Sunday, August 11th, 2019 Roundtable

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Morning Prayers

Oh, keep me ever seeing Thee and seeing as Thou seest, my Life, my joy, my All.

Oh, that an influx of divine light and glory may enter each and every one of our hearts, and that you be endued anew with power from on high.

God, forgive me for having any doubt, fear or lack of faith that all things are not possible with Thee.

— from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, (the “Blue Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, page 61

Discussion points

380 — WATCH lest you be found wishing and praying for human prosperity. Our work and prayer should be for sonship, that we may be faithful to the demands of sonship; then we will manifest the effects of sonship. We can say, “Dear Father-Mother God, I want Thy will to be done. If human prosperity is necessary as an evidence of my reflection of Thee, since Thou art all-abundance, then I will accept it; but my prayer is for less matter and more Spirit.”

Human prosperity, if it means an abundance of the very thing that we are striving to put off in Science, namely, the belief in matter, will be a hindrance to growth. Would a metaphysician be found praying for an increase in that which is the opposite — the enemy — of God? Let us pray for sonship. Then divine wisdom will furnish us with all the fruits of sonship in every wise way.

— from 500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter




Golden Text — “There is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.” — Job 32 : 8




Thank you Father

Thank you Father

For our food/snack

For our food/snack

Many, many blessings

Many, many blessings

Aaaamen, Aaaamen…..

— A Child’s Prayer sung before meals, (To the tune of “Frère Jacques”)




Before each meal, deny the existence of any power or intelligence that can interfere with our conscious oneness with God.

— from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, the “blue book,” by Mary Baker Eddy, page 195




…for Mark Baker, God came before all else, no matter the circumstances. Mrs. Eddy provides a small example of his unshakeable priorities:

At mealtimes, we had grace before the meal, and returning of thanks after every meal, and these prayers were not always short, either. Nor did it matter how threatening was the storm and how many tons of hay were in the field — father never permitted the order of these devotions to be altered in any particular.

— from Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy, by Irving Tomlinson




Once she (Mary Baker Eddy) wrote for the students in the home what she called, “A Rule at Pleasant View.” “No student can eat at my table who does not say a few words for God before he or she leaves the table. I was early educated to this. I always do it at my table because I cannot avoid doing it.”

— from Recollections of Mary Baker Eddy, by Gilbert C. Carpenter, C.S.B.




It has appeared to me of late that God’s love has strewn our path of life with tests all along the way, which serve the purpose of goodness in insuring worthiness alone an entrance into the heaven of Soul, otherwise there could be no Soul-heaven. These tests are continually adapted to our attainments. If we stand these tests, we are advanced in due time to the next tests that are greater. There are no useless delays in God’s government. In all of this there is so much tender consideration for our needs and adaptation to our capacity, and careful certainty that the enemy shall not be allowed to smuggle his hideousness in to obscure the beauty of the chosen ones of God, that I am in surprise that I am so often blind to the great fact that God is Love indeed.

— from Diary Records of James F. Gilman, published by Gilbert C Carpenter C.S.B., page 46




Forum post — “Reflecting Spirit’s Infinitude” by Parthens




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  • from Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy, Pages 390 to 394



  • It is not the hand that you have been dealt in life but how you handle it.

    — from Roundtable




    “Rise in the conscious strength of the spirit of Truth to overthrow the plea of mortal mind, alias matter, arrayed against the supremacy of Spirit.”

    — Citation 14 in this week’s Lesson from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 390 : 12-18, 32-2




    Exercise this God-given authority. Take possession of your body, and govern its feeling and action. Rise in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike good. God has made man capable of this, and nothing can vitiate the ability and power divinely bestowed on man.

    — Citation 16 in this week’s Lesson from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 393 : 10 (Exercise)-15




    “Rise” – to leave the place of sleep; to ascend, move upward; to get up to an erect posture; to swell in quantity or extent; to shine forth.

