In this Sentinel Watch podcast, adapted for print, Jenny Sawyer talks with Mary Beattie, a Christian Science practitioner and teacher from Canberra, Australia. To hear the entire podcast,
visit cssentinel.com/count-on-god.
Jenny Sawyer: One of the things that we’re all educated to believe is that life is about what we’re doing and especially achieving. There’s a lot of focus on being productive, and while being productive is generally a good thing, it can also make us feel like there’s so much on our shoulders. Now, you might say that that’s where God comes in, and that’s what we’ll be exploring today.
Mary, why do you think it’s important to be cognizant of God, especially in light of all that it seems we’re responsible for doing on a daily basis?
Mary Beattie: One of the things I’m impressed with when I read the Bible, which is such a good sourcebook for learning about God, is that, when Christ Jesus healed, he did it for the glory of God. A number of times in a recorded healing, there’s a little phrase, that people “glorified God.” All the things Jesus did were for the glory of God, and many of those that were healed glorified God.
If, underneath all that we’re doing on a daily basis, we’re gaining an expanded understanding of our relationship to God, then the rest of our day-to-day life is more likely to fall into place. When I was working at the education department, I would often say that my work would stay the same, only the workbench changed. By that, I meant that the work of glorifying God stayed the same, although the “workbench”—the different contexts in which we’re acting—varied all the time.
Can you talk a little bit about what you’ve found in your own life about your relationship with God?
There was a time when I was regularly feeling anxious and depressed, and I would pray about this. And when I prayed, those feelings and the symptoms would abate. But then they would come back sometime later.
I was able to speak with a Christian Science practitioner, who is someone who prays for people when they ask for help. As I was talking to this man in his office and explaining the anxiety and the depression and the pattern, we both went very quiet—neither of us said anything. I realized that I didn’t need to say anything because I felt us both deeply praying.
After a few minutes, some normal conversation emerged, and then I left his office. The depression and anxiety never returned.
I think about those few minutes of quiet prayer. There was no more reason for the depression. It was just a sacred, holy moment where we both let God speak to us the way we needed. Both of us were yielding to feeling the authority or presence of Spirit, of God, and letting that be the communicator.
Now, I don’t know what words the practitioner was thinking, or even if he was thinking any words. It’s always about the feeling—prayer helps us to feel God’s active presence. And I think that that underlies what Mary Baker Eddy says about Jesus’ actions being more important than his words—he proved what he taught (see Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 473).
That’s a beautiful healing, Mary. Your explanation really highlights the question, What is it that God, Spirit, is doing? Maybe you could recap, in that particular healing, what it was that you experienced of God’s being and doing that seemed to make all the difference?
It was the quiet transformation of thought, which I can only describe as the Christ in consciousness. The Christ, the manifestation of God, was destroying my fear and anxiety.
It’s not that I had to drag up better or happier ideas. It’s not even that the practitioner had to say specific words and cheer me up in any way. The Christ has a regenerating effect. It stirs the human mind until it is only aware of the harmony that characterizes the divine Mind.
Mary, just to be really clear for our listeners, when you’re talking about the Christ, what are you talking about?
The Christ was Jesus’ divine nature—it’s the true idea of God, which he consistently expressed. Science and Health explains, “Christ is the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness” (p. 332).
One of the takeaways I’m getting from what you’re saying is that God’s love, the power of Spirit, the intelligence of Mind, are constantly operating. I think oftentimes when people think about prayer, they think it somehow activates God. It’s like prayer pushes a button and God then snaps into action. This is a totally different perspective.
Yes. When we see God in terms of Principle, we begin to perceive His immensity, His allness. We don’t worry if the principle of mathematics is going to operate in a particular case, or if it’s not going to be applicable on the moon. It’s always operating. So is God, Principle.
I’d love to help listeners understand a little bit more about the idea of becoming conscious of all that God is and does. What have you found in your own practice of Christian Science? And more generally speaking, what might a listener do if they want to feel more conscious of God’s presence and power?
If people want to feel the presence of Spirit, they can start by deciding that they want to get their life onto a better track. Maybe they want to lift a relationship to something which is more wholesome, or be doing things that give a greater contribution to the general good in their community. These desires need to be there for us to open our heart to a change.
There’s a sentence in Science and Health which I really like: “Spirit, God, gathers unformed thoughts into their proper channels, and unfolds these thoughts, even as He opens the petals of a holy purpose in order that the purpose may appear” (p. 506). One of the reasons I like that sentence is because Spirit has the initiative. If the desire is there to live a higher, better life, then Spirit is gathering those thoughts into action.
And then comes that lovely promise, “He opens the petals of a holy purpose in order that the purpose may appear.” The purpose might appear as a better, more useful job or as a healthier relationship. It comes to us in very practical ways.
It sounds to me like you’re saying this is God’s universe and God’s kingdom. We’re not talking about physical beings or material things that need to be sorted out, but really, thought. You’re not just saying that there is a God, but that God is active, God is powerful, God is loving. And that this activity is going on at all times. It helps us to relax and say, “Okay, I have a role to play, but this is really about God and what God is doing. And my role is to witness to that, to recognize that, moment by moment.”
