Key to Correct Thinking Blog
2nd Jan 2010 - Why should we make this a "true CHRIST-MASS" ?
How many will stop to earnestly and soberly inquire: What significance has Jesus' birth for me? How much am I bettered by the fact of his birth? How fully have I in the past profited by his birth, his teachings, his practices, his death upon the cross, his resurrection and his ascension? How earnestly have I striven to learn the deep and mighty meaning of all this to me? How fully have I sought to obey his commandments to do unto others as I would have others do unto me? To love the Lord my God with all my heart, mind and soul? To love my neighbor as myself? To fulfil all the law and the prophets which he said were contained in these two commandments? To be perfect even as my Father in heaven is perfect? To leave all and follow him? To turn absolutely and finally away from the world and the things thereof, seeking only God and His righteousness? To have no other gods than the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Jesus and the apostles, the God of the early Christian Fathers, the God of the truly devout in the ages since their day?
How many, we ask, are there in Christendom today who in the sense above indicated are striving to make this Christmas their true CHRIST-MASS? This inquiry is broad and general. It includes Christian Scientists as well as all other Christians. It means as much for these as for any others. What account shall we be able to render of our stewardship? This question comes home to each of us. It is an individual question. The question for each one to consider, is not nearly as much, What have other Christians been doing, or what are my neighbors in Christian Science doing, or shall do, as what have I been doing in the direction of living the lesson taught by Jesus' birth, life and death?
It matters not how many have failed or fallen short of the demands of Truth as taught and exemplified by Jesus; if I have failed and fallen short, I am the sufferer and must pay the penalty of my own shortcomings. My business and duty is to work out my own salvation with fear and trembling, knowing the while that if I do my part, I will find God through Christ Jesus, ever working with me. Mighty fact! Stupendous thought! God working with me! Who would not work in such company? Who would not forsake all other companions that he might companion with God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth?
Only in the measure in which we leave behind us all false material conceptions and reach out after the Life which is Love, the Love which is Life, the Truth which is Good, and the Good which is Truth, are we leaving all and following Christ, and only as we leave all and follow Christ, each day, each hour, each moment, are we truly celebrating the CHRIST-MASS. This is the meaning of Christmas to each one of us. We should celebrate it by turning face about and forsaking all the sins and errors which are holding us in false conditions and preventing our realization of the all-ness of Almighty Good.
Let us forget the mere material observances in the higher celebration which comes from our larger and better conception of Jesus' birth and life. The less we cling to the old methods the better. They tend only to hold us down in mortal trammels. However pleasant to mortal sense, they are delusive, and tend only to perpetuate the lie of false existence.
Especially should we cease to keep the children under the old Santa Claus delusion. Why deceive them in this respect any more than in any other? Why lie to them about a false personality of this sort more than any other? Is it not time that all persons who desire their children to be truthful were ceasing to drill them in the art of lying from the very cradle? Can we expect them to be truthful while we are daily pouring into their susceptible consciousness falsehood after falsehood? Who but the father of lies, the old satan of the Bible, ever suggested such things Is it not a part of the whispering of the original Edenic serpent? Let it stop, at least so far as Christian Scientists are concerned, and it will be one Christmas move in the right direction. It may be well enough to keep up the custom of remembering the children with "Christmas gifts," but why accompany these gifts with a falsehood? why perpetuate this pagan lie?
Let our sincere striving be to make the year which is about to dawn, a continuous Christmas, a perpetual day of Christ living, and thus be the better prepared to do his work, making ourselves receptive to His "working with us."
1st Jan 2010 - Why can the real man not part from holiness ?
"Man is incapable of sin, sickness, and death. The real man cannot depart from holiness, nor can God, by whom man is evolved, engender the capacity or freedom to sin. A mortal sinner is not God's man" (p. 475). Words could not be plainer. Yet if we say that we must not attach error to a person, in the sense of mortal personality, we are in effect declaring that a "mortal sinner" is God's man, thus reversing the teaching of our textbook.
This whole subject is concisely summed up in the article by our Leader which appeared in the Sentinel of Sept. 3, 1910, and this should be carefully studied, if it has not already been. If we study and understand this definition given by our Leader, we shall not go astray or become confused in our thought and work. As we separate our own errors from our own mortal concept of personality and strive to overcome them, we shall be able to judge righteous judgment in our estimate of others.
In further illustration of our thought, it may be said that in the absolute sense a monument is nothing. In the relative sense it is a token of love and respect for a person who has passed from earthly scenes of activity, a reminder of the usefulness of the human life that has closed, and a means of preserving the memory of good deeds. The derivation of the word — the Latin moneo — to remind, implies a calling of attention to the life and achievements of an individual, not to the death of a person.
When we visit Westminster abbey and look upon the monuments there, we are not reminded of the death, but of the illustrious lives, of those whose names are enrolled on the scroll of fame within that ancient pile. When we stand beside the tomb of Washington at Mt. Vernon, we do not think of Washington's death, but of Washington the soldier, the patriot, the statesman, and "the father of his country." When we stand beside the Lincoln monument at Springfield, we do not think of Lincoln's tragic death, but of his great character and life; we think of Lincoln the statesman and the emancipator. A monument, therefore, is not designed to remind us of death, but to emphasize the life-work of those who have wrought well and faithfully here on earth.
It goes without saying that Christian Scientists should not criticize and condemn others because they are yet manifesting some error in their lives; in other words, have not reached the absolute demonstration of the truth. Mankind are as yet in a belief of mortal conditions and are all therefore manifesting more or less imperfection in their lives, and only as we are growing out of these false conditions into spiritual understanding can we justly judge of others. We are none of us sufficiently advanced in the understanding of Spirit to be able to weigh our fellow beings in the scales of absolute justice. At the same time we must never forget that the spiritual and perfect alone is real, and is the standard by which all things are to be judged. Let us hearken to the words of our beloved Leader as we read them on page 280 of "Miscellaneous Writings": "There are not two, — Mind and matter. We must get rid of that notion. As we commonly think, we imagine all is well if we cast something into the scale of Mind, but we must realize that Mind is not put into the scales with matter; then only are we working on one side and in Science."
Such absolute statements of our teaching will keep us sufficiently reminded of the spiritual real on the one hand and the material unreal on the other if we carefully study and heed them and apply them in and to our daily life and conduct. Our safe and sane way of cognizing error is by knowing the allness of Truth.