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[Wake up! “Abide not in the realm of dreams” (Hymn 6.1)]
Metaphysical Application Ideas for the Christian Science Bible Lesson on

“Are Sin, Disease, and Death Real?”
For October 14, 2018

by Rick Stewart CS, Dresden, Germany
rickstewartcs@aol.com +49 351 312 4736 +49 176 32 33 6080

Abide not in the realm of dreams, O man, however fair it seems; But with clear eye the present scan, And hear the call of God and man.“ Hymn 6:1
From Concord Express – A Christian Science Study Resource.

It was really good to have a father like my dad, especially when it came to waking up. Whether it was 3, 4, or 5 o’clock in the morning, we grew up in our family always ready to wake up early and head out for some great adventure in the outdoors.

Being trained to wake up at a moment’s notice helped me get ready for early morning swim practice, dawn patrol surf sessions, and in my work as a Christian Science Practitioner. (It also was great preparation for serving as Main Camp Practitioner at our beloved CedarS Camps!)

This week’s Bible lesson is all about waking up and discovering that we do not need to linger in dreamland when there is great good just waiting for us. The wake-up call in this Lesson is not just about getting out of bed and embracing the day, it is about a much more significant wake-up call. A wake-up call to rise from a sick bed and be free and strong again. A call to rise-up from a bed where sinful actions have bound us to suffering and grief. And the ultimate wake-up call, to rise from a death bed and live.

But first let’s talk about a minor miracle from this past Sunday morning. The Stewart family arrived at the parking lot of the community center where our Church services and Sunday School are held before everyone else. And we were all on board, Martha, Alma, and my teenage son, Johann. (Noah is away at Principia College!) We were ready to open the doors and prepare the welcome.

Every Sunday we are there for Sunday School. But for some time it has been a little tough to get there on time. Fifteen year olds do like to sleep in on Sunday. I am happy to say that both Noah and Johann have been willing to get up for Sunday School, even if sometimes we would come in a little late.

But this past Sunday we were the first ones there. And it was due to a combination of factors. First and foremost a very loving membership voted to move our church service time from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. What a difference a little extra time makes! There was even time for us to have a leisurely family breakfast before leaving. Another big factor is that the kids recognize the importance of Sunday School and are willing to make the effort. I am sincerely grateful for the graciousness of our congregation to want the young people there enough, that they were willing to adjust the time of the service. So when we comfortably arrived early this Sunday, I was a very grateful Papa indeed.

But let’s remember that there had to be a willingness on Johann’s part to wake up and get ready! That is the same willingness we need to bring to this lesson. Are you willing to awake to the astounding fact that sin, disease, and death are not real? If you are a little hesitant to accept this eternal fact, please let this Bible Lesson be your alarm clock. The benefits you will reap from springing out of your sick bed, sin bed, or death bed are eternal.

See how the Golden Text gets us going. And enjoy [some connections from Cobbey Crisler in Warren’s PS#1 to the rest of the Bible, as well as] additional translations of this Bible text:

Golden Text | Romans 13:11 now

. . . now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. KJV

NLT – Wake up, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.

PHIL —the present time is of the highest importance—it is time to wake up to reality. Every day brings God’s salvation nearer than the day in which we took the first step of faith.

MSG – make sure that you don’t get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off, oblivious to God.


The Responsive Reading is from the Prophet Jeremiah and from Paul’s letter to the Christians in Ephesus. I am familiar with these verses and have often thought about them in regards to waking to the true prophetic message. Suddenly as I have thought over these passages for several days I had a completely new concept. And maybe it was just new for me and you have always glimpsed this.

Here is a version from the New Living Translation, 25 “I have heard these prophets say, ‘Listen to the dream I had from God last night.’ And then they proceed to tell lies in my name. 27 By telling these false dreams, they are trying to get my people to forget me, just as their ancestors did by worshiping the idols of Baal. “

So if the aim is to get the people to forget the Lord, God, the one and only Creator, Spirit, what are the false prophets trying to get the people to believe? Matter. Matter as force, power, evolver, ruler. Matter becomes the Ba’al of ancient times, another power, another basis for belief!

