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Association 2018

 

Response to the Post association assignment

 

A student writes:

 

July - September, 2018

 

This year’s post-Association assignment offered me the opportunity to bring to light some thoughts and ideas in handling the claims presented.  Two very different situations offered some startling similarities that have helped me in my own (sometimes seemingly stagnant) practice.  It seems to me that we could all ask ourselves the same question:  Does it ever seem as though the more you pray, the worse it gets?  When the first testifier wrote of the frustration and pain caused by a family member who didn’t quite get the whole picture, this tried to awaken memories in my own experience that I thought were long buried.  The second testifier wrote of the passing of a loved-one after diligent and consecrated prayer, and I thought “Boy, I have so been there!”  But empathizing with the writers doesn’t offer much in the way of support, and actually is a poor substitute for Divine Love – the Mother Love which is already meeting every human need.  

 

    Interestingly enough, I had the opportunity to revisit a healing with my oldest son that I shared in an Association meeting years ago, a healing of the claim of autism.  We hadn’t talked about this healing in a long while, simply because, well, it was HEALED.  And I bring it to this assignment, not because we are “back at square one,” but because it helped to consider how to handle these two cases.   I know what the world thinks about mental conditions: human thought would tend to categorize and compartmentalize circumstances into conditions, then further weigh the claim down with data like heredity, predisposition, genetic information, personal tendencies, diet and lifestyle, etc.  The world doesn’t want to hear what Christian Science has to say about reality; the world wants to make the mental condition itself the reality.  

 

Recently, I was helping my son to complete a writing exercise for a college application. He was asked to describe a difficult or traumatizing life event that profoundly changed or influenced him in a positive way – how he handled it and it’s outcome.  He wrote about the experience of being told he was showing signs of autism as a young child and how this seemed to create a false sense of his identity that followed him throughout the rest elementary school.  My son described what it felt like knowing that each new teacher he had every school year considered him to be “the kid to watch out for,” the kid whose parents refused to medicate his condition (which is the same as ignoring it).  He told about learning to calm himself physically and mentally so to prove to his classmates and teachers he was not autistic.  Reading this was like experiencing the healing again, even though he really could not include the prayerful work that allowed our family to bear witness to the unfoldment of Truth.  We sent his essay to a family member who is a writer, and who had graciously offered to edit my son’s work.

 

But when we received this person’s response, the reaction was critical and doubtful, and my son was gently but firmly chastised with a narrative of how “autism is not a curable condition” and he really had no right to claim he was healed.   The response included scientific evidence and studies that proved this point.

 

I couldn’t help but think of this incident while contemplating the experiences presented in this year’s post-Association assignment.  It’s true that when trying to help others, we draw on our own demonstrations and triumphs to reassure them that there is a way out of hopelessness, despair, doubt, fear – whatever human condition tries to upset the reign of harmony.  I would imagine the testifier who wrote of pain and frustration would gladly shout from the mountaintop, “I AM healed!  How do I prove it to you (the doubting family member)?”  And similarly, the testifier who wrote of the death of a family member after much prayerful work; “I KNOW there is no death!  How do I prove it?”  Therein lies the task of the Christian Scientist: living the demonstration as opposed to preaching the demonstration. 

 

 In both accounts, I felt so clearly the earnest honest work that the testifiers feared was unrewarded or even unnoticed by God.  How often have we all faced that terrible feeling: that God neither notices nor cares of our struggles, much less swoops in to help?  Where is that so-called “ever-present help?”  Whenever I struggle with a sense of God’s nearness, I remember the (paraphrased) words of Mrs. Eddy, “If man were not here, God would not be known.”  This, then, is man’s perfect holy purpose: to bear witness to God, to demonstrate by works over words, the allness of the Father-Mother.  God is the substance, life, intelligence of man – his divine essence; man is the reflection of that essence.  Each individual idea or expression of God comprises the family of man and no idea can lack even the tiniest measurement of all that God possesses.  Every experience in which we turn to God brings us closer to God and closer to understanding ourselves.  

