Come join us this Friday night for food and inspiration at the Encinitas Reading Room.  We will be having BBQ chicken sandwiches at 5:30 and start Mark’s talk at 6:00 with discussion after.  

Mark’s talk is a rebroadcast of one he gave at Morning Light nursing home’s 2022 annual Meeting address.  Mark’s thought provoking ideas I am sure will lead us to a lively discussion of how we can continue to grow with our community.

Please join us and if you come early you can bring something to share when we break bread at 5:30.

See you Friday!

“THE GATE BEAUTIFUL”

CLARA SCHRADER STREETER

From the April 1927 issue of The Christian Science Journal

IN the third chapter of Acts, in one of the most interesting incidents of early apostolic days, it is related that one who had been lame from birth was carried daily and laid “at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful,” that he might ask alms of those who entered into the temple. On a certain day, as Peter and John were going to the temple at the hour of prayer, this one lying at the Beautiful gate asked an alms of them, and Peter said to him, “Silver and gold have I none ; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.” And we are told that “he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God.” And the people that stood by “knew that it was he which sat for alms at the Beautiful gate of the temple: and they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him.”

No further description of this Beautiful gate is given in the Biblical narrative ; but in the eastern wall of the temple area in Jerusalem, near the famous Golden gate built in the time of Constantine, may still be seen two enormous jambs, now used as pillars, which appear to be the remains of a very ancient gateway. Tradition calls this the ruin of “the Beautiful gate of the temple,” mentioned in Acts, which probably led into the splendid colonnade known as Solomon’s porch. Josephus says that the temple had “nine gates which were covered with gold and silver; but there was one gate which was without the temple, and was of Corinthian brass and greatly excelled those which were only covered with gold or silver. The other gates were of the same size, but the Corinthian gate which opened on the east, over against the gate of the holy house itself, was much larger. This last most likely was the gate which is called Beautiful, because it was on the outside of the temple, to which there was easy access, and because it evidently was the most costly.”

To the people of to-day the value of this ancient gate, once called Beautiful, lies not so much in its intrinsic merit as an archaeological relic of the past, as in its association with the healing work of the apostles, and in the spiritual beauty which it may be said to symbolize. In this respect the gate Beautiful will remain a living reality long after the traditional pillars in the temple area in Jerusalem have crumbled away, and the place where they now stand has been lost in the debris of the onrushing centuries; for it has become one of the ineffaceable landmarks denoting the progress of the Science of healing, which Jesus and his early followers taught and demonstrated. Yet it was not of the radiance of Corinthian brass gleaming in the afternoon sunshine, nor of the grace of classic architecture which this one who “stood, and walked” for the first time in his life was thinking as he circled round among the people in Solomon’s porch. He was thinking of a far more transcendentally beautiful gate, the peerless gate of spiritual healing, which leads into the temple “not made with hands,” wherein is seen reflected the perfect man made in the image and likeness of God. As the light from this temple of glorified being streamed into his consciousness, all hereditary, crippled, and limiting beliefs faded away, and “immediately,” it is written, “his feet and ankle bones received strength;” for strength always belongs to man, God’s perfect spiritual idea. This joyous moment of instantaneous healing is clearly explained by Mrs. Eddy in the Christian Science textbook, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” (p. 14), where she writes: “Become conscious for a single moment that Life and intelligence are purely spiritual,—neither in nor of matter,—and the body will then utter no complaints. If suffering from a belief in sickness, you will find yourself suddenly well. Sorrow is turned into joy when the body is controlled by spiritual Life, Truth, and Love.”

It is “at the hour of prayer,” of spiritual communion with the divine ever-presence, that this moment of spiritual consciousness comes and brings its mental peace and its physical healing. When Peter and John came to the temple, they were filled with the spirit of prayer and praise because of the Pentecostal blessings which they so recently had received. But they already had shared with others their material riches; there was only one thing left to give to him who so piteously begged for alms at the Beautiful gate. Had he faith to reach out for it? Then Peter said, “Look on us;” and to the uplifted thought there must have come the longing for heavenly riches, for he grasped the hand extended to raise him out of his helpless condition, and through the Beautiful gate of healing entered with the apostles into the temple.