The Christ is the true message about God and man, the true idea of Sonship. The son of Spirit is spiritual. Thinking along these lines the conclusion of the Responsive Reading is as follows:

Ephesians 5:14 Awake CEB – 14 Wake up, sleeper![a] Get up from the dead,[b] and Christ will shine on you.[c]


Section 1: Wake to present Good [and more at W’s PS#2]

A simple basis for understanding and waking to the truth is listening to the true spiritual seers, Prophets, that tell of God and his goodness. A whole-hearted acceptance of the validity of Scripture and its clear message of God as Good and as the only Creator. Matter and evil: such as sin, sickness, and death does not enter into God’s good creation.

B1 | Genesis 1:31 God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.

B2 | Psalms 107:15 15 Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men.

A simple willingness to accept, hear, and waken to the message of the Bible that details God’s goodness is our best alarm clock. We accept God’s, Spirit’s allness and the dreams of the lying prophets proclaiming matter and its kingdom are vanquished in the Light of Christ.

Mary Baker Eddy writes,

S1 | 472:24 All 24 All reality is in God and His creation, harmonious and eternal. That which He creates is good, and He makes all that is made. Therefore the only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise. They are not true, because they are not of God. We learn in Christian Science that all inharmony of mortal mind or body is illusion, possessing neither reality nor identity though seeming to be real and identical. “

The continuous, unending nature of Good, God is a prophetic message that helps each of us to awaken to good and the silly dream of a realm apart from God with sin, sickness, and death as a reality is surely gone. Here are excerpts from an article by William Moody, CSB, that helps with the awakening.

THE CONTINUITY OF GOOD

BILL MOODY

From the August 2007 issue of The Christian Science Journal


"Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light."

James 1:17 (The Message)

I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it (Eccl. 3:14).

The Bible shines with so many tender assurances of God's unchanging love and constant care. The timeless, invariable nature of God's goodness—this continuity of good—is expressed in countless ways throughout His spiritual creation. When we consider the very nature of God as infinite good itself, unlimited and undeterred by any sense of boundary, we are getting at the essence of this spiritual continuity. Doesn't continuity imply uninterrupted activity? It also means permanence or persistence without being diminished in any respect. The genuine continuity of good extends beyond any mortal measure of time or space. It is both infinite and eternal.

Continuity also implies a union, a continuous union that cannot be breached. In one sense, the genuine spiritual continuity of good could be seen to represent the great covenant between God and man—between Creator and creation, divine cause and effect, the one perfect Mind and its pure spiritual idea, man. The Old Testament offers several accounts of God's promises to establish and maintain His covenant with His people—to care for creation and never abandon us. This divine promise of our perpetual relationship with God—our inseparability from good—will not and cannot be broken or diminished. The divine covenant remains self-sustaining forever.

Continuity readily implies completeness, wholeness, and integrity of being. Every quality necessary for expressing our original and natural completeness as sons and daughters of God is determined by our Creator. The continuity of good and the continuity of being represent the essence of our permanent identity and immortality.

“Life and goodness are immortal. Let us then shape our views of existence into loveliness, freshness, and continuity, rather than into age and blight.” (Science and Health, p. 246).

The lives of many of the great leaders and prophets in the Bible—Moses, Enoch, Elijah, Elisha—and of course the unparalleled demonstrations of the Master, Christ Jesus, all have something important to teach us about the continuity of good and the continuity of being. What they realized spiritually and then accomplished in their lives illustrates vividly the unbroken unity of God and man—of divine Soul and its beautiful expression, of divine Principle and its perfect reflection, of divine Love and its always loving outcome.