 

To the testifier who struggles with proving they are healed I would say, “You are the beloved of God now, as you have always been.  The sharp struggles that seemed to define your experience are even now becoming as shadows dissolving in the light of Truth. The denial of your good work by your brother cannot harm you nor can it stop the steady gain you have achieved.  If it takes him 500 years, he WILL see what you see and know what you have learned.” 

 

To the testifier who lost a beloved family member I would say, “Let your heart be at peace.  There is no retrograde step, no backward motion.  The cycles of light progress ever onward and upward.  Bless your heart for bearing witness to this great truth: that God’s child is not subject to false laws. This most certainly includes the greatest lie of all, that man can perish.”

 

Most of all, I am daily reassured by the understanding that there isn’t a single malady, situation, human experience (disease, sin, etc.) that hasn’t been overcome by Truth because the Christ overcomes all evil.  In our beloved Master’s own words, “…I am with you, even unto the end of the earth.”

 

Respectfully submitted, Sept. 2018

 

A student writes:

 

I am now revisiting this assignment after traveling during the month of June.In the first case I was able to see the author come to the truth about who she really is, a reflection of God. She let go of believing that the "messiness" in her surroundings was defining who she was.  She was able to get to that understanding as she cleared away the false claim that she is less that a divine reflection. She came to see the lie about the separation of herself from God, and her separation from her brother.In treating her case I would bring my thought to seeing her as harmonious, whole and seeing her filled with God's abundant love."Harmonious action proceeds from Spirit, God.  Inharmony has no Principle;  its action is erroneous and presupposes man to be in matter.  Inharmony would make matter the cause as well as the effect of intelligence, or Soul, thus attempting to separate Mind from God."Science and Health p. 480: 13-18.In the second case I was moved by the awareness of the author that "a sense of comfort comes when I accept God's plan by holding to the belief that it is beyond my understanding."  It was apparent that her process involved acceptance, then developing the trust in God's plan, and then the firm conviction that she and her daughter and husband are one with the divine.In treating her case I would reinforce my own understanding that there is no death."The universal belief in death is of no advantage.  It cannot make Life and Truth apparent. Death will be found at length to be a mortal dream, which comes in darkness and disappears with the light."Science and Health p. 42: 5-8. 

 

Post association assignment - May 2018

 

The following are two pieces of fruitage from this year’s Association assignment that I would like us to consider as cases. We are fresh from the mountaintop and these accounts represent the kind of challenges that are both common and seem daunting.

 

Partly this has to do with the fact that the situations are complicated, personal, and packed with human history. They represent life experiences that are dramatic and disruptive. I held them back on Association day because we didn’t have adequate time to go through each one in the depth required.

 

Let’s look at them now with an eye to both the counter-facts  (the absolute truths that save us from the condemning narrative)  and how we access Love’s fearless patience and compassionate assurance of life harmonious and everlasting. I would propose that it is the “how” - the “doing the dishes” part of the work that daunts us. The reasons for not imbibing Spirit seem legion, yet we know better. We know from experience that the Spirit does profit us and those our thought rests on, and we know in our hearts that Truth is natural and relieving. The work then, is to let ourselves turn to spiritual sense and let God be God.

 

The first case has to do with working through the seeming collaboration of material events, personal history, and particular life challenges. It sometimes seems as if we are being conspired against and this lends a claim of authority to the suggestion that we are “up against it”.

 

The student is moving through the claims and working out her own salvation. But please consider how you would respond to such a case if it came to you for help (the author of the fruitage should do this as well). What are the lies? More importantly, what are the present truths that blow those lies out of the water. And most importantly, what is the motivating thought-force behind those truths and what is your relation to it.

 

Finally, ask yourself: What does (or doesn’t) time and space have to do with the work - is it a factor, or is it actually irrelevant to the case?

 

I have always been emotionally sensitive, picking up on others’ thoughts and emotions. I have also tended to become very emotionally attached to others; and, I’ve had issues with depression, anxiety, and some mood swings at various times. Unfortunately, I thought that meant there was something wrong with me. I didn't talk with anyone about it, and my own prayers did not seem to help much.

