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Is there are need
for it?
Comment: I need a
practitioner who can heal. A member of my family has used various
practitioners to no avail. I know Christian Science works. I have been
healed as a child, and seen healings of others. I have to believe that
healing is not lost... (Harold)
Comment: I could only
shake my head while reading Harold's note (above) ... It saddened me
to see that it was not just my experience to fail to find a
practitioner that can REALLY heal. I have had several practitioners
but no healing. You may have also seen the woman who wrote that the
only thing the practitioners she called did was to take her money.
The comments were
posted on a public guest book.
What might block
the healing efficacy?
It has been said that Christian Science
is so simple that a child can apply it and heal. Indeed, there may
have been such cases. I don't think however that it is quite as
simple as it seems.
Christ Jesus said in essence
that if one comes before the altar of God and a brother has ought
against one, then one should reconcile that first and return later
once it is done. His counsel leaves no room for hypocrisy and
makes strong demands on our love. As John pointed out, God is Love
(universal Love), and that without love we cannot see God. Thus,
Christ Jesus is perfectly correct in saying in essence: What's the
point in coming before the altar of God if one can't see God. Is he
not saying that without a rich sense of universal love filling our
heart and mind, and this love being light in our being in
which we tangibly see God manifest, what would be the point in
reaching out for divine metaphysics for healing? With the face of
God being Love, should we do everything humanly possible to uplift
our humanity till the face of God is shining through everywhere.
Then, healing won't be far away.
The way I see it, there is only one
divine Love. The love of the Father embracing humanity universally,
is the same love that is also ours to reflect, with which we
are embracing humanity universally. If the divine Principle of
universal divine Love is not alive in our hearts, manifest in
corresponding action in our humanity, our lives don't pattern the
divine. As John might have put it, if our love doesn't impel
corresponding action of loving humanity in universal terms we
cannot see God and behold the divine omni-action, or benefit from
it. Or as Christ Jesus has put it, saying to us, that if you don't
love so that you can actually see the face of God, why would
you come before the altar of God? Mary Baker Eddy once said: I
make great demands on love and require active proof and noble
sacrifices... (Miss. Writ. 249) It appears that we have a long way
to go to reach up to that standard, both as Christian Scientists
and as humanity as a whole.
It is easy to say that God is Love, a
universal divine Principle. But that's just paying lip-service if
divine Love isn't unfolding in active and substantial ways in the
way relate to one-another, and enrich one-another with our love.
Divine Love remains a mere theory, a distant myth, until the substance
of love comes alive in our living so that the face of God becomes abandoned
everywhere. When Mary Baker Eddy healed s paralyzed woman in the
space of the moment of her carriage passing by the woman, the love
that powered this profound healing wasn't theoretical of
psychological or emotional. It stood on the pinnacle of a lifetime
of uplifting humanity. I would suggest that in this love Mary
Baker Eddy saw the utter impossibility of evil to have a place in
the world. That love was more than gratitude. It was something
beyond gratitude. I think that in this love she stood before the
altar of God and saw in that woman's face the face of God and she
was satisfied that it was shining through.
The need for
exploring the Principle of Universal Love
I know I am still far away from meeting
this requirement of the Principle of Universal Love. One seems to
be confronted with countless reasons why the Principle of
Universal Love doesn't apply to this and to that situation. For
example, I set out twenty years ago to write a novel to
explore the dimension of the Principle of Universal Love. A
novel provides a better platform for such an exploration as its
form enables dialog. As it turned out, the work that I started now
stands as a series of nine novels (The Lodging for the Rose). It
is surprising how far reaching is the subject of universal love
is, since the Principle of Universal Love is largely unfamiliar in
the general sphere of society, or is actively rejected, and
blocked by emotions and traditions and customs and creed. The nine
novels that resulted for this exploration have now been written,
though I still have a few more years of work yet to do to finish
the cleanup that is still required. See http://books.rolf-witzsche.com
I found it interesting to pay attention
to the mental background of love (and gratitude for love if it is
true). Love produces the most beautiful 'pattern.' Christian
Science healing is a beautiful process, but it has also been my
experience that it has never been a shallow process. While the
healing often came easily when it did, usually many years of
patient footsteps were leading up to it. That
is why I suspect that we have yet a long way yet to go to
match the beauty of divine Love in our loving. Perhaps I should
say that we haven't even begun. Obviously we haven't made much
progress.
Since Mary Baker Eddy's time,
instead of an expanded love in the world, we have seen the
most massive butchery of human beings that ever occurred in
history, and a lot of that that is still happening. Society also
still 'nurtures' close to 40,000 atomic bombs in the world,
enough to totally eradicate the human race, even while we hear
ever louder threats of intentions to use them. We also run today
the most massive looting operations in human history, to the point
that entire regions are collapsing into abject poverty, with
the biggest slavery operations of all times being carried our
that are collapsing the economies of many nations. For as
long as we as human beings maintain policies that kill people with
totally preventable causes at the rate of close to 50,000 a day as
some relief organizations estimate (most of the victim being
children), we do not fulfill Jesus' requirements for
standing before that altar of God with universal love in our heart.
I see only sparse evidence for a few small steps of
universal love being taken today to overcome the tragic
deficiencies in our world. Where are the pioneers of the love of
society standing in the hustings fighting for the welfare of
mankind with enough love in their hearts to inspire meaningful
efforts. I see no such efforts, even in the field of Christian
Science. The Principle of Universal Love is no longer alive
anywhere so it seems, with a few small exceptions. Thus, in Christ
Jesus' measure, our path to the altar of God, to the
efficacy of the divine Principle of scientific mental healing is
largely blocked by this deficiency in our love. For as long as
countless people go hungry (over 38 million in America alone) and
hardly anyone raises a finger, Christ Jesus' requirement for
facing the altar of God remains unfulfilled. Should we be
surprised then that this failure is reflected in the lack of
efficiency in Christian Science healing? Who in today's world can
look into the face of another human being and see in this face the
face of God shining through, and then honors oneself and the other
accordingly?
Once this kind of foundation is
built, then I think Christian Scientists, as society as a whole,
will become naturally efficient in the practice of divine
metaphysics, and definitely so in the practice of love, if indeed
there is a difference between the two. It also appears that this
stepping up process is already having some positive results, few
as they may be.
While we support slavery, looting,
poverty, and other genocidal processes, even by our inaction,
it is difficult to say that we love. Perhaps we don't know what
love is. Divine Love is not the absence of hate. It is a profound
and active quality. And so should be our love. It is my hope that
this love can be developed to the point that it can heal a cancer
in one visit and uplift the whole world along the way since the
two go hand in hand.
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