Consider the example of Enoch. The Bible doesn't tell us a great deal about this gentle man's life. In fact, Enoch is mentioned in only nine verses—six in the Old Testament and, surprisingly, three in the New Testament. Of those few verses in the Old Testament, two are of special significance. They reveal something quite extraordinary about the man's character and identity—and, we might conclude, about his apparent recognition of the continuity of good and of all life and being, forever at one with God. The book of Genesis records: "And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: and Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him" (Gen. 5:23, 24).

"Enoch walked with God." What a beautiful and simple acknowledgment of Enoch's pure sense of unity with the Father. We can imagine that Enoch certainly didn't hold himself at arm's length. He didn't oppose the divine will. He didn't separate himself from the source and substance of his being. He didn't listen to the world's ramblings or succumb to its temptations or falter in his faithfulness and devotion to the things of Spirit. Instead, we can assume that Enoch's every step forward in his life was taken hand in hand with God, with divine Life, demonstrating the continuity of good, and "God [Life] took him." There must not have been even a moment of hesitation, not a moment of separation from good, from God. And Enoch was not—was not any longer mistakenly defined by the limiting material measure of man. His true, eternal spiritual identity—unlimited and forever unfolding—continued on with God.

"When spiritual being is understood in all its perfection, continuity, and might, then shall man be found in God's image." (Science and Health, p. 325)

One Bible commentary, The Interpreter's Bible, makes the point that the significance of many people's lives seems to be accounted for merely by a physical set of measures. Using common imagery of Bible times, it suggests: "Their achievements have to do only with material things. They may sew their tents, raise their cattle, make their musical instruments, and work in brass and iron. … But the man who towers in meaning above all the others is the man who walks with God. … [Enoch] goes to be with God because he has learned to be with God already …" (see Interpreter's Bible, 1952, Vol. 1, p. 530). In truth, Enoch was never without God. He was never outside of the perfect continuity of good.

The same commentary also includes a short passage from the book Altars of Earth, by Hubert L. Simpson, which describes what might have happened in Enoch's own community: "One day Enoch's place upon earth was empty, and the people who had known him drew their own conclusions. He had been known as the intimate of God; and what more natural than that, when night fell, he should have gone home with his Friend? A little girl was telling the story of Enoch in her own way. 'Enoch and God,' she said, 'used to take long walks together. And one day they walked further than usual …'" (pp. 530–531).

So, we can say that Enoch lived a life expressing the unbroken continuity of good, the continuity of being. Looking beyond the world's deceptive, material evidence of limited good and of short-circuited existence, he must have perceived something of the true spiritual nature of man's unity with God. And so, he stayed close to divine Principle, one with Mind, inseparable from Soul. In Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy noted, "If Enoch's perception had been confined to the evidence before his material senses, he could never have 'walked with God,' nor been guided into the demonstration of life eternal" (p. 214).

This insight serves as a powerful lesson for each of us today. As we, like Enoch—from day to day and moment to moment—perceive life more clearly from a spiritual perspective, as we perceive something deeper than the faulty evidence before the physical senses, we too will be "walking with God." We will be realizing more and more of the continuous nature of life—the continuity of good. This realization brings a progressively developing and practical demonstration of good. It will bring healing if healing is needed. It will cancel any sense of lack in our thinking or our experience. It will bless us with inspired ideas to meet whatever we might confront in our daily lives.

♦

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning" (James 1:17)

[Bill Moody is a contributing editor who lives in West Tisbury, Massachusetts.]


Section 2: Wake from bad dreams [and more at W’s PS#3, #4, #5]

B6 | Daniel 4:5 I saw a dream which made me afraid, and the thoughts upon my bed and the visions of my head troubled me.

NLT But one night I had a dream that frightened me; I saw visions that terrified me as I lay in my bed.

