  Or by Wednesday you can get a FREE TRANSLATION in French or Spanish or in German this week by Gabriele Kaufman:  JUST SIGN UP at www.cedarscamps.org/newsletters

Get ready to welcome in more of the Christ, Truth everyday!

This time of year friends often ask one another, “Have you finished your Christmas shopping yet?”  Everyone is getting ready for Christmas.

I remember when I was a child the preparations would go on for days.  Then on Christmas Eve, the moment would come when my mom would hastily put the last cookie on the desert tray, my dad and brother would finish arranging the extra chairs and my sister and I would  dash into the living room to put one last present under the tree.  At that exact moment, the door bell would ring.  It was a moment of great anticipation.  We all knew that when my dad opened the door our Aunts, Uncles, cousins and grandparents would come pouring in and the fun we had worked so long to prepare for, would begin.

This was always great fun, but when I became acquainted with Christian Science I discovered it was less than nothing when compared to the great anticipation of the Christ coming to the human consciousness to awaken us from the dream of error.  Let’s diligently prepare for and welcome in the Christ each day.  [Our daily celebration of the Christ presence will be fully satisfying no matter if we have lots of human family around or it’s just us and our closest friend, our Daddy-Mommy God, tangibly expressing the Christ presence through us and to us.]   “Where charity stands watching and faith holds wide the door, the dark night wakes, the glory breaks and Christmas comes once more.”  (Hymn 222) 

Golden Text:  Begin with The Word.  [Logos in Greek means Principle or Law]  God is the Creator, the only originator of all that is.  As described in Genesis it was His Word [Principle or Law]  that brought the universe and man into existence, “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” (Genesis 1:3)* However, the full meaning of “the Word” of God includes much more than the words He spoke in Genesis.  The Word is described as “…God’s revelation of himself to the world,” and as “the wisdom of God that is reflected in the reason and moral sense of upright men and in the order and beauty of creation.”  (Interpreter’s One-Volume Commentary)  It is also explained to be, “…the revelation of [God] himself that began at the dawn of human history, and continued through the ages, and reached its completion in the life and work of Jesus Christ.” (Westminster Dictionary of the Bible)  Possible Uplifting Sunday School Homework (P.U.S.S.H.)  When you (hopefully) stop by the Christian Science Reading Room this week to do your last minute shopping for spiritual stocking stuffers, stay a while, and enjoy some spiritual refreshment.  Look up “The Word” in the various Bible reference books.  You will be amazed at the beauty, spiritual depth, and comfort you’ll find as you explore this idea further.  Also, use Concord to search Science and Health for “Word” to find the unique Christian Science perspective; be sure to note the references on page 335:7 and 503:9. 

*Possible Sunday School Topics (P.S.S.T.)
  [What confusion and emptiness will you “let” the Christ light of God’s Word dispel during this holiday season?  What losses can the Christ turn into gains for you and others?  In “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” boo-who was the sound the Grinch expected from hear from the Whos down in Whoville when they discovered their presents had been taken from them.  When the presence of a loved one is taken from us, let us like them join hand in hand in singing to celebrate the forever presence and life example of that individual’s qualities always right with us and the consequent elimination of grief (boo-who). See a link to John Q. Adams lecture in the Section 1 P.S.S.T.  Two other “whos” are simultaneously healed as well: confusion and emptiness, “tow-who” and “bow-who” as Cobbey Crisler pronounced the original Hebrew words rendered “without form and void” in the King James Bible.  Dr. Seuss in the book had the Grinch’s heart grow three sizes when the Whos demonstrated their freedom from grief, confusion and emptiness.   How many sizes can our hearts grow today?  Infinitely immense is the Christ love (agape in Greek) that “desires good for those we esteem.”  Like Christ Jesus, let’s behold everyone in the highest, healing esteem of “the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals.” Science & Health 476:32  That’s the ultimate goodwill to men!]

Responsive Reading:  The Word was made flesh [“and moved into the neighborhood … generous inside and out, true from start to finish.”  (John 1:14, The Message)]  This is definitely cause for rejoicing!  [We can rejoice that the virgin birth of Jesus which we read about in Section 3 and celebrate at Christmas is spiritual — as is the origin of all sons of God.  We are “born, not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.” (RR John 1:13)  Tossed aside are the “normal” three methods and motives of human birth.  The birth of Jesus and all sons of God is not due: 1) to evolution of atomic DNA’s “designer genes” (B. Cobbey Crisler); 2) to lustful urges; or, 3) to any prideful longing for descendants.  “By this elaborate threefold denial of the human source of this sonship, immense force is given to what follows. (Being) born of God is a “Right royal gift,”  Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary   Bountiful gifts from God’s grace evoke humble gratitude, not human pride of authorship.  “We all live off his generous bounty, gift after gift after gift.”  (John 1:16, The Message)