The spiritual meaning of the word “temple” is thus given by Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health (p. 595): “Body; the idea of Life, substance, and intelligence; the superstructure of Truth; the shrine of Love.” Any gateway which leads to this understanding of “temple,” is adorned with a beauty which neither burnished brass nor marble column can approach. In a poem of exquisite grace, James Russell Lowell has personified the Beautiful gate in a legend which tells how a knight, returning impoverished from a lifelong search for a traditional treasure—the cup out of which the Master partook of the last supper with his disciples— found the healing Christ at his own threshold while he shared his brown crust and bowl of water with a leper at the gate, when lo,

A light shone round the place;
The leper no longer crouched by his side,
But stood before him glorified,
Shining and tall and fair and straight
As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful
Gate.

In each and every consciousness there is a gate called Beautiful; but as with the legendary knight of old searching for material treasures, or the cripple of Pentecostal days, years of sickness, suffering, possibly of wandering, may elapse before one learns to look away from perishable things, and to search in the straight and narrow way of spiritual living for the Beautiful gate which leads into the kingdom of heaven on earth. Sometimes this spiritual realization comes through prayer and consecration ; sometimes through bravely facing the difficult places in daily life; often by breaking one’s bread with another in need. At times one may see this Beautiful gate afar off and steadily advance towards it; or, again, he may come upon it suddenly at some bend of the road, and at once lose his former mistaken sense of values. Each one in his own way is advancing towards a gateway which some day he will call Beautiful, because it will lead him “at the hour of prayer” into the temple of God.

No stately pillars marked the spot where Jacob saw the ladder which reached from earth to heaven, saw the messengers of God as angels ascending and descending upon it, and heard the voice of God awakening him to a sense of enlarged opportunities and greater responsibilities, and assuring him of divine guidance. Yet, in the dawning light, as Jacob lifted his head from the stony pillow upon which it had rested, he exclaimed, “This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” Alone in the desert at night, with only the stars as sentinels, Jacob had found the gate Beautiful, the way to heaven or harmony, and, afterwards, in all his wanderings, and through many a sorrow, he never forgot the spiritual vision.

In home or office, in prison or mansion, in the depths of the earth or on the heights above the earth, on the sea or in the desert, one may find this Beautiful gate of spiritual inspiration. It stands in the plain, straight road of common duties lovingly performed, of fair-play business methods, of magnanimous conduct, of healing the sick and comforting the sorrowing. Wherever Truth is revealed, the gateway opening to it is always beautiful, although at the time one may not be conscious of its loveliness. Saul of Tarsus came suddenly upon the gate Beautiful at noonday, while on the road to Damascus, whither he was going to persecute the followers of Jesus. No visible archway marked the spot where the “light from heaven” shone round about Saul, and where he heard the voice of Truth; but the revelation of man’s high estate as a child of God was so wonderful to him that for the time being he lost his sense of earthly sight. After Saul had been healed of this blindness, his entire nature was so altered that his name was changed to Paul, and he found himself a “chosen vessel” designed to carry the gospel of Jesus the Christ to the Gentile world. In the loftiness of his zeal, Paul later wrote: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Believing that these words of Paul, and other similar Bible statements, were literally true, and that the healing works of Jesus were demonstrable in every age, Mary Baker Eddy found the gate Beautiful along the road of faith in the power of God’s Word rightly understood. With her textbook, the spiritual interpretation of the Word of God, Mrs. Eddy has reopened all the jeweled gates into the city which lieth foursquare, the New Jerusalem, in which there is no material temple or body, no need for light of sun or moon, no necessity for unremitting toil, no limitation, no struggle for wealth or position. In this city there is no crying, no dying, no sin, no sickness, for it is entered through the Beautiful gate of spiritual understanding. No river of Lethe or death separates this holy city from man; for it is the kingdom or knowledge of God come down to earth, as the Revelator foresaw.