In Bible citation B6 we read of Daniel’s struggles with a bad dream. Recently on a few occasions my 7 year old Martha has come in the night, “Papa, I had a bad dream.” As parents we learn this sometimes comes about after a movie with a few too many graphic scenes or maybe a very active evening just before bedtime. How great that we can assure our little ones that God is right there and the scary images are not real, just suggestion. Then a glass of water, a little prayer together, and back to bed. In extreme situations like last night crawling into dad’s bed is the solution. And often after she is asleep I take the prompting to get up, go in the living room and pray for Martha and the world. I know, “There are no scary monsters out there. No bad dreams like sin, sickness and death!

So, Daniel you are not alone, but our Father-Mother is there already.

I remember and experience in 1987 when I lived for two months in Brasil. My very first night I had a very bad dream. I was awakened in the night with intense fever, and delirium.. I struggled to even think clearly. Then I began to declare, “There is only one God.” Soon I drifted off into a sound sleep.

I was there to study Portuguese for two months in preparation for a future lecture tour. After this “bad dream” healing I was never again faced with any bad experiences in Brasil. In fact I loved my time there so much that I prayerfully considered making Brasil my home. A wonderful land filled with incredible people.


Section 3: Wake from sin’s nightmares [and more at W’s PS#1, PS#6]

This section starts with citation B11 from Genesis 2:1… “the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. 7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. 21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept:”

It continues with citation B12: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” I Corinthians 15:22

And B15 | Matthew 9:2–8 2 And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee. 3 And, behold, certain of the scribes said within themselves, This man blasphemeth. 4 And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts? 5 For whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk? 6 But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house. 7 And he arose, and departed to his house. 8 But when the multitudes saw it, they marvelled, and glorified God, which had given such power unto men. “

I have certainly puzzled over this healing of the palsied man. Why did Jesus declare that “thy sins be forgiven.” Had Jesus actually discerned some lurking darkness or moral failing in this man that he healed? I do not know. But as this section begins to unfold perhaps it is the very universal sin of believing in man as material and a part of a material creation out of the mist and the dust.

Mary Baker Eddy asks in citation S14, “Is the sick man sinful above all others? No! but so far as he is discordant, he is not the image of God. Weary of their material beliefs, from which comes so much suffering, invalids grow more spiritual, as the error — or belief that life is in matter yields to the reality of spiritual Life.” (318:16)

Could that be considered the greatest sin of all, the belittling of the one great Creator, Spirit? In February 1866 Mary Baker Eddy (Mrs. Patterson at the time.) took a fall on the ice. No sin there, right? But it seemed that the effects of the accident were life threatening. A Dr. Cushing examined her and declared her injuries internal and that he could be of no help. And her pastor came by to basically say good bye to a faithful parishioner. She was without hope in the realm of matter. Condemned to die.

At that point she called for her Bible and writes of that experience:

“ St. Paul writes: “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” This knowledge came to me in an hour of great need; and I give it to you as death-bed testimony to the daystar that dawned on the night of material sense. This knowledge is practical, for it wrought my immediate recovery from an injury caused by an accident, and pronounced fatal by the physicians. On the third day thereafter, I called for my Bible, and opened it at Matthew ix. 2. As I read, the healing Truth dawned upon my sense; and the result was that I rose, dressed myself, and ever after was in better health than I had before enjoyed. That short experience included a glimpse of the great fact that I have since tried to make plain to others, namely, Life in and of Spirit; this Life being the sole reality of existence.

Mis. 23:14-18 (np)
From Concord Express – A Christian Science Study Resource

I remember a healing from my early practice. In the middle of the night I received a call from the wife of a new seeker. “Rick, can you pray for Dick?” It seems he thought he was dying. As I prayed I realized I had to handle an extreme belief of condemnation. This man had been very religious as a young man, had served in Vietnam on an assassination squad, and now he was faced with the belief that he was going to die and be forever condemned. My prayers through the night were quite simply the affirmation that his sins were forgiven and that he was indeed the pure child of God.

At eight a.m. I was prompted to walk to my front window and I observed this same man walking down my sidewalk with the biggest smile on his face. (He was not a smiler.) He related that he had never felt better in his life.

