Little Children

I was getting out of my car and realized I didn’t have one of my mittens. Immediately I got the sense not to worry, that All is well. I knew that all is Spirit and spirit’s ideas (including my warm, fuzzy mittens) and that everything was taken care of. Well it was hard to fight off the feelings of panic and worry – scrounging around my car looking for it; wondering if I’d drop it at the last stop I was at. But I stood firm and knew that I was getting the sense of peace that all really is well and I didn’t need to worry about it but could go on joyfully, confidently.

When I walked into the library (the stop I was making), I thought “how am I going to work when I keep thinking about my mitten?” I knew I felt the mitten and I were safe and secure so that safest and securest place I could think that it could be was still at home! I sent my husband and message and asked if it was in the garage where the car would be. And he responded it was!

I felt so happy that my little mitten was safe. And I felt such a sense of God’s dear, tender Love. I knew that Love was taking care of me and that I was her childe and even my little mitten (which represented such comfort, coziness, and joy to me) was taken care of.

I looked out the library window and saw a mom and dad holding hands with their little girl as she crossed the street. And I could just see how wonderful and tender that little girl was – so full of joy and innocence. And how God was taking care of her every need – even the comfiness of her mittens.

I could see so clearly how much God loves and adores little children – their incredible innocence and purity – and new it was God’s delight to take care of them and meet their every need. “Fear not little flock for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom”.

I then realized that we are each the little child of God’s. And that God loves, adores, and cares for each one of us – every human need. And the only thing that would make us seem older is worry, fear, doubt, and false responsibility.

I knew that God is the Father and Mother of each one of us and none of us have to worry or be bogged down by fear. If it is true about a mitten than it is certainly true about a house or job or our own children.

God is the dear ever-present Love, which is loving each one of us. And we are so safe and secure and taken care of right now. God takes care of every need we have, including physical health. God is Love and that Love permeates and radiates all this moment – tenderly wrapping up and embracing each one of us. God is Love therefore we don’t need to be sick, worried or afraid. God’s kingdom is perfect because it is spiritual and it is right here and now. There isn’t another power which can oppose us or destroy our being. God is all power here and now – “God is all and there is none else”.

So let’s forsake our “grown-up” nature and let our loving Father-Mother God take care of us. And follow Jesus’ advice that the world needs us now more as children than as men (Miscellaneous Writings pg. 110).

Luke 10:21

At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.

Luke 18:16

But Jesus called the children to him and said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

Divine Love

God is Love, as the scriptures inform us. Divine Love. Divine Love is always present, is the only consciousness, Person, or Ego. Love is the only presence and is always embracing you and me. Love is infinite wisdom and has a harmonious solution for all that we face. God is an “ever present help in trouble”. Love is an ever-present help in trouble. Love hasn’t created sin, sickness, or death; therefore we don’t have to suffer from them. All that Love created is good. And good is all that there is. The more we embrace this Truth in our consciousness the more we see all human errors slip away. And it begins with each individual. Eventually we will all get there –we have too. Human errors do not have divine power to sustain them. They will all yield to Divine Love, divine Truth. This takes place here and now. We don’t need to move to another phase of existence for we are in our probationary period here and now. And the Christ is always at work in the human consciousness redeeming humanity. Matter based thinking is yielding for spiritual thinking. The supposed alternative Ego hates the Truth because the Truth ultimates in it’s nothingness. Pride, greed, power don’t get you anything. And the material mind doesn’t like this. But all is Spirit and spiritual. Spirit is the source of supply and all that satisfies us. All that we want and desire can be found in Spirit – therefore we are not dependent on anything or anyone but Spirit. Each of us has a perfect relationship with Spirit right now – for God is not a respecter of persons. We are all equal we are all valuable to divine Love. No one is better than another. God loves all of us equally. Anyone who tries to claim that God has favorites boasts ignorance and has a false sense of security. Each of us is the beloved child of God, whom God is loving right now. Love is the only consciousness and sees and knows only good. She sees and knows each of us as her perfect creation. Nothing else is real or true about us because anything less than her perfect image can only result from a belief in matter which isn’t real or true. All is Spirit and Her spiritual creation – as is depicted in the first chapter of Genesis. That is the truth and is the solution to every human woe. God is not a mystery but God can be known and very close, real, and dear to each of us for God is our friend. The truth about God must be known – that She is dear to us and only knows good. Nothing unlike her perfection can come from her. She never sends suffering or sickness or death. She is the one and only perfect Creator. So lets all love God together who is our dear friend and find fulfillment and satisfaction. Yes, there are challenges but God is forming us in her own likeness and is annihilating any characteristic that is unlike her. Thanks be to God.