Many people even now are conscious of their active citizenship in this city of God; and they are going about, as did Jesus when he dwelt among men, healing the sick, cleansing impure thoughts, comforting those who are bowed down with grief and care. Such workers, having the Mind “which was also in Christ Jesus,” joyously appreciate the truth as revealed in Christian Science and expressed in Mrs. Eddy’s words in “The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany” (p. 132): “Divine Love hath opened the gate Beautiful to us, where we may see God and live, see good in good,—God all, one,—one Mind and that divine ; where we may love our neighbor as ourselves, and bless our enemies.” And she says further (p. 133): “Ofttimes I think of this in the great light of the present, the might and light of the present fulfilment. So shall all earth’s children at last come to acknowledge God, and be one; inhabit His holy hill, the God-crowned summit of divine Science.”

Fin

Encinitas Holiday Parade

Happy Thanks Giving From the Christian Science Reading Room in Encinitas

Enjoy this Video Made by Discover Bound

We currently are not holding A Thanksgiving Testimonial Meeting

but locally the closest place to us is at the Rancho Santa Fe Church at 10:00 am. Directions.
Or find a Thanksgiving church service in your area by Clicking here

October the 31st can conjure up many images and emotions, but at the Christian Science Society of Encinitas Reading Room, we take this opportunity to reach out to the community and bless big and small with a stroll through the Garden of the Great Spirit. This year’s event had another very large attendance, up in the thousands, from both repeat guests that were delighted to be greeted again by friendly faces and big smiles as they made their way through the decorated garden, as well as first time visitors looking in wonder as they read signs of Truth and Love and met with costumed greeters. One such visitor approached to say, “ I really feel the Spirt here”For many, it may be their first introduction to knowing God is Love, and for others it may just be a peaceful respite from what can be a frightening evening, but everyone who came through expressed gratitude either by word or smile.
Some stopped to ask questions about Christian Science, some took literature, but most of all it blessed the community with sharing messages of Truth and also a little fun and a sweet treat. Watch for it again next Halloween, as we will be back to welcome all to the Garden of the Great Spirit once again.

  Also, put November 20th on your calendar this year to come to the Reading Room to volunteer, participate, or just take in the vibe of the day at your local community Christian Science Reading Room as it opens up for the day during the Encinitas Street fair.  When you come, you will find that we are not just passive observers of the event, but instead an active focal point where we interact with the fair goers as they flood through our gate and into the garden to play the God’s name game.
Over the years we have become one of the fair’s most popular events with hundreds of kids and their parents in tow entering the Reading Room garden to play this game and have a day of Christian Science Sunday school learning the 7 synonyms of God as expressed in the Christian Science text book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.

Please come and be a part of this community event.  If for some reason you can not attend but would like to support our event,  you may do so by sponsoring 10 kids with their T-shirt prize that they receive after completing the game.  The cost for a sponsorship is $100 for 10 kid’s, or however more or less you want to sponsor as the Spirit moves you. To donate please click here.

improve government

Last February 2022, the Editor of The Christian Science Monitor, Mark Sappenfield, shared his thoughts on the challenges and opportunities during a time of great political division. Since we received quite a few comments and questions from listeners, we invited Mark back to the studio to take another look at how we can improve government by leaning on God.

Freinds, we will not be conducting a service this Sunday due to unforeseen circumstances.  Please join us next Sunday for our regular service in person or online.  Also, on Halloween we will need as many volunteers as possible to help out.  Last year we had over 2600 people come and visit our Reading Room’s garden of the Great Spirit during Halloween.

Check out this post to see last years event.

Halloween 2021

Please let us know if you are able to volunteer on Monday Oct 31, 2022..

Melanie Wahlberg, Speaker

When we feel overwhelmed by life’s problems, we may want to try to get more from the world. But when we do the opposite – give more of ourselves or focus on the Godgiven qualities we already have to express or contribute, we find that we end up not lacking anything. Really, we gain the unexpected good of joy, health, and strength that move our lives and the world forward.

