“What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sunday, August 12, 2007
What lies within
The second death
A number of people asked me this week about the second death mentioned in Revelation 11:2.
The verse states:
The verse is included in the Christian Science Bible lesson for this past week on the subject of Spirit.
I’ve always interpreted the second death as the recurrent death that happens to mortals who have not yet discovered Life in Spirit after having passed from earth. And logic implies that there may be a third death, a fourth death, and so on, until the belief of life in matter is totally conquered.
Heaven is not a place people die into, I've always believed. It’s a state of Mind we grow into through increased spiritual understanding, whether the growth is accomplished here or hereafter.
From what I know, Jesus Christ did not teach that we die into heaven. His example taught the opposite, that death is to be conquered in order to discover heaven. That’s why he went through the crucifixion and then came back with the resurrection, to prove that death is not real.
Life is real and eternal. And he said, “Follow me.” In other words, Follow me in my demonstration of Life, and conquer death so you can discover heaven too.”
A lesson gained from death is the truth that there is no death. Mortals go through the experience only to learn they never died. And then existence goes on. As Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science wrote,
The "second death" is not anything to fear or worry about, but the mention of it by the Revelator John, who saw beyond the veil of matter to all things to come and all things that had passed, is proof that we need to be working out the problem of being now. We do not die and then get magically popped into paradise. There is spiritual work to be done first.
Heaven is a state of Mind discernible here and now. We find it in Life, in Spirit, where there is no death, no matter, and no end of anything good.
I take heart in knowing that in Spirit, there is no first death or second death. There is no death at all, only eternal Life.
We can live Life now. We don't have to wait. And then we see that the so-called “second death,” is not even a remote or far off possibility, for in Life there is no death. Only on-going good.
The verse states:
“He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.”
The verse is included in the Christian Science Bible lesson for this past week on the subject of Spirit.
I’ve always interpreted the second death as the recurrent death that happens to mortals who have not yet discovered Life in Spirit after having passed from earth. And logic implies that there may be a third death, a fourth death, and so on, until the belief of life in matter is totally conquered.
Heaven is not a place people die into, I've always believed. It’s a state of Mind we grow into through increased spiritual understanding, whether the growth is accomplished here or hereafter.
From what I know, Jesus Christ did not teach that we die into heaven. His example taught the opposite, that death is to be conquered in order to discover heaven. That’s why he went through the crucifixion and then came back with the resurrection, to prove that death is not real.
Life is real and eternal. And he said, “Follow me.” In other words, Follow me in my demonstration of Life, and conquer death so you can discover heaven too.”
A lesson gained from death is the truth that there is no death. Mortals go through the experience only to learn they never died. And then existence goes on. As Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science wrote,
“As death findeth mortal man, so shall he be after death, until probation and growth shall effect the needed change.”We all have to conquer sin, disease and death through Christ. First sin and disease must be proven unreal, then death will disappear.
The "second death" is not anything to fear or worry about, but the mention of it by the Revelator John, who saw beyond the veil of matter to all things to come and all things that had passed, is proof that we need to be working out the problem of being now. We do not die and then get magically popped into paradise. There is spiritual work to be done first.
Heaven is a state of Mind discernible here and now. We find it in Life, in Spirit, where there is no death, no matter, and no end of anything good.
I take heart in knowing that in Spirit, there is no first death or second death. There is no death at all, only eternal Life.
We can live Life now. We don't have to wait. And then we see that the so-called “second death,” is not even a remote or far off possibility, for in Life there is no death. Only on-going good.
Friday, August 10, 2007
How perceptive are you?
My wife and I needed to replace the wood stove on the lower level of our cabin in the Blue Mountains this year for it has become a safety hazard. So, last Tuesday we visited a stove store in Elgin, Oregon, to buy a replacement, and we learned the most fascinating information about what the trained eye can perceive that the untrained eye ignores.
The man who does the work was not in, but his wife greeted us and was a most gracious and a knowledgeable help.
She asked us several questions about the condition and state of our chimney to determine how much work needed to be done before the new stove could be installed. We were clueless on how to answer most of her questions, and began to wonder how many delays would transpire before the replacement could be made.
Then I brought out several pictures my wife had taken of the stove and its chimney. The woman looked at the pictures and pulled out one snapshot of the metal caps on top of the roof. The picture showed very little and looked quite meaningless to the casual eye, but she exclaimed, “Oh, Grant can figure out all the answers to our questions by looking at this picture.”