True Womanhood

In the past 25 years society has just begun to question the role of women. For 5,000 years man has been dominating society and woman has been seen as less than man – less intelligent, less capable, weak, vulnerable, etc, etc. Have we really yet broken out of this notion? Are women seeing the fullness of their true identity?

According to conservative theories woman was derived from man as told in the story of Adam and Eve where Eve is created from Adam’s rib. I concluded in my previous post “Creation” that the story of Adam and Eve is not a creation story but a story told to depict the nature of sin. If this is so, than God created male and female both in His image and likeness as Genesis states:

26 ¶ And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

The term here for man is used as a generic term for man – as in mankind or humanity. God creates man and woman in His own image and likeness – to be like Him – and blesses both of them. That would put man and woman as equals, both being the blessed creation of God.

How long has the true role of women been buried? What if we knew that Jesus had women disciples? How would this have affected the role of women from his time to now – knowing that Jesus himself picked women to teach his God-given spiritual teachings?

Well, with the accidental discovery of ancient gospels in 1896, we do know this. Unfortunately, due to a series of events, the first translation of these documents wasn’t around until 1955 and was still being finalized through 1983 in which we finally have the outcome of one of the three gospels – The Gospel of Mary.

Who was this Mary? Mary Magdalene whom the Bible illustrates as a prostitute. However in reading this gospel it is evident that she was one of Jesus’ disciples and one of his most spiritually advanced disciples whom he possibly favored over the others due to the spiritual advancement of her thought.

Imagine how different history would have been if we had known that a woman was one of Jesus’ best students. This only begins to show us women’s true role and significance in the world.

As women begin to understand their spiritual place in the world, their divinely ordained being, they can understand that there can be no imposition placed on them. They are entirely free to achieve, accomplish, and posses the kingdom of God. The knowledge of this has cured women of “women’s diseases”. And as we rise to the true concept of woman, man can also find freedom from this. The power is not taken from man and given to woman or vice versa. But each has their own individual, unique role to fill. Each sex is complete and perfect including both the masculine and feminine qualities in their being. Women include strength, dominion, and conviction just as man includes beauty, purity, and intuition. Neither has to take the qualities from the other because we all include them completely. By the realization of this both man and woman can naturally fulfill their roles without any impositions.

In her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy gives the definition of man – meaning the generic term for mankind, including women. Even though this definition speaks about all humanity, I have altered the pronoun for clarity in understanding the true identity of woman.

Question.--What is woman?