The pure and perfect nature of God is revealed to man through the words and works of Christ Jesus.  His healing works make it evident that God is Love and Life.  Christ Jesus understood and proved the allness of God, the allness of good, and the perfect goodness of man who is the spiritual reflection of God.  This is truly a light, a revelation of spiritual truth, in the world.  This truth brings light to all the dark places of human consciousness.  [Possible Sunday School Topics (P.S.S.T.)]  The statement, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us…” (John 1:14) is frequently used to support the false idea that Jesus is God.  Jesus never claimed to be God, he called himself the “Son of God.”  Check out page 360:32-20 in Science and Health for a good discussion of this subject.               

Section 1:  Spiritual development is the key.  (S4)  “What we now see did not come from visible things.” (B1) (Berkeley/Verkuyl)  It came from “the word of God,” “the spirit of God,” – divine Mind created man and the universe. (B1, B3)  Continuously, Mind, God reveals himself to us.  He guides us to understand the spiritual essence of being through inspiration.  (B4)  We are forever at one with Mind, God, and Mind is forever revealing itself to us.  You can only really understand who you are when you base your understanding on Spirit.  The human concepts of “growth, maturity, and decay” are matter-based and keep you in the dark.  If these are a part of how we define our life, then life will always be a mystery because growth, maturity, and decay are not part of God’s creation. (S2)  They are false concepts that hide the truth of being from us.  God, Spirit is the creator.  Existence is the unfolding of spiritual ideas.  The inspirations of God guides human thought away from false material concepts.  Then these spiritual intuitions reveal true existence and bring freedom.   [P.S.S.T. What limitations and darkness in your life and in the lives of your loved ones are being blamed on human stages of “growth, maturity, and decay?” (S2)   Tell your SS class or congregation how the freedom and light of your spiritual pre-existence and divinely reflected perfection has brought healing.   You’ll love  seeing Christian Science Lecturer, John Quincy Adams’, clear illustration of this joyous concept using a hula hoop and a bucket in part of his 2007 CSO Summit lecture posted online at http://tmcyouth.com/blogs/summits/cso-summit-2007-highlights/  It’s about 60% into this highlights video that shows glimpses of all the good being offered to young Christian Scientists in recent years.]

Section 2:  Find your way out of the wilderness.  [Go beyond the empty material sense of wilderness (S5) imagined below that Mary Baker Eddy defines as “Loneliness; doubt; darkness.”  To that material sense of wilderness follow Mrs. Eddy’s lead and put a “full stop” (the British terminology for the punctuation we Americans inadequately refer to as a period)]  Imagine you are lost in a desert land.  There are no roads to lead you to civilization, no signs of human life on the horizon, not a single tree to rest under.  You have wandered for days, alone, hungry and thirsty and full of doubt.        Don’t give up hope.  You have not wandered outside of Love’s embrace.  Ever-present Love can “furnish a table in the wilderness.” (Ps 78:19)  God promises, “I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.” (B6)  John the Baptist preached in the “wilderness.”  He was physically in a desert land, known as the wilderness, and was preaching to people who were in a mental wilderness –  the harsh, dark, matter-bound wilderness of thought awaiting the light that Jesus would soon bring with his message of God’s perfect Love.  The early Christians considered John to be “the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness,” which was prophesied in Isaiah. (B7)  He told the people to get ready for the coming of Jesus, to prepare their thought to receive a totally new idea. 

In her spiritual definition of “wilderness” Mary Baker Eddy calls the wilderness a vestibule, a kind of waiting room, “in which a material sense of things disappears, and spiritual sense unfolds the great facts of existence.” (S5)  [P.S.S.T.]   If you find yourself in a wilderness, [outside your “comfort zone,”]  not knowing what comes next, feeling as if you’ve been wandering aimlessly for a time, consider yourself to be in a room [in what we call your “growth zone” at camp,] waiting for Christ Jesus to arrive.  How would you prepare for his coming?  Search this section for suggestions and consider the encouraging promise given in Hymn 222,  “Where meekness will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in.”]

Section 3:  Mary was prepared to welcome Christ Jesus.  The greeting of the angel, “Hail, thou are highly favoured, the Lord is with thee,” (B10) shows that Mary’s thought was  very pure and spiritual.  She must have been spiritually aware, alert, and attentive, to hear God’s angel message.  She was truly unselfish because she was ready and willing to have her life take an unexpected turn at God’s direction.  Even though what the angel told her was very unusual Mary readily accepted it.  She agreed that “with God nothing shall be impossible.”  Mary was also humble: it was evident that she had been given a very important job (to be the human parent of the Son of God) yet she kept it all quietly to herself. 