Sunday, October 9, 2022 – 12:30 PM

Church Service – 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM

Light lunch & music – 12:00 – 12:30 PM

Location

First Church of Christ, Scientist
2450 Second Avenue
San Diego, CA 92101

For more information

619 233 3571
PrayerThatHeals.org/1stSD

Come join us tonight for fun and memory’s of days gone by!  But, also take a minute and read this thought provoking article by James Spencer in the Christian Science journal where he discounts the idea that the “good old days” of Christian Science healing is a thing of the past.

The good old days
By James Spencer
From the December 2016 issue of The Christian Science Journal

A friend of mine told me, after a church service, that he had formerly been a member of a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, in the Midwest. Everyone there knew of a woman who had come to a service painfully lame, leaning on a cane, and left the service completely well. He said she hadn’t known anything about Christian Science at the time. That was in the early days of the Christian Science movement, and my friend said with awe: “That’s the way it used to be. Those were the good old days!” Then he said sadly, “Those days are gone.”

“But they’re not gone,” I told him. “Christian Science, Divine Science, the Comforter, is no different today!” I quoted a familiar passage to him from the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures—a passage that shelves forever the “good old days” syndrome, where its author, Mary Baker Eddy, writes: “It is not well to imagine that Jesus demonstrated the divine power to heal only for a select number or for a limited period of time, since to all mankind and in every hour, divine Love supplies all good” (p. 494).

“Even in our everyday experience, we would never believe the principle of mathematics to be less viable or available today than in the “good old days.”……..

That universal, divine power has its source in God, divine Principle. That power, so freely and fully demonstrated by Christ Jesus, is actually God’s timeless law of good that reforms and restores those in need of healing. The Master’s mission didn’t terminate with time, because God, infinite, eternal Love, doesn’t stop being Love. And spiritual law doesn’t stop being law. Even in our everyday experience, we would never believe the principle of mathematics to be less viable or available today than in the “good old days.” And that’s what I told my friend.

True, if a mathematician stops taking the study of math seriously, stops consistently applying the math he knows, decides not to go forward to pursue higher forms of mathematics, or is diverted from his study and application by a flood of activities, there probably won’t be much progress in his understanding of mathematical operations and the relationship between numbers and the principle of math. That, however, could not destroy, or even attenuate, the law of mathematics. But it would undoubtedly make a significant impact on the mathematician and his ability to serve those in need of the science of numbers.

Mrs. Eddy draws an interesting comparison between Christ’s practical Christianity and mathematics when she writes, referring to relying on divine Principle, God: “If we work to become Christians as honestly and as directly upon a divine Principle, and adhere to the rule of this Principle as directly as we do to the rule of mathematics, we shall be Christian Scientists, and do more than we are now doing, and progress faster than we are now progressing” (Christian Healing, pp. 8–9).

The perfect, timeless law of good to which we need to apply ourselves is the law of the divine Principle, Love—the Science that governs God’s universe, maintaining the harmony and order of His infinite creation. The Psalmist said: “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul” (Psalms 19:7).

Divine Science, the Holy Ghost, is ever operative and ever effective.
One reason the healings attributed to “the good old days” might seem a thing of the past is that there does appear to be increased resistance to the study and application of Christian Science, brought about partly by the antagonism of materialism to things of the Spirit, by ignorance of what Christian Science is, and by a misconception of its Discoverer and Founder, Mary Baker Eddy. The basis of the resistance is the age-old belief in a power and presence apart from God. It has been given many names in the Bible: Lucifer, deceiver, antichrist, liar, adversary, serpent—to mention just a few. This impersonal, lawless antagonism changes its name and method from year to year, and from moment to moment. It claims to be something when it is actually nothing. But the subtlety of it is that its claim often tempts one to believe in its somethingness. It could be likened to darkness, which is only the absence of light, although the darkness may seem very real to one who has lost the path of light. Jesus was well aware of such temptation, and called it “a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44). The liar even tried to tempt Jesus to believe that it was his own thinking (see Matthew 4:1–11).

Despite the remarkable success of Jesus’ mission, he still had to deal with the constant heaviness of the world’s resistance. It culminated in the final attempt to destroy him through the crucifixion. But hatred, envy—material mindedness—couldn’t terminate the effect of his God-mission. His disciples continued to do good works, though they also had to handle the resistance to Truth and Love. And so must we. The Master gave us this admonition: “Whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27).