Two weeks later he returned with paperwork from an examination with the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta stating that an earlier exam showed a blood condition that was incurable and that the latest report showed no signs of the ailment. No evil belief of sickness can condemn any of us to a death sentence. We all are free to rise in the salvation of the Christ.


Section 4: Wake from disease’s night mare [and more at W’s PS#7a, #7b1, #8, #9]

Section 4 leads off with Jesus healing a man with a 38-year nightmare.
B17 | John 5:2–9 (to 🙂 2 “Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. 3 In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. 4 For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. 5 And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? 7 The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me. 8 Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. 9 And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked:”

This account was recently in the Bible Lesson and at that time I thought “Well, this man just had to change from sun-bathing to Son-bathing!”

Basking in the Light of the Christ heals any disease presented to human experience. And a great aid in the healing work is disbelief in the reality of the claim. And this is what the presence of the Christ does, it lifts human consciousness to see what Jesus sees.

As Science and Health puts it in citation S19, “If sickness is real, it belongs to immortality; if true, it is a part of Truth. Would you attempt with drugs, or without, to destroy a quality or condition of Truth? But if sickness and sin are illusions, the awakening from this mortal dream, or illusion, will bring us into health, holiness, and immortality. This awakening is the forever coming of Christ, the advanced appearing of Truth, which casts out error and heals the sick. This is the salvation which comes through God, the divine Principle, Love, as demonstrated by Jesus.” (230:1)
[W: See shared in PS#9 a great Milton Simon article "With Drugs, or Without" from the Feb 1949 Christian Science Journal.]

When we begin to realize how much healing has to do with waking up, we might want to do give some thought to that action. Remember Jesus asked the man, “Wilt thou be made whole?” He could have just as well said, “Ready to wake up?” “Have you had enough of this after 18 years?” It is possible for all of us to wake from the dream of disease, incapacity and hopelessness to the Christ message of present salvation.

I recently ran into a friend in London. We were having lunch and sharing ideas about Christian Science. The following is an article of his from a few years ago, it has to do with waking up.

“It's time to wake up”

By Tony Lobl

From the August 3, 1992 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel

Mornings may be a time when we need spiritual awakening even more than an alarm clock!


Some people have to go to great lengths to rouse themselves from sleep in time for work or school. From loud alarms to passionate urging by persistent parents, there's a whole lot of waking work going on each new day!

I used to have one of those radio alarms. I would be aware of it turning on, and I might be aware of a song or someone speaking. But often I'd sleep right through it all and still sleep some after it had eventually turned itself off!

I became dissatisfied with this situation. The nature of my work was such that oversleeping hadn't yet interfered with my effectiveness on the job. But it felt like an indulgence ill in tune with what Christian Science was teaching me about the unselfish purpose of man. So I prayed about the situation. Nothing changed immediately.

Then one night as I was preparing for sleep, I began to consider the problem of morning drowsiness from an even deeper standpoint. Spending extra time in bed wasn't that bad in itself, I reasoned. But was there a larger issue that needed to be addressed? I saw that there was an issue that one might call spiritual dormancy.

Suppose this inclination to extend my stay in bed was a resistance to the divine demand for spiritual awakening? Admittedly, spiritual awakening isn't something we're commonly encouraged to think about. Yet it's at the very heart of the Bible's message of salvation from sin and suffering. Increasingly we have to worship the one God, Spirit, in thought and action, as Christ Jesus made clear. We need progressively to put off the dead-end, fleshly sense of life that underlies the very troubles we long to escape. In short, the Scriptures encourage growth in spirituality.

The next morning I found myself shooting out of bed effortlessly and instantly.

Was I unwilling to be roused from the dream that matter is the source and substance of life? Was I reluctant to be awakened to the things of God, to the universe of Spirit that I was learning from the Bible to be the true reality of being? If so, then it was time to rebel against such a picture of things! As the book of Romans counsels, "Now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed."

