A few years back when my family (from many parts of the United States) was gathering together at my house, I knew I should start the week with a firmly established sense of spiritual protection and harmony. So I began to study and pray along these lines to prepare (I was doing some pre-prayer). Here are the basic points:
- Every person, child or adult, is in the exact center of their eternal Life (time) and has as much Life left to live as they have already lived. Life is eternal in both past and future. This eliminated fear for the elderly or frustration at the young and boisterous.
- Every person exists in the exact center of infinite Being (space). Every bit of man, every spiritual molecule of every person, is imbued and surrounded by infinite Perfection and therefore can not be less than perfectly functional. This took away pity and protected from illness and injury.
- Man is made in (“within”) the image of God and is God’s likeness. Man is not beside God, but similar to God; not close to God, but God’s likeness; not outside God reflecting God. Man is embraced by, surrounded by, encapsulated in God, divine Love. This protected each of us from the temptation to be a victim or villain; stopped anger before it started and reinforced harmony.
- God is man’s Life/Soul/Spirit. Without God man would lack animation. Mary Baker Eddy , the discoverer of Christian Science, defines “Creator” in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures Pg. 583 in part as “…the animating divine Principle of all that is real and good;…”. Since man is animated by God, all movement is harmonious, safe, principled and good.
- Man is one with man, because man is one with God. Mary Baker Eddy puts it this way in Science and Health pg. 267; “Generically man is one, and specifically man means all men.”, so if there is only One being, there must be only one relationship; God & Man. Therefore, there is no direct man to man relationship or person to person interaction within The God-man System. The relationship of the parts is by way of The Whole, which is God. All unavoidable communications between man and man must pass through The God-man System, The Whole or God, where they are filtered, purified, clarified, delivered and internalized. Any attempted communication outside the God-man system (such as anger, blame, judgment, violence, pride, fear, guilt, etc) can be denied, walked away from, or ignored. These outside-the-system communications need not be, and can not be, internalized. The Christ consciousness communicates to every human consciousness and doesn’t give conflicting messages to different human consciousnesses. Listening for the Christ idea insures harmony of family communications.
- Being part of God, existing within The God-man System, each man is the Christ-man. We know that “Jesus [the ideal Christ-man] beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals.”(Science and Health pg. 476) And indeed, Christian Scientists “solemnly promise to watch, and pray for that Mind to be in us which was also in Christ Jesus;” (Science and Health pg. 497), so it is our duty, our moral obligation, to see in others only what Christ Jesus would have seen in them – to see their perfection. Seeing only the perfection of those around us eliminates the possibility for any judgment, any pity, any worry, and any self-justification/defensiveness.
Spiritually and metaphysically prepared for the week of guests, the week was wonderful, totally harmonious and full of joy, health and activity.