The Christian Science textbook explains: “The real cross, which Jesus bore up the hill of grief, was the world’s hatred of Truth and Love” (p. 50). I have often felt that the same type of resistance aimed at the Christ, the power and presence of divine Love that Jesus so fully expressed, is the figurative cross we bear today. It often appears as a relentless, patient, silent, systematic, ongoing presentation of materialism, projected before individuals generally or to some individuals specifically. Not everyone picks up or is aware of the suggestions, but everyone is subjected to them. Persistent spiritual alertness, purity of thought, unselfed love, and an understanding of the actual allness of divine Mind, resists the suggestions, or enables one to be completely immune to them.

The opportunity is ever available to neutralize the aggressive arguments and resistance to Truth, to uncover and remove the diversions that would aggressively attempt to tamp down the practical progress of the Cause of Christian Science. The opportunity is right at hand to defeat the false sense that attempts to delay and reverse the advancement of spiritual good in the individual Christian Scientist. The success of both the beginner and the seasoned worker is assured as each becomes aware of the guidance and comforting love of divine Love, our Father-Mother God. No one can actually be separated or isolated from the comfort and care provided by the loving ministrations of divine Science, the Holy Comforter.

Science and Health explains: “The real man being linked by Science to his Maker, mortals need only turn from sin and lose sight of mortal selfhood to find Christ, the real man and his relation to God, and to recognize the divine sonship” (p. 316).

Mortals are the direct contradiction, the counterfeit, the non–image and likeness, of Spirit, God. Christ, the real, ideal man, is the direct image and likeness, the self-expression, of divine Mind, the all-knowing God. I have found much inspiration in the realization that as mortals recognize, accept, and understand the real man that Jesus exemplified, this humble acceptance and understanding unfolds the Science of Christ to consciousness. This Christ Science operates as law, with the reliability of law, and heals all manner of sickness and sin today as it did in Jesus’ day.

The Science of being that demonstrates our eternal life in God, Life, is here for everyone. But it needs to be understood and practiced.

Here is how one individual turned to this Science when faced with a very pressing need. “In my country,” he related, “if you want to renew or update a prescription for your glasses, it’s mandatory that you see a medical doctor. I had just gone to one to have him give me an eye exam. He diagnosed a cataract in my left eye, and told me I needed to have a surgical operation right away, as the cataract was increasing. I didn’t have the surgery. I asked a Christian Science practitioner for treatment about it. After a short time, I felt free and discontinued treatment. Some time later, I returned to the doctor for the mandatory examination. His answer was that I would never need surgery, as the eye and vision were normal. The healing has been permanent.”

The practitioner prayed to see, or understand, the ideal man as the creative self-expression of God. It became evident to the practitioner that true vision is the outcome of clear spiritual understanding. Even in our everyday experience, when we don’t understand something, we might say, “I just can’t see it.” Then when the understanding comes we say, “Now I see it clearly.” Divine Mind perfectly knows, sees, understands, all, because it knows itself and its perfection. Therefore, for divine Mind to know is for divine Mind to see—and for man to know, because he reflects Mind, is for man to see, because he reflects Mind.

It was clear to the practitioner that human vision is no more dependent on a material eye when we’re awake, than when we seem to see objects when we’re asleep. The practitioner had a clear perception that man is not mortal, but immortal, spiritual, perfect, and whole; that spiritual man, the ideal man, is eternally governed by divine law. Every law of divine Principle that governs the spiritual idea, man, is effective right here and now, as Jesus proved by healing all manner of sickness. The practitioner understood that a medical diagnosis couldn’t outline a course of development for the patient, that it had no authority to dominate, or to impose an outcome. Resistance to the timeless, healing Christ couldn’t delay or obviate the present operation of spiritual law. Divine Science, the Holy Ghost, is ever operative and ever effective.

The fact is, we actually live in the eternal now of God’s ever-presence. Therefore, this healing, and every Christian Science healing, teaches us not to look longingly to the past. This brings the assurance that the “good old days” are truly the “good present days,” and are a promise of all the days to come!