This video clip delightfully captures facts and figures about the "exponential times" we live in. While watching it a few times, I had to ask, from a spiritual standpoint, What is changing? and
What is changeless?
In a nutshell, what changes are the forms and means of those things that are changeless. Like, how we worship may change, but that we worship doesn't. How we communicate changes, but the fact that we communicate doesn't.
Ideas that transcend time are lasting, and I find lots of these ideas in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, who has written her book based on the Bible. Here are some of those ideas.
God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis.
Academics of the right sort are requisite. Observation, invention, study, and original thought are expansive and should promote the growth of mortal mind out of itself, out of all that is mortal.
Spiritual causation is the one question to be considered, for more than all others spiritual causation relates to human progress. The age seems ready to approach this subject, to ponder somewhat the supremacy of Spirit, and at least to touch the hem of Truth's garment.
Progress takes off human shackles. The finite must yield to the infinite.
Evidences of progress and of spiritualization greet us on every hand. Drug-systems are quitting their hold on matter and so letting in matter's higher stratum, mortal
mind. Homoeopathy, a step in degrees advance of allopathy, is doing this. Matter is going out of medicine; and mortal mind, of a higher attenuation than the drug, is governing the pellet.
Advancing to a higher plane of action, thought rises from the material sense to the
spiritual, from the scholastic to the inspirational, and from the mortal to the immortal. All things are created spiritually. Mind, not matter, is the creator. Love, the divine Principle, is the Father and Mother of the universe, including man.
Science reveals only one Mind, and this one shining by its own light and governing
the universe, including man, in perfect harmony. This Mind forms ideas, its own images, subdivides and radiates their borrowed light, intelligence, and so explains the Scripture phrase, "whose seed is in itself." Thus God's ideas "multiply and replenish the earth." The divine Mind supports the sublimity, magnitude, and infinitude of spiritual creation.
Divine Love blesses its own ideas, and causes them to multiply,--to manifest His power.
And from Mary Baker Eddy's other writings:
This age is reaching out towards the perfect Principle of things; is pushing towards perfection in art, invention, and manufacture. Why, then, should religion be stereotyped, and we not obtain a more perfect and practical Christianity? It will never do to be behind the times in things most essential, which proceed from the standard of right that regulates human destiny.
Human skill but foreshadows what is next to appear as its divine origin. Proportionately as we part with material systems and theories, personal doctrines and dogmas, meekly to ascend the hill of Science, shall we reach the maximum of perfection in all things. Miscellaneous Writings p. 232(From an interview with Mary Baker Eddy) "But the pursuit of modern material inventions?""Oh, we cannot oppose them. They all tend to newer, finer, more etherealized ways of living. They seek the finer essences. ..... We use them, we make them our figures of speech. They are preparing the way for us." from The First Church of Christ Scientist and Miscellany, p. 35
3 comments:
Kim,
This is great. Thanks for the spiritual perspective on what can attempt to be such overwhelming material circumstances of our world.
While there may be vast amounts of exponentially expanding information on the internet, we need to keep in mind that most of it is bogus information. Mere fluff.
Mrs. Eddy tells us in S&H 405:5
“Christian Science commands man to master the propensities,--to hold hatred in abeyance with kindness, to conquer lust with chastity, revenge with charity, and to overcome deceit with honesty. Choke these errors in their early stages, if you would not cherish an army of conspirators against health, happiness, and success.”
Jesus tells us in the Bible Matt 10:16
“Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves,: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.”
Both admonish us to be careful and conscientious in what we take in as fact. To sift the wheat from the tares.
My son (about 13 at the time) once got a disk copied from the internet with information on it on how to build something. I don’t recall exactly what it was at the moment, but I remember looking at it and thinking there wasn’t enough information there. We discussed it and did a more in depth discovery and found that had he gone forward with it as first presented it could, in fact, have been dangerous.
“Wise as serpents and harmless as doves” is indeed a good motto to follow in expansive times.
Jim
Thx for your comments, Cameron and Jim -
Jim - you bring out a good point about being wise as serpents. Technology does not manage us, we manage technology.
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