That evening I stopped trying to fight willfully the inclination to sleep in. Instead I rose to battling the false claim that my awakening to spiritual reality could be hindered at all. I saw the crucial fact that the power of God could not be prevented from awakening me through the activity of His Christ; that Christ, Truth, dissolves the resistance of the carnal mind. Still more, I saw that the same divine power was available for all. Since each of us is in truth the spiritual likeness of God, our awakening from the dream of materialism from the dream of trying vainly to honor both matter and Spirit, is inevitable.

No sooner had the first call of the alarm clock sounded the next morning than I found myself shooting out of bed effortlessly and instantly. Within seconds I was upright, dressing for the day ahead, 100 percent awake, and raring to go.

Not all my mornings since have been quite like that. But the tendency and timing of my arising have improved steadily ever since then. Now I naturally get up earlier than my alarm used to go off. Beyond the practical difference that makes to the fullness of my day is the spiritual lesson gleaned on that first occasion of instant awakening. It affirmed to me the existence of a call always coming to us, urging us to rouse ourselves from the dormancy of materialism to a fuller awareness of Spirit, God, and of our true selfhood as His likeness. This is the call of God to humanity by His Christ. It tells us that whatever troubles we face, we can find the way out through a greater awakening from the sleepy ways of materialism, which impose themselves on humanity in the form of sickness as well as sin. As Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health, "To the Christian Science healer, sickness is a dream from which the patient needs to be awakened."

We each need to be awakened from the invalid belief of a life apart from God, whatever form it may assume. If in any degree we are reluctant spiritual wakers, this can, and ultimately will, be overcome by the irresistible power of Christ.


Section 5: Wake from a death bed! [and more at W’s PS#10]

You are probably quite familiar with the strory of Lazarus rising from the grave? It was so widely shared at the time that there were people traveling to his town of Bethany just to take a look at the guy. And the fact that Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha, were actually friends with Jesus also lends a great deal of interest. Other factors involved that fact that Lazarus lay in the grave four days before Jesus was able to get there. Four days in that climate is pretty long regarding bodily preservation. But one foundational principle to remember is that our Saviour, Master, Wayshower Jesus dealth with one foundation for Life and that was God. He never dealt with material conditions as an obstacle. His consciousness of the foundation of Life as Spirit and spiritual was uncompromising. Citations from the Bible Lesson from our textbook address the Lazarus affair:

S23 | 75:12 12 Jesus said of Lazarus: “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.” Jesus restored Lazarus by the understanding that Lazarus had never died, not by an admission that his body had died and then lived again. Had Jesus believed that Lazarus had lived or died in his body, the Master would have stood on the same plane of belief as those who buried the body, and he could not have resuscitated it.

S24 | 493:28–2 If Jesus awakened Lazarus from the dream, illusion, of death, this proved that the Christ could improve on a false sense. Who dares to doubt this consummate test of the power and willingness of divine Mind to hold man forever intact in his perfect state, and to govern man’s entire action?

S25 | 289:14 The fact that the Christ, or Truth, overcame and still overcomes death proves the “king of terrors” to be but a mortal belief, or error, which Truth destroys with the spiritual evidences of Life; and this shows that what appears to the senses to be death is but a mortal illusion, for to the real man and the real universe there is no death-process.

My mom was a Christian Science Practitioner with years of healing experience. One lesson I remember her teaching was that we begin to heal hemorrhaging for example with healing little wounds. The absolute principle of healing works with 2+2 = 4 and with every other mathematical equation no matter how great. So it is with handling the belief of death. You just have to make a start somewhere. I have seen many healings of animals that either by accident or disease have been restored to health. It is a waking to the facts of Life that include only harmony and health. Matter is not a part of the equation when we wake up. The following article gives some examples of waking to the present reality.

