Love the Truth = Grace


Notes & reference from Jan. 30,2000 Loving the Truth=Grace

Lets take a flight together. Let your thought soar above the fray of human opinions. Continuing on from two weeks ago, we don’t want to be painted with the broad brush of a group that tries to do our thinking for us. Our thought must be lifted higher. Submit yourself only to God, not to matter.

Two more great words from Science and Health: Pinions and Preens.

PINIONS: Right motives give pinions to thought, and strength and freedom to speech and action. (S&H 454:19-21) Student’s Ref.: n. 1. The joint of a bird’s wing remotest from the body; 2. A wing; 3. A feather; "Hope humbly then, on trembling pinions soar." -Pope

PREENS: Fixing your gaze on realities supernal, you will rise to the spiritual consciousness of being, even as the bird which has burst from the egg and preens its wings for a skyward flight. (S&H 261: 27-30) Students Ref.: v. This word denotes the use of the beak in cleaning and composing the feathers. To pick. To clean, compose and dress the feathers, as birds, to enable them to glide more easily through the air or water. . For this purpose they are furnished with two glands on their rump, which secrete an oily substance into a bag from which they draw it with the bill and spread it over their feathers.

Have you prepared your thought for "a skyward flight". In other words, have you prepared yourself for the inspiration that will allow you to see above mortal claims, human will, ego and outside influences coming to you disguised as your own thinking? It is not your thought! You can have no thoughts from any source but the all-knowing, all-thinking Mind. The inspired thinker is the most lovely, lovable person in the world. That person is full of grace!

Before we get to the subject of Grace and Truth and Loving the Truth let’s review from the last year what we have discussed about the subject of Love. First we have talked about the four ways to express Love. They are:

How you express Love:

1.Lovliness 2.Lovely 3.Loved 4. Loving

Then there was our friend, Henry Drummond. We discussed his article on Love (1 Cor 13) and he explained Paul’s definition of Love as follows: (First let’s look at 1 Cor 13)

(In the following Bible verses from I Cor 13, the word "charity" is used synonymously with the word "love": ) (This week’s Responsive Reading)

1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I Give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

Professor Henry Drummond, (1851-1897), preacher, geologist, teacher, President of the YMCA, and author of many books including Natural Law and the Spiritual World and The Greatest Thing in the World is widely known and respected among Christian Scientists for his article on I Cor 23. It is even reputed, although not verified, that Mrs. Eddy said she didn’t need to write a book on the subject of Love because Prof. Drummond had already covered the subject completely.

Quoting now from Drummond and referring to Paul’s writing’s in Corinthians, he writes:

"…Paul in three verses very short, gives us an amazing analysis of what this supreme thing is. … It is like light. As you have seen a man of science take a beam of light and pass it through a crystal prism, as you have seen it come out the other side of the prism broken up into its component colours-red, and blue, and yellow, and violet, and orange, and all the colors of the rainbow-so Paul passes this thing, Love, through the magnificent prism, of his inspired intellect, and it comes out the other side into its elements….The Spectrum of Love has nine ingredients:

1-Patience: ‘love suffereth long’;

2-Kindness: ‘And is kind’;

3-Generosity: ‘Love envieth not’;

4-Humility: ‘Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up’;

5-Courtesy: ‘Doth not behave itself unseemly’;

6-Unselfishness: ‘Seeketh not her own’;

7-Good Temper: ‘Is not easily provoked’;

8-Guilelessness: ‘Thinketh no evil’;

9-Sincerity: ‘Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth’.

Then, on several occasions I have referred you to Mrs. Eddy’s article on Love from Miscellaneous Writing:

LOVE (Mis 249:27-29 np) What a word! I am in awe before it. Over what worlds on worlds it hath range and is sovereign! the underived, the incomparable, the infinite All of good, the alone God, is Love. By what strange perversity is the best become the most abused, — either as a quality or as an entity? Mortals misrepresent and miscall affection; they make it what it is not, and doubt what it is. The so-called affection pursuing its victim is a butcher fattening the lamb to slay it. What the lower propensities express, should be repressed by the sentiments. No word is more misconstrued; no sentiment less understood. The divine significance of Love is distorted into human qualities, which in their human abandon become jealousy and hate. Love is not something put upon a shelf, to be taken down on rare occasions with sugar-tongs and laid on a rose-leaf. I make strong demands on love, call for active witnesses to prove it, and noble sacrifices and grand achievements as its results. Unless these appear, I cast aside the word as a sham and counterfeit, having no ring of the true metal. Love cannot be a mere abstraction, or goodness without activity and power. As a human quality, the glorious significance of affection is more than words: it is the tender, unselfish deed done in secret; the silent, ceaseless prayer; the self-forgetful heart that overflows; the veiled form stealing on an errand of mercy, out of a side door; the little feet tripping along the sidewalk; the gentle hand opening the door that turns toward want and woe, sickness and sorrow, and thus lighting the dark places of earth.