I think this is where some of the synonyms for God are useful—that is, Bible-based names for God, including Life, Truth, Love. They help us see God in different ways. So looking at God as Mind, we might recognize a really elegant mathematical solution to something and recognize Mind’s operation.
One of the things I think about with that passage that I quoted earlier about Spirit gathering unformed thoughts into their proper channels, is that Spirit is God. Love is God. So, Spirit and Love are synonymous with God and with each other. And because Spirit is Love, Spirit will go on gathering those unformed thoughts into their proper channels for as long as necessary, for as long as needed.
I found that with my own marriage. My husband and I went through a dark patch, but for the many months that we were struggling with it, Spirit was still gathering the thoughts into their proper channels. And because Spirit is Love, it continued to do that until the resolution came.
For our part, that meant putting aside self-centeredness. It meant instead of each of us looking to the other one to solve our issue, we both had to independently look to God. I think for each of us, the tipping point in that healing was recognizing that we were each wedded to Spirit, and nothing could change that. When we independently came to that conclusion, when we were both relying on that truth, then the contention, which had driven us to the brink of separation, dropped away and a very happy and stable relationship evolved. But the turning point was to see that we were each wedded to Spirit and nothing could change that.
That’s a promise for everyone. Whether we’re married or not married or wanting to be married or not wanting to be married, it’s helpful to come back to a spiritual concept of what marriage is. Being wedded to Spirit is where our completeness is. People tend to look to marriage for a sense of completeness. Or sometimes they feel they need to get out of a marriage to gain completeness. And yet, our relationship with Spirit, our relationship with God, Principle, Mind, is unchanging.
What exactly does it mean to you to be wedded to Spirit?
I think it’s the recognition that in reality each of us is an idea in Mind. Our real, spiritual selfhood is not tied up in a physical package. Our real spiritual relationship with Mind, Love, is secure. It’s eternal. That might sound irrelevant when we’re facing some problem within a relationship. But that’s the thing—our work stays the same but our workbench changes. Our work of knowing who we are as Love’s idea, God’s idea, His precious child, stays the same. The workbench of whether it’s marriage or employment or finance or whatever, changes. Fundamentally, it’s all about our relationship with God.
I once read a lovely thing in a Christian Science Journal. It was quite an old Journal from an era when the wedding vows were pretty standard. You know, “I take thee, Joe so-and-so, to be my lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold.”
This article was saying we can do this with the truth. Something like, “I take thee, truth, to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, forever” (see Rev. G. A. Kratzer, “Hindrances to healing,” July 1909). And we can do this with the synonyms for God, too: “I take Spirit to have and to hold.”
How do we do this? Well, let’s drill down. What is Spirit? How do we find out? Through prayer. The ideas we need can just pop into our head. And that’s lovely when they do. But we also need to study. Many, many Christians have found reading the Bible on a daily basis to be reassuring and uplifting. I’ve also found it helpful to study Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy as well as her other writings.
One takeaway that I’ve had from what we’ve talked about, Mary, is just how much we can count on God. You know, I think neither of the situations that you mentioned are things that any of us want to experience. And yet, in both those situations, you really discovered you could count on God.
So often, to get back to an earlier point, we think it’s about what we’re doing. Are we working hard enough? Do we have the right ideas? But it feels like for you, maybe your practice of Christian Science and trusting God is a little bit more in letting go.
Yes it is, Jenny. And I think it actually requires humility—humility toward God. It’s letting the human ego step back. Spirit, God, is omnipotent. So let God have center stage in thought. Let all our outlining on how things should proceed in our lives go.
If we’re unemployed, we might reason, “Well, of course God would want me to have a job. So I’ll be praying to get a job.” But what about having the humility to step back and think, “God wants me to glorify Him”? Then I can start now. I am employed right now glorifying God. Then see where that leads.
God is already omnipotent, omnipresent. So stop reiterating all the ways that His omnipotence and omnipresence don’t seem to be apparent and step back and appreciate, pay attention to, the allness of God. That’s when we find healing.
When we can step back as you were describing or look up and see things more from God’s perspective, instead of focusing on our own very narrow viewpoint of a situation, that is when all that God is and is doing becomes more evident to us, to the point where we see there are no limitations.
Yes. I found this idea very provocative: It’s not helpful to remember healings as sufferings that we went through. That traps us into thinking we are physical, and something happened which got cleared up because we prayed and God got activated.
God never stopped actively maintaining us, our health and harmony. The healing happened because we saw that we only ever had a spiritual selfhood which couldn’t ever be affected by any suffering. The things that happened become like dreams to us. That’s why people often say it was like waking up. It was as if I were watching a movie and I left the movie theater.
The truth is, we are at one with God, at one with Spirit, the whole time. Our selfhood is spiritual, and we can recognize and feel that Spirit and its expression is one, is all.
Mary, thank you so much for being here today and taking the time to have this conversation. I enjoyed chatting with you.
Jenny, it’s been a delight. Thank you.
