Description
Association Addresses included in Vol IV are:
Association Address – 1946
• TRUE SELFHOOD
• THE PEARL of GREAT PRICE
When you learn to think beyond matter and in terms of metaphysics, you will see that disease and discord are not included in this mode of reasoning. Sickness can be conceived of only when thought is bound by physical sense. Sin is inherent in the belief in corporeality and can seem to be experienced only in connection therewith. Lack and limitation have their origin in the belief in matter, and to seem to come under them one must think in terms of matter. Discord, dullness, drabness, lack of love, lack of vivacity, or of joy, all require thought to turn away from the marvelous glories of the divine Mind, which can be perceived only through metaphysics or thinking that goes beyond matter into Spirit. It is plain then, that in order to see our true selfhood and demonstrate it, we must hold thought above and beyond matter. We must let it soar into the divine Mind, claim its oneness with that Mind, and acknowledge our own inclusion in the infinite perfection of God as natural and normal.
What was the one lost piece of silver for which the woman of our time, our dear Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, so diligently searched? Was it not the lost element of healing, so long vanished from Christianity? Was it not the spiritual interpretation of the Lord’s prayer, which instantaneously heals the sick, the spiritual meaning of the Beatitudes and of the Commandments, and the spiritual understanding of the Scriptures as a whole? The world was not lacking in the letter of the Bible. Probably every Christian household owned a Bible – its words were before the people, but the practical meaning and availability of its teaching to a sick and sinful world had for years grown dimmer and dimmer.
Our Leader, in her own great need, and in her love for mankind, had long sought the way to spiritual healing of disease. You are all familiar with the healing which came to her through spiritual means only, and which set her forth upon her great life work “To,” in her own words, “organize a church designed to commemorate the word and works of our Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing.” (Man. 17:10)
Association Address – 1947
• SALVATION
• SPIRITUAL PRODUCTIVITY
Since Christ is not God but is the divine manifestation of God, and since God and man constitute the whole of creation, the Christ must be found in man. The Christ is true selfhood, God expressing Himself – and this must necessarily save from a false sense of selfhood, or from the belief in incarnate error.
Our leader further says, “The Christ is incorporeal, spiritual, ‒ yea, the divine image and likeness, dispelling the illusions of the senses.” (S&H 332:11) She also says, “The Christ was Jesus’ spiritual selfhood.” (’01, 8:24) The divine image and likeness, the incorporeal, spiritual idea expressing the power of God, and dispelling the illusions of the senses, is the true selfhood of all God’s children, and is our saviour from materialism. It was because Jesus let the incorporeal, spiritual Christ have ascendancy in consciousness that he could be the Saviour of the world. As a human he understood the needs of humanity. As the exemplar and demonstrator of the Christ he expressed the God-idea which heals and blesses.
Salvation in Humor
Among the qualities which might be termed transitional or humanly good, but which in its higher sense is found in the wholeness, completeness, and infinite variety of divine Mind, and awaiting expression through you, is true humor, with its happy merriment. True humor is included in Love’s spontaneity and expresses itself in man in innocent gaiety and blitheness. Like other spiritual qualities, it is a component part of man’s true selfhood, ever ready to be expressed. True humor is gentle, never caustic; inspirational, never forced. It is healing and uplifting, leaving behind it a sweet sense of refreshment. It relieves tension and breaks the spell of fear. It dissipates the stiffness and false reserve of mortal mind and establishes friendliness at the outset. Before it self-importance topples, and a false sense of responsibility loses its weight.
Divine Mind is the great and only real producer. It produces spiritual ideas and these ideas constitute creation, or real production. They reflect the intelligence of the creating, governing Principle of the universe. Since there is no end to creation – no end to the multiplication of divine ideas – there is no end to the productivity of divine Mind. The output of divine Mind is not subject to discord or decay, change or dissolution. It is not stored up in material warehouses, but is held, incorruptible and safe, in the inviolable realism of Spirit. The substance of Mind is laid up in the holy consciousness of good, “where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.” (Matt. 6:20)
The unfoldment to consciousness of the divine Mind as the only producer is the seed within itself which is constantly productive of new unfoldments – new ideas.