No Adversarial Relationships


Notes and References from Sunday School, 1/16/00
No Adversarial Relationships!

Do you hate your parents? Want to move out? Can’t stand that professor? Wish that jerk would quit bugging you? What about that idiot that cut you off on the freeway? Are you a Republican or a Democrat? How can others disagree with your point of view? They just don’t get it!

Does the above sound all too familiar? It is adversarial thinking and it must be guarded against.

Mrs. Eddy was once asked about her politics. Look at her answer:

MY 276:15
Boston Post, November, 1908]
POLITICS

Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy has always believed that those who are entitled to vote should do so, and she has also believed that in such matters no one should seek to dictate the actions of others.
In reply to a number of requests for an expression of her political views, she has given out this statement: I am asked, "What are your politics?" I have none, in reality, other than to help support a righteous government; to love God supremely, and my neighbor as myself.

MY 282: 3
I believe strictly in the Monroe doctrine, in our Constitution, and in the laws of God.

No political affiliation? Are you surprised? Don’t be. Human opinions are no part of Christian Science, where we turn to God, the one Mind to guide and govern us. We can learn something very important from Mrs. Eddy’s personal statement. When you give in to a particular side or allow yourself to be painted with the broad brush of a particular group at the expense or exclusion of others you let an organization do your thinking for you. It may be a political leader, a professor, your school colors (rivalry), someone you admire, etc. Instead you should be doing your own thinking. Turn to God in prayer to seek the inspiration which will allow you to pick and choose only those positions that conform to the Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, etc. In other words, your “Christliness”.

Opinions involve ego and pride. Here’s a great word: fustian 142:15-16
In vain do the manger and the cross tell their story to pride and fustian. Student’s Reference Dictionary: n. 1. a kind of coarse twill cotton stuff. 2. an inflated style of writing in which high sounding words are used above the dignity of the thoughts or subject; a swelling style; bombast.

That is what ego is. All puffed up like cotton candy. All hat and no cowboy! You really can’t have a human argument without such stuff. Once you realize it you can guard against it. What is cancer? Medically speaking, isn’t it an adversarial position between two cells. If they both remain and fight there is a growth and if one destroys the other then there is decay. Diseases reflect the thoughts of society. Heart disease relates to stress; polio in the fifties to the crippling effect of a World War; the Black plague to the conditions of that era; aids to the sexually indiscriminate behavior of a whole group, and so on. Think about it. The disease of the age reflects the thought of the age.

The only adversarial position we should take is the fight on the side of the allness God against the nothingness of evil. What did Paul say?

For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. — 2 COR. x. 4, 5.

The above citation from II Corinthians is our Biblical authority for watching our thinking. Mrs. Eddy continues this thought with a great active command from her chapter, Christian Science Practice in Science and Health. (There are 60 such active commands in the 390 pages of Science and Health-list attached to this e-mail and found in the archive section of our class web page.)

392:24
Reverse the case. 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 the door 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. The issues of pain or pleasure must come through mind, and like a watchman forsaking his post, we admit the intruding belief, forgetting that through divine help we can forbid this entrance.

In another paragraph, this time from this week’s lesson, we read:

14:12-28
Become conscious for a single moment that Life and intelligence are purely spiritual, — neither in nor of matter, — and the body will then utter no complaints. If suffering from a belief in sickness, you will find yourself suddenly well. Sorrow is turned into joy when the body is controlled by spiritual Life, Truth, and Love. Hence the hope of the promise Jesus bestows: "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; . . . because I go unto my Father," — [because the Ego is absent from the body, and present with Truth and Love.] The Lord's Prayer is the prayer of Soul, not of material sense.
Entirely separate from the belief and dream of material living, is the Life divine, revealing spiritual understanding and the consciousness of man's dominion over the whole earth.

Imagine, just a single moment of divine consciousness and there will be nothing to complain about! No adversary. I forgot to share this with you this morning, but I will do so now. It is a prayer that I carry with me at work; It goes like this: “Recognition of the allness of God leaves no contrary power to consider, no thought to be feared, no battle to be fought.” (I don’t know the source)

Every day should be viewed as an opportunity to see good unfolded. Money should be viewed as our opportunity to do good. No sides, no argument, no adversarial position…just the expression of good.


584:1-8
DAY. The irradiance of Life; light, the spiritual idea of Truth and Love.
"And the evening and the morning were the first day." (Genesis i. 5.) The objects of time and sense disappear in the illumination of spiritual understanding, and Mind measures time according to the good that is unfolded. This unfolding is God's day, and "there shall be no night there."

The only affiliation you should have is with the Christ. Your Christliness is your “Coat of Arms”, your escutcheon (there’s another great word). As Mrs. Eddy put it:

Ret 86:14
There should be no blot on the escutcheon of our Christliness when we offer our gift upon the altar.

Let’s end this discussion with her sentence from Science and Health which shall bring to a close the belief that there could be reality in anything that opposes God, good:

340:23
One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfils the Scripture, "Love thy neighbor as thyself;" annihilates pagan and Christian idolatry, — whatever is wrong in social, civil, criminal, political, and religious codes; equalizes the sexes; annuls the curse on man, and leaves nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed.



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