Waking up by Mary Mona Seed Fisher

From the May 9, 1994 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel


I was asleep, dreaming. Without warning, I found myself in the middle of a hostage situation. There were gunmen holding me captive. I realized my only hope was prayer—prayer that acknowledges the all-power and all-presence of God, good, and the consequent impotence of evil. While in the midst of prayer, I suddenly woke up. There were no gunmen, no hostages, no demands and threats.

As I sat up in bed, a lesson from this dream struck me: I woke up while praying. And what did I wake to? The fact that I was safe rather than in danger, that all the things that only moments before had seemed so very real were only illusions. It would have done me no good whatsoever to try to make those illusions more tolerable or less threatening, because they were part of a dream. I needed to wake up.

What relevance does this incident have to daily life? Christian Science has shown me that the problems of daily living stem from mistaken concepts about the nature of God and man, which in turn create the fears, doubts, uncertainties, of human experience. Yet these threats are just as illusory as the components of my dream, though they appear very real while we're dreaming the dream that accepts them as valid.

Prayer is a wake-up call, stirring us from the illusion of mortality with its attendant beliefs. Among these are the mistaken sense that life is in matter and health dependent upon a physical body rather than upon Spirit, that the good we need comes through material channels rather than as spiritual ideas. The prayer that helps us awake is based on a scientific understanding of God as ever-present good.

How can prayer have a scientific basis? These two words—scientific and prayer—seem to come from such opposing perspectives. But the logic behind their correspondence begins to crystallize as we realize that creation is governed and supported by God's laws, not by happenstance or physical force. The understanding and acceptance of these laws open thought to the presence of spiritual perfection.

In order to heal the body, it is vital to awaken thought in some degree to the spiritual nature of man.

The action of the Christ, the true idea of God, in consciousness enables us to recognize spiritual reality. Actually, it's God's great love for mankind that compels us to pray. He is the source of every right idea that we think and every right motive.

In the spiritual stillness of prayer we glimpse the fact that a mortal concept of life is not true existence. Its falsehoods are nullified by the ever-operative healing Christ, which reveals Life as Spirit, God, and man as the spiritual expression of God. Sometimes this acceptance comes as a clear understanding that calms fears and reassures human hope. At other times, we may need to reason our way to such clarity through vigorous affirmations of spiritual good and denials of mortality and evil. As in any science, the results of the Science of Christ are evident when its laws are correctly and consistently obeyed.

The one who best demonstrated this Science was Christ Jesus, who relied upon God's laws in every detail of his life. Jesus remained wide awake to the realities of spiritual being. He saw beyond surface appearances of disease, fear, turbulence, and even death, and in their place he proved the peace and harmony of Life, manifested in man. Christ, Truth, is still active and present today, continuing to awaken mankind. What Paul wrote to the Ephesians applies to us: "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light" (5:14). We see evidence of this sometimes in small, and sometimes in earthshaking ways.

As one awakes to divine reality, one recognizes that, though suffering appears to be physical, it actually is the manifestation of false belief, with no more authority than a dream. In order to heal the body, it is vital to awaken thought in some degree to the spiritual nature of man and his inherent dominion over mortality. This can be accomplished through specific prayer based on God's law—or Christian Science treatment.

For example, a teenage boy returned, after a week of rigorous activity at a college basketball camp, with what a doctor diagnosed as mononucleosis; the diagnosis was confirmed by lab reports. The prediction was that it would take four to six weeks for this young man even to begin to feel better, and four to six months for him to return to normal.

The young man had been raised to turn to God in prayer and knew through past experiences that Christian Science provided a safe and reliable method of healing. In fact, he and his mother, also a Christian Scientist, felt absolutely convinced that an awakened understanding of God's presence and all-power would heal him. So they prayed, studied, and applied what is explained of God and man in the Bible and in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. They recognized the inseparable unity of God, infinite good, and His spiritual expression, man. Spirit, they realized, constituted the substance of the young man's real being.

