To keep the commandments of our Master and follow his example, is our proper debt to him and the only worthy evidence of our gratitude for all that he has done. Outward worship is not of itself sufficient to express loyal and heartfelt gratitude, since he has said: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy p4:5)
People calling themselves influencers seem to proliferate on social media nowadays. A quick Google search revealed that they are often people who have come to prominence because of their particular skills. Some were wildlife ‘warriors’, some were sports people, some musicians, and some seemed to be famous just for being famous. There were many!
This started me thinking about what it means to be an influencer. Are we not all influencers in some respect? When my son was in primary school, each year he was seated next to classmates who found listening to instructions and staying on task difficult. The idea was that my son, who was a steady and capable worker, would be a good influence on his desk-mate. I asked him if he minded this. He said that if he could help someone else achieve more or be more successful, then he was happy to do this.
When I thought more about this, I realised that all of us are exerting an influence in some form. I ask myself: Am I, like my son, accepting that the way I handle life can be an influence for good?
In our day-to-day lives dealing with routine tasks at work, in the family or the community our actions are not neutral. We are always contributing to the mental atmosphere for better or for worse. The way we handle situations that seem not to go smoothly can have a big impact on those around us. Our response when we think someone has acted thoughtlessly, or has inconvenienced us, influences the mental atmosphere. If we meet each of these situations with grace, compassion, forgiveness, generosity then we have been an influencer for good.
Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science writes: Your influence for good depends upon the weight you throw into the right scale. The good you do and embody gives you the only power obtainable. (p192 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures). This is an hourly – even a moment by moment – demand on each of us. This is how we too can be real influencers for good.
Contributed by a member of the Canberra Christian Science community.
2023 has now slid into 2024. Before long we will be planning for 2025. Sometimes it seems that the years slip by more and more quickly and as every year goes by, we add another unit to our age. For each stage in life there seem to be expectations for health, behaviour and appearance. Don’t we talk about the terrible twos or stroppy teenagers? How often do you hear people of advanced years say, when talking about their health: ‘What can you expect at my age?’
How much of this do we have to accept as inevitable? Do we have to accept the subtle, and not so subtle, standards that society places upon us? Do the years under our belt really define who we are and how we function, how attractive we are?
I was looking at an old black and white photo of my mum the other day. I guess she would have been in her early twenties, so the photo was taken over seventy years ago. As a young woman my mum was very lovely. She had a special grace about her that made you want to look longer.
I began to think, if she was around today looking like that you would still have to say she was beautiful, but she wouldn’t fit today’s standards of beauty. Her skin was whiter, her body fleshier, her hair contrived into curls and she wore a pretty frock. Standards of beauty change. This set me to thinking about what beauty really is. In each era fashion seems to give us strict dictates as to what the ideal look is – how tanned our skin should be, how lean our body, even the shape of our eyebrows. Not many of us fit that ideal model. So does this mean that we are not beautiful? If we do fit those standards, are we only beautiful for a short while? Does age diminish true beauty? Our society is currently quite preoccupied with youthfulness but true youthfulness is not defined by our age but by the youthful qualities we express.
My mother knew the impact that thought has on experience. To the end she was a strong, healthy, active woman. The qualities people saw in her – intelligence, calmness and strength in the face of trouble, joy at the little things, devotion to family and friends, innocence, resilience, energy – these qualities shone out of her right to the last. They were the qualities that people mentioned when they commented on how lovely my mother was.
Mary Baker Eddy, one of the first women to investigate thoroughly the connection between consciousness and experience, writes in her book, Science and Healthwith Key to the Scriptures (p208): You embrace your body in your thought, and you should delineate upon it thoughts of health, not of sickness. Perhaps if we put as much thought and effort into developing beautiful qualities of Mind as we do our outward appearance our beauty and health would be less ephemeral and blossom with the passing years.
A member of the Christian Science community in Canberra shared this experience where prayer eased her fear and a beautiful bird found its strength.
I’d like to share a lovely experience I had recently.
To set the scene, my lounge room has two large picture windows opposite each other facing east and west respectively and the sun was shining through the eastern window where I was sitting reading the Weekly Bible Lesson on the topic of ‘Truth’.
My attention was suddenly interrupted by a very loud bang against the west facing window. Guessing that a bird had lost it’s way, I went over to see if help was needed and saw that a beautiful Eastern Rosella was lying spread-eagled amongst the plants in the window box.
He was still breathing and opening his beak.
I resisted all temptation to go outside to provide any physical assistance. Instead, I stood still and prayed with the Scientific Statement of Being, knowing that it was true for him. (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, p468).
