An instANTaneous experience

In my recent thoughts about my neighbors in the insect world, I've been reminded of a pretty definitive experience I had a few years ago. Since this is so long overdue, I'll save the recent thoughts for later posts.

So, picture it! I've just bought a lovely townhome and am approaching the end of my quest to furnish it. I'm on the search for the ever-elusive "kitchen table." I have an eat-in kitchen, and although it's not where I intend to eat, it's this big empty space and I would like a practical way to fill it. A table and chairs seem the thing. But I don't want to spend a lot of money, and I want something with character. I am happy to find a wooden "porch table" and four chairs at a nearby antique dealer. The price is right, and I take them home. I set them all out on my back deck to initiate my plan to give them even more character: a good sanding and a coat of spray paint. 

And this is where the real adventure begins. 

As I'm sanding one of the chairs, I pause and look at the other pieces of furniture. Much to my dismay, I see a steady stream of ants filing in and out of the table top. This is when a barrage of not-so-helpful mental suggestions begin, uncannily, to file in and out of my thought. Fortunately, I am already in the habit of refuting these aggressive types of thoughts with what I know to be true about God and His kingdom.

The first to attack is self-condemnation. Posing as my own thought, it chides me for being so hasty to buy a table and chairs that had been setting outside on a lawn for an amount of time I naïvely didn't even think to ask about. It berates me for failing to check for evidence of insect activity or rot. And it questions, Did I even really need this table and chairs? Self-condemnation essentially asserts that I have created this problem and am stuck with the consequences. But this suggestion is stopped in its tracks once I recognize it as an impostor. When we're working with God, there's no such thing as "stuck."  "The things which are impossible with men are possible with God" (Luke 18:27).

So now that I'm no longer blaming myself, the suggestion is that the problem is real and thus in need of fixing. And in moves a virtual can-can line of potential material solutions: Smoke. Extreme cold. Upending the table. Shaking it. Poisons. Sprays. Lures. So many products on the market for pest removal! So many tantalizing promises of zapping the little boogers and ridding my pretty project of them . . .

And right as the can-can line finishes its number, in steals the doubt that any "solution" will actually work: those little ants are in that table. How could I ever be sure they were all out? Would I really want to bring the table into my house knowing they could be lurking?

And that's when the light really breaks through. These are all just distractions. They need to be, and can be silenced with the truth. So I head up to my office to work with this week's Christian Science Bible Lesson. I know that's where I'll find the ideas to neutralize this situation. I open up the Bible and the first thing I come to is this:

Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord,

and not a God afar off?

Can any hide himself in secret places

that I shall not see him? saith the Lord.

Do not I fill heaven and earth? 

saith the Lord.

 (Jeremiah 23:23-24)

Then two "thoughts of peace," as it were, come gently to me.

1) Hey! God can see everywhere! Even into a teeny tunnel in a table! Of course, He can only see the good that He made (see Genesis 1:31). So something bad can't be hiding out of His sight. In fact, He (and His goodness) are actually filling all space. And I don't have to do anything to make this true. 

2) That means I don't need to "get rid of ants." Just like every other case in Christian Science, I'm simply correcting thought. And me correcting thought is really me listening for the true ideas from God that replace the wrong thought--and this replacement is what restores harmony, brings healing. God is "at hand." Right here. Right now.  . . . So, I think I'm done here . . . ?

I tentatively head back down to the deck to resume the project. I figure I should not look at the place where the ants have been--because I know that I need to focus on thought, not matter, for my evidence of a resolution, what I would call a healing. I wouldn't want to discourage myself if I were to look and not yet see the evidence of the correction I felt in my thought. It might throw me off . . . But I can't seem to resist!--I LOOK--and what do I see?

No change from before. 

However, in a moment of self-surprise, I realize I am not discouraged. I have prayed. I have known the truth. The healing is imminent. I am going to stop looking at the table and just get on with my work . . . 

But I just know it's been healed!! So I look at the table again before no more than five minutes has passed--and what do I see?

One table.
ZERO ants.

Where there had been a steady stream up and down one of the table legs (down and UP, mind you), there are none. I look closer and see evidence on the wood that insects have invaded, but I see no insects.

I'm almost in disbelief, but I know better. This really just happened. Because that's how Christian Science works.

Looking back on this, I can see it was (yet another) Psalm 23 kind of experience.  I'm sure you'd agree . . .

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death [limitation], I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou annointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

All finished on the deck, ready to bring them in

In their new home

No cause for colds

As a new student of Christian Science, one of the first false beliefs to fall away was that of contagion. I understood well enough that the source of discordant experiences is actually mental, so I also knew that physical contact with [fill-in-the-blank-unpleasant-condition] didn't make me susceptible to it--even if other people thought it would.

I saw this was true through living with family and roommates, and even through beginning to work as a teacher in a public school system. Each year, as colleagues talked about--and then developed--the "initial cold" you "had to" catch after being introduced to a new bunch of kids, I found myself well.