She explained that her husband could tell the age of the chimney, the quality of the piping, whether it needed to be swept or not from seeing that 6’ cap on top of the A-frame. Our jaws went a gap. I awed at how much knowledge an experienced eye could gain from such a small piece of evidence.
Then she blurted, “Maybe he knows your chimney already! Is your cabin located in a visible place from a main road?” And she further explained that he notices everyone’s chimney while driving to and from jobs. It was his work, “To know chimneys!” And we awed a bit more.
“Of course,” I later thought. “This man knows chimneys like a pianist knows the keys on a keyboard. He understands and finds meaning in minute details that the average person takes for granted.”
In seeking a spiritual lesson from this conversational exchange, I decided that we all should be just as observant of God’s presence at work in our environment as this chimney-sweep was of his neighbor’s stove-pipes. He needed to see only a few inches of evidence to deduce a huge sum of information not visible to the naked eye.
Do you notice your neighbor’s chimneys? Probably not, if it’s not your business to know chimneys.
But more importantly, do you notice your neighbor’s full blown God-given spiritual selfhood, even when it’s not obvious?
A simple good deed, a little smile, a kind gesture, a steadfast presence, is the “few inches of evidence” that indicate a much greater and grander spirituality underneath that is not always apparent to the naked eye because there are so many other things that would distract our attention.
But if we’re willing to look into the details, to study existence closely, we’ll find evidence of good where good doesn’t seem to exist because we aren’t paying attention.
I’ve learned through this that we mustn’t drive on through life ignoring the obvious. Signs of God’s presence are everywhere, but sometimes only noticeable in the smallest of details. Like the chimney-sweep trained to know chimneys inside and out, we can be a God-sweep, trained to know God’s wonderful creation inside and out from whatever vantage point we’re sitting.
Enjoy the view!
The man who does the work was not in, but his wife greeted us and was a most gracious and a knowledgeable help.
She asked us several questions about the condition and state of our chimney to determine how much work needed to be done before the new stove could be installed. We were clueless on how to answer most of her questions, and began to wonder how many delays would transpire before the replacement could be made.
Then I brought out several pictures my wife had taken of the stove and its chimney. The woman looked at the pictures and pulled out one snapshot of the metal caps on top of the roof. The picture showed very little and looked quite meaningless to the casual eye, but she exclaimed, “Oh, Grant can figure out all the answers to our questions by looking at this picture.”
She explained that her husband could tell the age of the chimney, the quality of the piping, whether it needed to be swept or not from seeing that 6’ cap on top of the A-frame. Our jaws went a gap. I awed at how much knowledge an experienced eye could gain from such a small piece of evidence.
Then she blurted, “Maybe he knows your chimney already! Is your cabin located in a visible place from a main road?” And she further explained that he notices everyone’s chimney while driving to and from jobs. It was his work, “To know chimneys!” And we awed a bit more.
“Of course,” I later thought. “This man knows chimneys like a pianist knows the keys on a keyboard. He understands and finds meaning in minute details that the average person takes for granted.”
In seeking a spiritual lesson from this conversational exchange, I decided that we all should be just as observant of God’s presence at work in our environment as this chimney-sweep was of his neighbor’s stove-pipes. He needed to see only a few inches of evidence to deduce a huge sum of information not visible to the naked eye.
Do you notice your neighbor’s chimneys? Probably not, if it’s not your business to know chimneys.
But more importantly, do you notice your neighbor’s full blown God-given spiritual selfhood, even when it’s not obvious?
A simple good deed, a little smile, a kind gesture, a steadfast presence, is the “few inches of evidence” that indicate a much greater and grander spirituality underneath that is not always apparent to the naked eye because there are so many other things that would distract our attention.
But if we’re willing to look into the details, to study existence closely, we’ll find evidence of good where good doesn’t seem to exist because we aren’t paying attention.
I’ve learned through this that we mustn’t drive on through life ignoring the obvious. Signs of God’s presence are everywhere, but sometimes only noticeable in the smallest of details. Like the chimney-sweep trained to know chimneys inside and out, we can be a God-sweep, trained to know God’s wonderful creation inside and out from whatever vantage point we’re sitting.
Enjoy the view!