I went back to my study of the Bible Lesson, praying with helpful passages by adding the thought of all God’s creatures where man’s being was addressed.
For example, from the Bible:
Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. …For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; … (Galatians 5:1,13)
And from Science and Health:
The substance, Life, intelligence, Truth, and Love, which constitute Deity, are reflected by His creation; and when we subordinate the false testimony of the corporeal senses to the facts of Science, we shall see this true likeness and reflection everywhere. (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, p516:4)
After about half an hour, I went back to the window and found that the patient was still there still in the same state.
To my relief and joy, as soon as he heard me say ‘’Oh you’re still there”, he – quick as a flash – flew away … no struggle or tentativeness … free as a bird.
In the words of Hymn 136:
I love Thy way of freedom, Lord, To serve Thee is my choice, … (Christian Science Hymnal, No.136)
Our gratitude is riches, Complaint is poverty, Our trials bloom in blessings, They test our constancy. O, life from joy is minted, An everlasting gold, True gladness is the treasure That grateful hearts will hold.
Words by Vivian Burnett, Christian ScienceHymnal, No.249
A couple of weeks ago I was looking at this Canberra blog site and found a list of testimonies. The first one caught my attention because it featured chooks and I love chooks. The testifier told of gathering eggs from her chook run and then stepping on to a rusty nail amidst the chook manure. She became quite fearful having heard of the claims of tetanus. She then explained how she came to a healing conclusion as a result of her life-long study of Christian Science
A couple of days later I was walking around the house in socks and I felt a sharp pain in my foot. There was a rusty needle embedded in it. My thoughts went on fast forward. Then I thought, “what about that testimony you read?’ I read it again and gradually the fear began to subside but lingered a little.
The next day I joined a Zoom testimony meeting at the Christian Science church in Redcliffe, Queensland. A lady told of pruning roses and of a thorn becoming embedded in her arm. It looked quite ominous but she prayed diligently and after a few days all was well. After listening to that testimony all fear completely vanished.
The next day my cat came home with a battered face and there were puncture wounds. He had obviously been in a fight. I couldn’t take him to the vet as I didn’t have use of a car. I got some water and cotton wool and he pushed me away as if to say, “You’re not washing my face!” I said to him this has all been proven, well and truly – by the testifiers in Canberra and in Redcliffe and my own experience and you are not the exception to the rule. The next morning he went out and was gone all day and didn’t come back till after dark. It was apparent that the healing was going forward quickly and in no time there was no evidence of the wound.
Thanks to your church for putting the testimonies on your web site. Thanks to the testifiers from your church and Redcliffe and for my own healing. And thanks to Gussy for being proof that “All of God’s creatures moving in the harmony of Science are harmless, useful, indestructible.” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy p514)
I had to learn humility the hard way! I was ice-skating with my granddaughter one evening. I am not a very good skater and I was doing my best to keep up speed and glide. At one point I noticed that the rink was populated with young people, and a little pride crept in that I was out there even though I am a grandmother.
Well, a few more turns around the rink and then down I went. My wrist was badly hurt.
My go-to in times of need has always been prayer. In this case, a wake-up call about pride was my biggest take-away from my prayers. After about two weeks, I could still not move my wrist. Then, one day in humble prayer, it came to me that all of us out there on the ice were children of God, expressing the joy, strength, and energy of divine Life. Our true nature is not defined by a certain age and personal abilities. Instead, it appears in our reflection of God’s qualities.
I was very humbled by this thought. In his book “Mere Christianity,” C. S. Lewis, the Christian apologist, refers to pride as “the complete anti-God state of mind.” It suggests the possibility of a selfhood or ego apart from God, the one true Ego. It is a way of thinking that denies the onliness and allness of infinite good.
Click here to continue reading, or listen to, this article by Elizabeth Crecelius Schwartz published in the Christian Science Monitor Daily. In it Elizabeth describes more of the thinking that then led to a quick and complete healing of the injured wrist.
The members of the Christian Science community in Canberra share their experiences and thoughts on Christian Science:
Recently, a close relative phoned from a hotel room in London, very distressed that he hadn’t been allowed to board his flight home because he’d tested positive to COVID. He was told he wouldn’t be allowed to fly until he tested negative, so he was uncertain about how long this might take.
A few months ago he’d contracted COVID in Portugal and had a difficult time, with many delays and much bureaucratic red tape before getting cleared to fly home. I think this had remained with him and he felt as if he was going through the same nightmare again.
He told me he was feeling very alone and miserable and sobbed into the phone “I just want to go home”. I immediately thought “you are already at home”, you can’t be separated from your Father Mother God, divine Love.
