How are we supporting the periodical publications of our church? Buying them? Reading them? Writing for them? Distributing them? Excellent!
But how do we do these things? Simply doing these things may in fact be achieving little, because we may be identifying ourselves to a considerable extent with limited mortality having necessarily limited objectives, that is, to support a limited concept we call church. It is when these activities become God-centered rather than just humanly directed that they correspondingly become more inspired and more fruitful.
The material view says, for instance, that Christian churches are restricting their ministry and that God's Word needs immediate support. But we do not support God. He supports us. Similarly, Church does not depend on us for support; "Church"—in Mrs. Eddy's words "the structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle" Science and Health, p. 583;—supports us. And we do not support God's nature; we express it.
All right activity is purposefully directed. If we are to further share in and express the activity of our periodicals, we should establish the purpose of their activity. This is best defined by the one who established them, Mrs. Eddy herself: "The first was The Christian Science Journal, designed to put on record the divine Science of Truth; the second I entitled Sentinel, intended to hold guard over Truth, Life, and Love; the third, Der Herold der Christian Science, to proclaim the universal activity and availability of Truth; the next I named Monitor, to spread undivided the Science that operates unspent." The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 353;
Periodicals serving the Science of Truth, Life, Love—recording, guarding, proclaiming, spreading. Does not this purpose already elevate and broaden our support of the publications? As we bring our activities into identification with such purposes as these, support of the periodicals becomes specific and productive. Christian Science shows man as expressing God totally; the Christ, Truth, active in thought, meets the specific need for a better understanding of God. So it follows that the purposes of the periodicals become fulfilled in our lives specifically as we let the spirit of the Christ-power, which they embody, banish some limited material view of God and our fellowman.
How about writing for the periodicals? What is stopping us? Arguments of inertia, lack of skills or time? We talk of the Christian Science movement. To identify ourselves with movement is to reject stagnation and inertia at all points. All ideas from God, Mind, impel us to be and to act.
Secondly, skills. As God's image each of us expresses every facet of Soul. We do not have merely to hammer away on the anvil of human thought to produce an article or a testimony. Proportionately as we recognize our true nature as reflection, we express the qualities of thought we need for writing, and desirable skills or ways of developing and utilizing them will unfold.
Thirdly, time. Temporal arguments pervade human activities and would persuade us that we can put off doing good—an illogical assumption when we recognize God as wholly good. The article itself seems to need time to process and understand since it is presented in a linear form. (Interestingly, at the moment of writing this, I was plunged into darkness by a brief power failure.) We can know, however, that ideas continue to be expressed by the divine Mind, irrespective of temporal impositions. So, acknowledging the totality of Truth, we don't have to accept unreasonable delays in working on an article: Mind's ideas are present and they are perpetually acting to focus what we need now.
Then, how about reading the publications? Our motive is love. Our goal in reading is to be receptive to specific truths that will lead to healing, compassionate thought and loving action. Reading, as a process of receiving thoughts, is a human activity, but like other activities in which we engage, it too may be changed and improved as our concepts of God improve. Truth is always fresh, infinitely varied. We need not read in a stereotyped fashion. I find that sometimes I skim or speed-read Monitor articles to assess what needs prayerful thought; an article in another periodical may call for thorough reading and rereading.
The account of the children of Israel and the manna offers parallels with our attitude to the periodicals. Their daily supply of heavenly manna nourished the Israelites without fail: "And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat." The periodicals, likewise, come to support us. The narrative continues: "They gathered every man according to his eating." Ex. 16:15, 18; The followers of Moses, like us, could gather only what they could use; our reading is for living, and not the other way around. It is also stated in the Bible that those who neglected the manna found that it went bad―another hint to us today to use what God provides. This, of course, is not meant to imply that somehow we can improve or mar the beauty and activity of infinite good by reading or not reading the periodicals. Catching glimpses of this good through the channels provided for us, we can feel the transforming Christ disclosing our nearness to the divine source.
John's Gospel expresses the wonder of this transformation in its opening chapter: "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." John 1:14; Support of the periodicals and help received from them does not supply the Word; it tends to reveal the Word already active with us. What better way to continue supporting the periodicals than to echo Mrs. Eddy's thought, "Let the Word have free course and be glorified"? No and Yes, p. 45.
O send out thy light and
thy truth: let them lead me;
let them bring me unto thy holy hill,
and to thy tabernacles.
Psalms 43: 3