But, I didn't actually stop having colds. As it turned out, I continued to experience them periodically and without respect to human so-called laws about "cold seasons" and contagion. Going back to what I understood about the mental nature of all disease, I reasoned (albeit imperfectly) that if I was not feeling well, something must be going on mentally that was manifesting itself as a cold. It had to come from somewhere, right? So then began a period in my life where I'd take physical discomfort as a cue to dig around mentally for something that might need to be handled, that is, proven untrue and unreal in thought. Typically, I determined the so-called cause to be stress and handled it. The end. Until the next time.

Fortunately, as I've committed myself to understanding and practicing Christian Science, I've made friends with the same commitment. One of these friends and I were talking one day this past summer, and my method of dealing with colds came up. I mentioned that I only got them when I was "stressed." But my friend stopped me short. I don't remember his exact words, but the idea was, "Erin--first of all, you don't need to expect that a particular situation will always result in certain coordinating physical symptoms. Second, disease doesn't have a cause--God is the only Cause, and disease is no part of Him."

He was right! And now I knew he was right--it was time for deeply-ingrained old beliefs to fall away once again. By concluding (incorrectly) that these colds were the result of stress, I was making a major mistake! Part of it was that I was starting my reasoning about my situation with the cold instead of starting my reasoning with God, who is the only Cause, the only Principle, or Source. He is wholly good, and is Spirit--so reasoning from the basis of a bad, material situation was about as backwards as I could get! The other part of the mistake was that by starting with the cold, I was making it seem real, even though Christian Science works by seeing the unreality of disease. By way of analogy, my former line of reasoning was like believing ghosts were in my house and concentrating my efforts on scaring them away, when what I needed to do was understand that ghosts aren't real, and weren't there in the first place.

At any rate, since the time of that conversation I've checked, i.e, stopped in their tracks, any thoughts that came and suggested that there was cause for a cold, or other form of illness. I've been exposed to so-called contagion. I've experienced my fair share of stress. But I haven't experienced a cold. More than being grateful for experiencing health, I'm grateful to understand to a greater degree the nothingness of disease--and the allness of God's goodness.

God is good
God gives good
God is the only Cause
God is Spirit
Man is spiritual
There is no disease

Healed of overeating

Over the course of this past summer, I realized that I'd gained a bit of weight. It probably wasn't even noticeable to anyone, but I finally became aware of it when some of my shorts and pants didn't fit as comfortably as they had the previous summer.

At first, I reasoned that I had just been eating too much; ergo, I would eat less and the weight would go away. I'd done it in the past. Easy peasy. But try as I might, that didn't work. My eating habits just didn't change. As I'd sort of expected all along, my human will-power wasn't effective, wasn't really a power at all. And besides, I didn't want a quick fix, so I knew I needed to pray, and pray scientifically--because it brings permanent healing.

One of the first things I had to do, was to deny that gradually putting on weight was just a part of aging. It's not. God's "mercies are new every morning," and we are God's image, His exact likeness. We are brand new every morning. We are ageless. And that sly suggestion that "This is normal; nothing is wrong," is precisely the suggestion that would keep us from ever working to overcome errors--that would quash our efforts before they begin.

Next, I realized that the problem wasn't really increased body size. It was that food was constantly on my mind. It was like I was hypnotized always to be thinking of food! This became clear to me when I was on a family vacation towards the end of the summer. Any time we went out for our daily adventures, I was worried I'd get hungry before we ate again. Talk about a downer for a vacation!

But the realization that, as with every problem, thought was what needed correcting--not a material body--marked the beginning of the end for this dilemma.

Over the next week or so, I thought about Jesus' counsel to, "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?" He then goes on to explain that just as God feeds the birds, and arrays the lilies in beautiful blossoms, so he will care for us because we, as His children, are infinitely more precious to Him than birds and flowers.

And that's exactly what I hadn't believed. I had a laundry list of situations I was worried about at the time--over the whole summer, in fact. Relationships. Finances. Projects to complete. You name it. And as I prayed, it came to me that I had been eating bigger meals than necessary, and eating more frequently than necessary, because of the temporary sense of comfort it gave me. But that's just it--it was temporary. I knew God was the only source for any lasting comfort and peace I could feel. And I knew it was my right to feel that peace and comfort.

Finally, one day, the afternoon approached, and I realized that I had actually felt hungry all day, including during and after eating my lunch. "How ABSURD!" I thought. At that point it was so obvious to me that the urge to be eating was just a misguided thought, that I actually laughed about it. And with that, the sense of hunger vanished--as if I'd had a "hungry" switch, and someone turned it off!

So, have I lost the weight? Materially, I don't know. I'm not really checking anymore. But mentally, absolutely! I've lost the real weight--I've been freed of the burden of excessive thought about food and my body.

Amen!! :-)

New every morning
God's image and likeness
Take no thought