(P.U.S.S.H.)  You, too, can be prepared to welcome more of the Christ into your consciousness each day.  To do this, nurture your spiritual alertness and purity by studying the Bible Lesson regularly.  Practice unselfishness and humility in your relationships with others and expect good because you know that “with God nothing shall be impossible.”              

Section 4:  “God’s angels ever come and go.” (Hymn 9)  The verses from Luke that open this section describe one of the most extraordinary and grand moments in human history, eclipsed only by the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. The angel announces Jesus birth –  “the highest human concept of the perfect man,” “inseparable from Christ, The Messiah.” (S16)  Imagine what it would have been like to hear the “multitude of the heavenly host praising God.”  What a wonderful awareness of Love must have been tangibly felt as they said, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” (B13)   

“When God is seen with men to dwell, and all creation makes anew. What tongue can half the wonders tell, What eye the dazzling glories view?” (Hymn  384)  Yet, this appearance of the Christ goes on hourly.  “Angels whisper it, through faith, to the hungering heart in every age.” (S16)  [P.S.S.T.]  Are you keeping watch like the shepherds, prepared and faithful at your post?  Then you, too, will experience this glorious moment many times.  You tangibly will feel the power and presence of Love and awaken to a more clear, unburdened consciousness of your inseparable relationship with God.  [Like the “sheep” you are metaphorically watching, you too can refuse to be a beast of burden and instead hear and follow Christ’s voice as Christian Science Lecturer Michael Pabst, C.S.B. urges in an inspiring November 13, 2007 spirituality.com Live audio chat on the great topic of Life-minus the stress.” Click the link to hear it.  More burden-lifting ideas can be found in the December 2007 Christian Science Journal article by Barry Huff entitled: “No Burden, No Baggage.”]

Section 5:  “He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” (B17) 
What a beautiful promise!  Jesus came to make the Christ evident to humanity.  “That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” (John 1:9)  He taught and proved the spiritual nature of creation.  He showed the ever-present, all powerful action of God that empowers good in both the universe and man.  You can follow Christ Jesus today and enjoy the benefits of his promise.   Know that you are under Mind’s control.  God, Spirit is, was, and always will be the Principle of your being.  This truth will uncover any lingering sense of “heathen philosophy, modern geology, and all other material hypotheses.” (S21)    Continue to argue on the side of spiritual truth and the false notions that are uncovered will soon vanish.  Then, the bright, clear, light of Christ will shine in your thought and actions – obliterating the darkness of materially and healing the sick.   [P.S.S.T. No ties will be allowed on Christmas day!  What “ties of the flesh” (S19) or “deadlines” are you ready to convert to lifelines to Spirit, your heavenly Mommy/Daddy?  FYI Jesus pioneered calling God “Abba” or Daddy.  We should feel so close!]    

Section 6:  Is the universe, including man evolved by atomic force?  No.  Both the universe and man are so much, much, more than evolving particles could ever be.  Fear not and be glad! (B18)  You have dominion!  The Word of God, the eternal Principle of perfection and grace has created and upholds its glorious, indestructible, wholly spiritual, creation.  In the words of John,  “the Word was made flesh,” (John 1:14)  God has sent his beloved Son and made his loving purpose and nature known to man.  God has made it known that man has “dominion over the works of his hands.” (B20) 

[The final P.U.S.S.H.]  It is only natural, as we have accepted the Christ into our hearts, that we would generously pray for one another, rejoicing always in the glory of God that we all reflect. (B22)  Know that we are not in competition with each other – fighting to get our part of limited material resources.  We all shine out from the same infinite source, each one a precious, complete, idea of God.  [Affirm that] you cannot possibly lack for what belongs to someone else.  [Know that] you have it all, direct from God, and so does everyone else.  Have a blessed Christmas every day!  Get ready for Christmas today – set aside limiting matter-based concepts and open the door of your consciousness wide to receive more of Christ’s “reappearing” each day.