    — from Webster’s 1828 Dictionary




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    • “Pond and Purpose” from Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy, Pages 203-207



    • Be watchful, sober, and vigilant. The way is straight and narrow, which leads to the understanding that God is the only Life. It is a warfare with the flesh, in which we must conquer sin, sickness, and death, either here or hereafter, — certainly before we can reach the goal of Spirit, or life in God.

      — Citation 13 in this week’s Lesson from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 324




      Forum post — “It Is A Warfare With The Flesh” by Florence Roberts




      We thank Thee, heavenly Father,
      For Thy correcting rod,
      Which guides us in our journey
      And leads us home to God.
      It tells us not of anger,
      The weapon mortals sway,
      But Love divine, that helps us
      To keep the better way.

      O may we tread the pathway,
      Nor ever turn aside,
      Allured by ways of error,
      Whose paths are broad and wide.
      Toward Thee, while pressing onward,
      The way will brighter grow,
      For Thou throughout the journey
      Thy loving care wilt show.

      — Hymn 376 from the Christian Science Hymnal




      This scientific sense of being, forsaking matter for Spirit, by no means suggests man’s absorption into Deity and the loss of his identity, but confers upon man enlarged individuality, a wider sphere of thought and action, a more expansive love, a higher and more permanent peace.

      — Citation 12 in this week’s Lesson from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 265 : 10-15




      When we realize that Life is Spirit, never in nor of matter, this understanding will expand into self-completeness, finding all in God, good, and needing no other consciousness.

      Spirit and its formations are the only realities of being. Matter disappears under the microscope of Spirit. Sin is unsustained by Truth, and sickness and death were overcome by Jesus, who proved them to be forms of error. Spiritual living and blessedness are the only evidences, by which we can recognize true existence and feel the unspeakable peace which comes from an all-absorbing spiritual love.

      — Citation 11 in this week’s Lesson from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 264 : 15-27




      According to Christian Science, the only real senses of man are spiritual, emanating from divine Mind. Thought passes from God to man, but neither sensation nor report goes from material body to Mind. The intercommunication is always from God to His idea, man.

      — Citation 8 in this week’s Lesson from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 284




      Final Readings

      The Great Discovery

      Jesus of Nazareth was a natural and divine Scientist. He was so before the material world saw him. He who antedated Abraham, and gave the world a new date in the Christian era, was a Christian Scientist, who needed no discovery of the Science of being in order to rebuke the evidence. To one “born of the flesh,” however, divine Science must be a discovery. Woman must give it birth. It must be begotten of spirituality, since none but the pure in heart can see God, — the Principle of all things pure; and none but the “poor in spirit” could first state this Principle, could know yet more of the nothingness of matter and the allness of Spirit, could utilize Truth, and absolutely reduce the demonstration of being, in Science, to the apprehension of the age. …

      The divine hand led me into a new world of light and Life, a fresh universe — old to God, but new to His “little one.” It became evident that the divine Mind alone must answer, and be found as the Life, or Principle, of all being; and that one must acquaint himself with God, if he would be at peace. He must be ours practically, guiding our every thought and action; else we cannot understand the omnipresence of good sufficiently to demonstrate, even in part, the Science of the perfect Mind and divine healing.

      I had learned that thought must be spiritualized, in order to apprehend Spirit. It must become honest, unselfish, and pure, in order to have the least understanding of God in divine Science. The first must become last. Our reliance upon material things must be transferred to a perception of and dependence on spiritual things. For Spirit to be supreme in demonstration, it must be supreme in our affections, and we must be clad with divine power. Purity, self-renunciation, faith, and understanding must reduce all things real to their own mental denomination, Mind, which divides, subdivides, increases, diminishes, constitutes, and sustains, according to the law of God.

      I had learned that Mind reconstructed the body, and that nothing else could. How it was done, the spiritual Science of Mind must reveal. It was a mystery to me then, but I have since understood it. All Science is a revelation. Its Principle is divine, not human, reaching higher than the stars of heaven.

      — from “Great Discovery” in Retrospection and Introspection by Mary Baker Eddy, page 27-28







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