Answer.--Woman is not matter; she is not made up of
brain, blood, bones, and other material elements. The
Scriptures inform us that woman is made in
the image and likeness of God. Matter is
not that likeness. The likeness of Spirit cannot be so
unlike Spirit. Woman is spiritual and perfect; and be-
cause she is spiritual and perfect, she must be so under-
stood in Christian Science. Woman is idea, the image, of
Love; she is not physique. She is the compound idea of
God, including all right ideas; the generic term for
all that reflects God's image and likeness; the conscious
identity of being as found in Science, in which woman is
the reflection of God, or Mind, and therefore is eternal;
that which has no separate mind from God; that which
has not a single quality underived from Deity; that which
possesses no life, intelligence, nor creative power of her
own, but reflects spiritually all that belongs to her Maker.
And God said: Let us make woman in our image, after
our likeness; and let her have dominion over the fish
of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle,
and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that
creepeth upon the earth.
Woman is incapable of sin, sickness, and death. The
real woman cannot depart from holiness, nor
can God, by whom woman is evolved, engender
the capacity or freedom to sin. A mortal sinner is not
God's woman. Mortals are the counterfeits of immortals.
They are the children of the wicked one, or the one evil,
which declares that woman begins in dust [or from the rib of Adam]
or as a material embryo. In divine Science, God and the real
woman are inseparable as divine Principle and idea.
Error, urged to its final limits, is self-destroyed.
Error will cease to claim that soul is in body, that life
and intelligence are in matter, and that this matter is woman.
God is the Principle of woman, and woman is the idea of God.
Hence woman is not mortal nor material. Mortals will disappear,
and immortals, or the children of God, will appear as the only
and eternal verities of woman. Mortals are not fallen chil-
dren of God. They never had a perfect state of being,
which may subsequently be regained. They were, from
the beginning of mortal history, "conceived in sin and
brought forth in iniquity." Mortality is finally swallowed
up in immortality. Sin, sickness, and death must dis-
appear to give place to the facts which belong to immortal
woman.
Learn this, O mortal, and earnestly seek the spiritual
status of woman, which is outside of all material selfhood.
Remember that the Scriptures say of mortal
woman: "As for woman, her days are as grass: as
a flower of the field, so she flourisheth. For the wind
passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall
know it no more."
When speaking of God's children, not the children of
men, Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is within you;"
that is, Truth and Love reign in the real woman, showing
that woman in God's image is unfallen and eternal. Jesus
beheld in Science the perfect woman, who appeared to him
where sinning [or less than man] mortal woman appears to
mortals. In this perfect woman the Saviour saw God's own
likeness, and this correct view of woman healed the sick.
Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal,
and that woman is pure and holy. Woman is not a material
habitation for Soul; she is herself spiritual. Soul, being Spirit,
is seen in nothing imperfect nor material.
Whatever is material is mortal. To the five corporeal
senses, woman appears to be matter and mind united; but
Christian Science reveals woman as the idea of God, and
declares the corporeal senses to be mortal and erring illusions.
Divine Science shows it to be impossible that a material body,
though interwoven with matter's highest stratum, misnamed
mind, should be woman,--the genuine and perfect woman,
the immortal idea of being, indestructible and eternal.
Were it otherwise, woman would be annihilated.

Creation

There are a lot of discrepancies between Bible scholars and religions today as to the story of creation. Most religions acknowledge the second chapter in Genesis, the story of Adam and Eve, as the story of creation. However, Bible scholars have come to find that there are two different depictions in the first and second chapter of Genesis.

I heard an interesting lecture by a chaplain from Boston University in which the speaker stated the story of Adam and Eve was basically a rip-off. This story came from what was popular Egyptian folklore at the time explaining the nature of sin. This would mean that the story of Adam and Eve is not a creation story but instead is describes how sin operates.

This makes sense to me since in the first chapter in the book of Genesis, the creation story has already been told.

“1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.”

This story of creation goes on for 6 days in the first chapter. And in it includes the creation of man and woman:

“26 ¶ And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

So God’s great and beautiful creation is complete on the 6th day.

Well then what happens? A mist comes up from the ground, Adam dreams, and God forbids the knowledge of good and evil. The serpent tricks Eve and she eats the forbidden fruit.

6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept:
1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
8 And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.
9 And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
13 And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.


What does this story symbolize? How is it relevant to today?

Now God’s creation isn’t just good as it once was, or atleast to the sinful perspective of Adam and Eve. Has God’s creation changed or has the perspective of mortals changed? From this sinful perspective they are now able to see shame, violence, judgment, etc.

What is the serpent in our thought? Are we being beguiled? What are we seeing and manifesting in our experience based on our perspective? Is this perspective based on God’s perspective or a sinful perspective?