Camp Director’s Note: The above sharing is the latest in a series of CedarS Bible Lesson “mets” (metaphysical application ideas) contributed weekly by a rotation of CedarS Resident Practitioners and occasionally by other metaphysicians [with bracketed, italicized notes and “Possible Sunday School Topics” some offered by the authors and others offered by me as editor]. This document is intended to initiate further study as well as to encourage the application of ideas found in the Weekly Bible Lessons as printed in the Christian Science Quarterly and as available at Christian Science Reading Rooms. * Originally sent JUST to campers, staff and CedarS families who wanted to continue at home and in their home Sunday Schools the same type of focused Lesson study, application and inspiration they had felt at camp, CedarS lesson “mets” are in no way meant to be definitive or conclusive or in any way a substitute for daily study of the lesson. The thoughts presented are the inspiration of the moment and are offered to give a bit more dimension, background and daily applicability to some of the ideas and passages being studied. The citations referenced (i.e. B1 and S28) from this week’s Bible Lesson in the “met” (metaphysical application ideas) are taken from the King James Version of the Bible (B1-24) and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. (S1-30) The Bible and Science and Health are the ordained pastor of the Churches of Christ, Scientist. The Bible Lesson is the sermon read in Christian Science church services throughout the world. The Lesson-Sermon speaks individually through the Christ to everyone, providing unique insights and tailor-made applications for each one. We are glad you requested this metaphysical sharing and hope that you find some of these ideas helpful in your daily spiritual journey, in your deeper digging in the books and in closer bonding with your Comforter and Pastor. Have fun unwrapping, cherishing and sharing your special, spiritual gift(s)!  
Enjoy!
Warren Huff, Camp Director       director@cedarscamps.org       (636) 394-6162
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The weekly Metaphysical Newsletter is provided at no charge to the 1,200 campers and staff blessed each summer at CedarS, as well as to CedarS alumni, families and large community of friends who request it.  However, current and planned gifts are needed to defray the costs of running this service and of providing camperships, programs and operations support.  Click http://www.cedarscamps.org/giving for more about how you can give online or get information to talk privately about how to make a special gift to help perpetuate CedarS work.

Your needed and very welcome, tax-deductible support can be mailed to:
The CedarS Camps Office        THANKS TO YOU PRECIOUS DONORS
1314 Parkview Valley Drive                        FOR YOUR ONGOING SUPPORT
Manchester, MO 63011                              OF CedarS IMPORTANT WORK!

FYI: Thanks to gifts from many of you and to a recent foundation pledge, we are celebrating reaching our “Maintenance Musts” Matching Grant goal of raising $25,000 before year end to receive $25,000.   Other ONGOING NEEDS include:
1) Unrestricted Gifts to allow CedarS to allocate funds where most needed.  Tuition only cover about 75% of the cost of running camp and all of the costs of providing Christian Science youth lectures and of subsidizing Summit meetings as needed.
2)  
Campership funds to underwrite camp experiences for over 300 worthy campers (~1/3 of our 2008 campers)  The actual costs for a week of Main Camp is $800.
3)  
“Adopt the Herd” Matching Grant funds to help us take advantage of a offer from generous donors who are aware of the ongoing needs to help CedarS riding program measure up to its mission!  Our goal is to raise $50,000 by 5-31-08, for $50,000 more to help cover the costs of a maintaining a quality herd and riding program for 1,200 campers and staff. 

Click here to see campers grateful for your support, to read their read fruitage and to review current needs in our year-end Annual Appeal!

Click here to see an overview of our Operational needs and details of gift recognition levels in our year-end Annual Appeal!

A new, special way to give to CedarS as well as to receive gifts in time for Christmas is to order either one or both of the books written by CedarS Founder, Ruth E. Huff.  ALL PROFITS GO TO THE CEDARS CAMPS.  Ruth’s latest book, out just in time for holiday giving is Laughing Eyes.”  It is beautifully illustrated by Carol Boemer Napper and shows simple but profound ways to give happiness, love and life lessons to children of all ages.  IT’S FOR CHILDREN TO READ, OR FOR CARING ADULTS TO READ TO CHILDREN.  The cost is $14 plus a $1 mailing charge.  You can email the author for more details or to rush shipment at:  ruthehuff@aol.com   

Please send your checks for either or both books to “Ruth Huff,” 1311 Turtle Cove, Ballwin, MO 63011 
Ruth’s first, colorfully illustrated book,
CedarS Camps: Its Origin and Growth is $14 softback/$20 hardback, plus $1 shipping/book.

To see some keeper posters, such as “No more monkey business” in Section 3 this week, go to www.myBibleLesson.com   Check out a visually-oriented and very helpful study resource for the weekly Christian Science Bible Lesson.  It’s being produced by The Christian Science Publishing Society.  What a great auxiliary to lesson study – and to reading beyond citation markers using the handsome new student books now in Reading Rooms.  MyBibleLesson contains word definitions, Bible background Notes, fun topical cartoons, timelines and translations, plus many healing ideas to use.  Why not check out this vehicle to help bring new meaning and life to each beloved Bible lesson and so bless the youthful thinker and Sunday School student (and teacher) in us all!

You can receive or stop your free subscription to CedarS weekly newsletter in your email box by Sunday or Monday of each week by subscribing – or unsubscribing via left menu at  www.cedarscamps.org/newsletter

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