Let’s look at her list from the last paragraph: (very similar to Drummond’s)

1. it is the tender, unselfish deed done in secret;

2. the silent, ceaseless prayer;

3. the self-forgetful heart that overflows;

4. the veiled form stealing on an errand of mercy, out of a side door;

5. the little feet tripping along the sidewalk;

6. the gentle hand opening the door that turns toward want and woe, sickness and sorrow, and thus lighting the dark places of earth.

Finally, let’s review again what Mrs. Eddy told her own students from her classes:

FROM WE KNEW MARY BAKER EDDY:

"The healing will grow more easy and be more immediate as you realize that God, good, is all, and good is Love. You must gain Love, and lose the false sense called love. You must feel the Love that never faileth,-that perfect sense of divine power that makes healing no longer power but grace. Then you will have the Love that casts out fear and when fear is gone doubt is gone and your work is done. Why? because it never was undone." -WKMBE, SECOND SERIES, PAGE 25.

"I saw the love of God encircling the universe and man, filling all space, and that divine Love so permeate my own consciousness that I loved with Christlike compassion everything I saw. This realization of divine Love called into expression "the beauty of holiness, the perfection of being" (Science and Health, p 253), which healed, regenerated, and saved all who turned to me for help."

The way Mrs. Eddy said the word "Love" made me feel that she must have loved even the blade of grass under her feet. -WKMBE, FIRST SERIES, PAGE 74, 75

Then she asked us questions. One was, "What is the best way to do instantaneous healing?" Many arose. Some said, "Realize the ever-presence of good;" others, "Deny the claims of evil." There were many answers, but when they had finished, she said, as I remember: "I will tell you the way to do it. It is to love! Just live love-be it-love, love, love Do not know anything but Love. Be all love. There is nothing else. That will do the work. It will heal everything; it will raise the dead. Be nothing but love." -WKMBE, SECOND SERIES, PAGE 49

With that review of past classes, let’s now get to the subject of grace and the skyward flight of our thought. MBE states that we need "right motives" to give wings (pinions) to thought and further that we need right motives to give strength and freedom to our speech and actions. Can you see that charity/love is the right motive that we require? It’s the selflessness that we must integrate into our lives. From this week’s lesson we read the following two quotes from the 5th section of Science and Health:

4:3-5 What we most need is the prayer of fervent desire for growth in grace, expressed in patience, meekness, love, and good deeds.

…and:

15:26-27 Self-forgetfulness, purity, and affection are constant prayers.

There’s another list! They are seven prayers. We are actually praying when we do these. Look how similar it is to the lists above:

1. patience
2. meekness
3. love
4. good deeds
5. self-forgetfulness
6. purity
7. affection

Think about something. We are expressing God when we express Love. And, Christ is defined as the manifestation of God so we must be living the Christ in our lives when we perform the list above.

583:10 CHRIST. The divine manifestation of God, which comes to the flesh to destroy incarnate error.

Now let’s look at the Doctrine of Christian Science (also in this week’s lesson) and see how it relates.

304:9-14 This is the doctrine of Christian Science: that divine Love cannot be deprived of its manifestation, or object; that joy cannot be turned into sorrow, for sorrow is not the master of joy; that good can never produce evil; that matter can never produce mind nor life result in death.

What does the Doctrine of Christian Science mean? For example, does it mean that we can’t be deprived of the manifestation of Love? You all answered "yes, that’s what it means". You were all wrong. If you are in a room with the lights on but your eyes are closed, you are in effect, depriving yourself of the usefulness of the light. In reality you aren’t deprived of the light, but in practical terms it is of little use to you while your eyes are closed. The Doctrine doesn’t make a statement about your deprivation. The subject of the sentence is "God" not "you"! It says that Divine Love (God) can’t be deprived of you. The "you" in the sentence is the perfect spiritual expression that you are. (That’s the truth about you that a practitioner sees when you call and helps you see too.) When our thought soars this true expression is revealed to us. It is that true expression that we naturally love. (It is graceful and beautiful). It is that true expression that is lovable, lovely, loving and loved. It is that true expression that is the perfect model that we must hold on to in thought in order to carve our grand and noble lives. It is that very expression that draws the world to us—it is the attraction of good. It is grace.

On the other hand when you submit to matter you are letting the world consume you. You are cheapening yourself. You are letting ego and opinion stain your reputation (your Christly garments). (Look at the word "escutcheon" from last week) Love the Truth. Express the qualities that let you grow in grace. Your manhood and womanhood depend on it.


Next Entry
Previous Entry
Return to Class Note Menu


Home Page | Email List | Ask Your Teacher | Archives
Class Notes
| Photo Album