Through persistent prayer, thought was awakened to see that matter could not make conditions for man; in divine law, Spirit governs man harmoniously. Science and Health explains: "It breaks the dream of disease to understand that sickness is formed by the human mind, not by matter nor by the divine Mind" (p. 396). Instead of trying to change a sick body into a healthy body, they strove to understand that thought, not matter, was what needed correcting. Yielding to the divine Mind, they were confident that Mind would make those corrections. And they were made—quickly, too.

Within a couple of days all pain and swelling had vanished. The young man's appetite returned, along with the ability to eat and drink normally. Four days later, he accompanied his family on a fourteen-day vacation to the beach. He had a wonderfully active time, feeling stronger and freer than ever. He commented to his family that it was like waking up from a nightmare of suffering and finding himself perfectly free. The diseased condition never returned.

Science and Health states: "When we wake to the truth of being, all disease, pain, weakness, weariness, sorrow, sin, death, will be unknown, and the mortal dream will forever cease" (pp. 218-219). What a wonderful reality awaits our awakening!


Section 6: Wake to Life with a song in your heart.

In recent months I have found myself waking with the statement from Science and Health,Man is idea, the image, of Love; he is not physique.” SH 475:13-14. It sifts into my morning consciousness (sometimes night time consciousness) like a gentle song. I sing it over and over and finish with a resounding, ”Thank you Father, thank you Father, thank you Father.”

Like our last section begins, "awake, awake, utter a song:" B23 | Judges 5:12

or as The New Living Translation NLT puts it, – "Wake up, wake up, and sing a song!"

You know have you ever noticed how easy it is to wake up early when you have something to look forward to. Our Martha recently celebrated her 7th birthday. I guarantee you that it was no problem to wake her up for birthday morning, she was ready, willing and able.

How about the palsied man in citation B15 when he heard the Master say to him, “Son, be of good cheer.” No hollow alarm clock ringing here, it was the voice of the Christ speaking to his consciousness and he was ready to respond.

Think of the dear man at the pool of Bethesda in citation B17 and the Master’s question, “Wilt thou be made whole?”

And think of Jesus’ beloved friend Lazarus in citation B21 when he heard his friend’s call with the spiritual authority of the Christ, “Lazarus, come forth.”

Let us call with the Christ to those suffering in sickness, sin or threats of death, "Cheer up, wilt thou be made whole, come forth, the Christ is waiting and receiving you in joy, beauty, and Light."

Summarizing from Science and Health our spiritual awakenings:
S30 | 218:32–2 "When we wake to the truth of being, all disease, pain, weakness, weariness, sorrow, sin, death, will be unknown, and the mortal dream will forever cease."

S31 | 249:8–10 "Let us rejoice that we are subject to the divine “powers that be.” Such is the true Science of being."


If you have been blessed by receiving this inspiration weekly and haven't given lately, or are blessed to be able to give more, we still have many needs, big and small, that you can help meet by clicking on https://www.cedarscamps.org/giving/tree/.

Current and planned gifts are a huge proof of your ongoing LOVE made visible and are greatly appreciated!! They not only defray the costs of running this service but also provide greatly needed camperships and essential program and operations support.

Please sign up to give whatever you can on a much-needed MONTHLY basis to support CedarS life-changing work! [You can start at any amount and adjust monthly as you wish at: www.cedarscamps.org/giving ] All of your gifts add up to big blessings in the lives of today's Sunday School students (tomorrow's joyous workers in our Christ-centered church!

With heartfelt gratitude and love,
Warren, Gay, Holly & your CedarS Family

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PHONE at 417-532-6699.

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CedarS 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 friends who have requested it. The Met application ideas above are provided primarily to help CedarS campers and staff (as well as friends) see and daily demonstrate the great value of studying and applying the Christian Science Bible lessons throughout the year, not just at camp! YOU CAN ALSO SIGN UP for weekly emails from past CedarS staff of possible ways to share Bible Lesson applications with older, as well as younger, Sunday School classes by clicking the "Subscribe Now" button (lower left) at http://www.cedarscamps.org/meta

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