 

When I stopped studying Christian Science in college, I turned to counseling for help. They suggested psych meds. I thought that would be an easy way to “fix” what felt wrong with me.  Instead, it led me down the rabbit hole of materia medica. I spent years taking various medicine and trying different therapies, some of which seemed to help; none of which “cured” me. Additionally, I  developed chronic pain issues, which led me to have to stop working.  

 

Eventually I returned to Christian Science, because it was the only thing that offered true healing. It took a lot of prayerful study and introspection, as well as assistance from practitioners, to unravel the false beliefs about myself I'd acquired over the years as having mental health challenges. I worked on knowing my true identity as God's child, always safe and loved; letting go of the memory of trauma, asserting that the mortal past had no power over me;  and on forgiveness, knowing you can’t find true peace until you see all involved as the perfect child of God. And I made great progress!  As my study progressed, I saw that I'd used mental health diagnoses as an excuse to justify not getting a handle on my thought. Over time, I gradually had the healing I needed to stop taking all psych meds (and most others as well). 

 

After that, I found a need to focus on something outside myself.  First, it was the Reading Room, which unfortunately turned out to be very stressful.  As that situation improved, Mom's health worsened.   The material labels were stroke and dementia; her movements slowed way down and she often became confused and overly emotional, especially resentful.  We had become very close, and I was her main source of emotional support, so I heard about it a lot.  

 

The dissonance was very challenging.  I had to  work hard to separate her symptoms from her true identity as God’s perfect child.  I struggled to keep from taking her situation on myself, not entirely successfully.  My own energy dropped as I spent more of it on Mom; my pain issues worsened again, and my apartment became more cluttered. Still, I was very glad I was there, helping as much as I possibly could. Hard as it was, I knew I was in my right place.

 

Unfortunately, my brother decided since the clutter in my apartment wasn't going away, that meant I was not doing enough - that I wasn’t addressing my issues. I responded by resenting him for not being around to help support Mom - and me. That in turn reinforced his belief that I was messed up.

 

After Mom passed on, I was in a haze.  I no longer had the one person in my life who always made me feel special.  After a period of mourning, I began to slowly pull myself together, and started taking steps to take care of the things I’d let slide.

 

Not surprisingly, I had continued problems with my brother.  At one point, I became upset at something he’d done - actually I was dealing with that okay, but got really mad when he blamed it on me - so then he blamed my getting mad on my mental health issues.   Well, I knew for certain THAT was a lie.  But, it made me stop and think; and I realized there was another claim I hadn't caught: I'd had a very heavy box fall on my head, and hadn't adequately addressed the idea of injury.  The outsized anger stemmed from a claim of concussion.

 

That jarred my thought further:  I saw clearly that all these claims -  both my previous ones, and Mom's of dementia – were really mortal mind arguing against the supremacy of the one true Mind.  I understood in a new way how none of it was ever true because no one can ever be separate from the mind of God.  And when challenges in thought presented themselves, it became easier to recognize and see through them.

 

All that was put to the test when I made the mistake of asking my brother for a little help with my apartment.  He tore into me, accusing me of all sorts of nastiness.  I knew what he said had no basis in reality, that it was his problem – not mine – but felt it necessary to stop communication for a while.  I did not want to be around him while he was mentally attacking me like that.  

 

This required a great deal of prayer. It was especially important to deal with it fully because I always stay with him on my Association trip. I first worked to know my own perfection. I prayed about things with Mom, and reinforced my own innocence – I hadn't been humanly perfect, but I had done everything I could to help Mom.  The one thing I would have changed, was to have been able to take better care of my own needs at the same time.  Then I had to address the thought that there was something wrong with him, that he had a character flaw which caused him to behave like that. I recognized that, just as he was malpracticing me by holding a false picture, I was doing the same to him.  So I worked to correct that, and hold true his identity as God's perfect child, too.

 

I was grateful when we began talking again; as I finish this, I’m at his house.  I do have to be alert, error thoughts still try to creep in.  But I am much more able to recognize and refute them when they do.  Knowing there is one Mind helps a lot in keeping personal sense out of the way!   I know the change of thought has taken place; what's left is breaking bad habits, and creating new ones.  And I am finally starting to relax!

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