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Thought for FoodIf you were hungry, could you be nourished and satisfied by reading the label of ingredients on food containers? The literal meaning of the Bible is like an ingredients list recorded by those who have tasted the contents of heaven. If we never taste and digest spiritual food for ourselves, we have nothing more than an imaginary sense of Spirit and spiritual man. "O taste and see that the Lord is good" (Ps 34:8). We must taste Christ on earth as it is in heaven, thoroughly digest this truth, and ascend to life as Love. We are the consciousness of the Holy City - the structure of Truth and Love. We are the spiritual ingredients of one stupendous whole. Jesus Christ said, "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world" (John 6:51). These words of Jesus' statement are spiritual. "His true flesh and blood were his Life; and they truly eat his flesh and drink his blood, who partake of that divine Life" (SH 25:10). These statements may be difficult to grasp at their first reading, but, in this epoch, the pathway to understanding them is readily available. As a first step, reading the Scriptures and its Key (provided by Mary Baker Eddy) can give us an intellectual grasp of Science, the unmistakable label describing the contents of every spiritual idea from "a blade of grass to a star" (SH 70:12). The second step is to open the package and view the ingredients for ourselves - to ask God for the meaning of the written word and to be willing to open consciousness toward spiritual reality. We must be still and ready to listen when the door opens! The third step is to hear the answers - to witness the dissolution of evil as power, to detach evil from our identity, and to face only good. Jesus said, "Get thee behind me, Satan," for he was not willing to embody evil's temptations (Luke 4:8). The fourth step is to confirm that the human circumstance corresponds to the divine idea - to boldly watch until enlightened thought forms anew a higher sense of self and better human conditions. The fifth stage is to witness and seal the victory - to have truth written in our foreheads. All forms made of flesh are illusive, but to human sense, the body first improves. In the sixth stage, we are drawn by divine Love alone to understand our true spiritual identity without any material counterpart. This is when evil turns on us to devour the child as soon as it is born - as we lose dependence on matter for our life, a mental enemy attempts to find refuge in an enlightened human. When nearing the end of mortal mind's display of hatred, the great red dragon may make us shout, 'I cannot do this!' or 'I do not understand!' In agony, we may repeat Jesus' words: "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me" (Matt 26:39). This is the cross which lifts us above earth's dark night. Separate and alone with God, we rise above complicity with evil and humbly affirm our commitment to truth, declaring, "Not as I will, but as thou wilt" (Matt 26:39). "The trials encountered by prophet, disciple, and apostle, 'of whom the world was not worthy,' await, in some form, every pioneer of truth" (SH 28:29). They had all tasted heaven and were undeterred by their own remnant fears. "The Apostle John testified to the divine basis of Christian Science, when dire inflictions failed to destroy his body" (SH 388:7). "Jesus' unchanged physical condition
after what seemed to be death was followed by his exaltation
above all material conditions" (SH 46:20). We rest in Science
on the seventh day, satisfied that we have eaten and digested
Truth, and are living Love. George Denninger © |
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