We talked about these ideas and that week’s Bible Lesson on Reality that said anything inharmonious or discordant is not real – it is just an illusion or dream which we can wake up from. When we hung up the thought came to me to look at Hymn 144 (from the Christian Science Hymnal) which begins –
In atmosphere of Love divine,
We live, and move, and breathe;
Though mortal eyes may see it not,
‘Tis sense that would deceive.
.
Then a couple of pages later is Hymn 148 which says:
In heavenly Love abiding,
No change my heart shall fear;
And safe is such confiding,
For nothing changes here.
The storm may roar without me,
My heart may low be laid;
But God is round about me,
And can I be dismayed?
I sent him a text message suggesting he look at these hymns for comfort. It was Sunday morning in London and he was about to go to Church.
The next day (Monday) when I phoned, he was much calmer, and in a queue, to get a COVID test. He said he had been praying with ideas from that week’s lesson and felt confident it would be negative and had booked to fly home on the Wednesday evening. On Wednesday morning he phoned to say the test had returned negative and he was cleared to fly. He has since contacted me to let me know he is safely home. He gives full credit to Christian Science for this healing.
A few hours before that first phone call from London, I’d received an email from a friend who I’d recently had lunch with telling me he’d tested positive for COVID. I became really worried because I had child minding duties the next day and catch ups organised with friends over the next few days and had been feeling a bit off colour since flying back from Brisbane a week earlier. With all these thoughts and emotions swirling around I was struggling to pray and calm my fear. So, the phone call from my relative came at exactly the right time. I was quickly lifted out of feeling sorry and fearful for myself and into the realm where all is perfect and harmonious. I knew I was okay, but did a couple of COVID tests to calm the fears of those around me. Both returned negative.
I’m very grateful to Christian Science for these, and all the other healings I’ve had.
The members of the Christian Science community in Canberra share their experiences and thoughts on Christian Science:
In our back yard in Canberra we have certain sections of the garden fenced off as a chicken run. One afternoon I was down in the bottom corner of the chicken’s area checking for eggs. On this day the chickens had been particularly industrious and had dug some quite deep holes and unearthed some old timbers that I had not known were there. As I stepped back from the hutch I felt a sharp pain in my left foot. I looked down to find that I had stepped on a piece of wood that had a very long, rusty nail sticking out of it. The nail had gone right through my plastic yard shoes and was now lodged deep in my foot. It had obviously been buried for some time and now the nail was not only rusty but muddy and yucky with chicken droppings. I pulled it out and went up to the house to wash it off.
As I walked back very fearful ideas started filling my thought. Not long before I had heard someone tell of symptoms of tetanus and I found myself worrying that I had never had a tetanus injection ever.
At first I thought: Why am I thinking these thoughts? I never think like this! I am not normally a fearful person. I’ve been a student of Christian Science all my life and it has taught me that what I think is very important. The quality of my thoughts determines my experience, so thinking fearfully was strange to me. Then it dawned on me – these were not really my thoughts! These thoughts came only as suggestions. I love that word suggestion; it means that I have the option of accepting or rejecting something. This was something that I would certainly reject. In that moment I felt no ownership of these thoughts. I knew that I didn’t have to analyse them, or wonder: Why did I think this? or delve into what fears might be lurking in my thinking for me to produce these thoughts. Because I felt no ownership of them I could simply discard them.
That was the end of the matter. I washed my foot but there was no pain and it immediately stopped bleeding. Later that day after my shower when I dried my foot, I couldn’t even find the place. There were never any repercussions from the incident.
The lesson I learned that day has stayed with me. Nowadays I am more alert to the implications of this word suggestion. God never suggests; only human reasoning suggests. God doesn’t give you options; He is just good and His word is final.
I am becoming more practised now at recognising suggestions and not owning all thoughts that come to me. I know I don’t need to analyse a suggestion; I don’t need to delve into it; I don’t need to feel guilty for thinking it. I just reject it with a very firm: That’s not my thought! When I say this, I know that it isn’t my thought because it isn’t of God. I know that God doesn’t give me fearful thoughts therefore fearful thoughts are not my thoughts. Learning this has so simplified my prayers. I use this line all the time now: That’s not my thought! And then I let it go. Only good, healthy, harmonious, progressive thoughts are mine because these stem directly from God’s goodness.
Stand porter at the door of thought. Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily results, you will control yourself harmoniously. When the condition is present which you say induces disease, whether it be air, exercise, heredity, contagion, or accident, then perform your office as porter and shut out these unhealthy thoughts and fears. Exclude from mortal mind the offending errors; then the body cannot suffer from them.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy p392:24-32)
Christian Science Canberra 