LESSON OF NOVEMBER 27, 2011
by
Hope Anderson
“The king’s daughter is all glorious within:
her clothing is of wrought gold”
These lovely words appear in the 45th Psalm and refer to the majesty and grace of Christ’s kingdom and the dwellers therein. The inner and the outer Being [the Temple] of the king’s daughter is altogether purity. The Psalm continues:
“She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework:
the virgins her companions that follow her shall be brought unto thee.
“With gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought; they shall
enter the king’s palace.”
I was led to the following mystical verse when one day I opened my copy of the Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. Its message touched me so deeply that I immediately mailed copies of it to several friends. It is simply dedicated to ….
Everymaid
King’s Daughter!
Would’st thou be all fair,
Without – within –
Peerless and beautiful,
A very Queen?
Know then:-
Not as men build unto the Silent One,-
With clang and clamour,
Traffic of rude voices,
Clink of steel on stone,
And din of hammer;-
Not so the temple of thy grace is reared.
But,- in the inmost shrine
Must thou begin,
And build with care
A Holy Place,
A place unseen,
Each stone a prayer.
Then, having built,
Thy shrine sweep bare
Of self and sin,
And all that might demean;
And, with endeavor,
Watching ever, praying ever,
Keep it fragrant – sweet, and clean:
So, by God’s grace, it be fit place,-
His Christ shall enter and shall dwell therein.
Not as in earthly fane – where chase
Of steel on stone may strive to win
Some outward grace,-
Thy temple face is chiseled from within.
John Oxenham
The way we make ourselves “fitting temples” is by turning within and letting God reveal its own being, its own identity. As God fills our consciousness, so God appears as our outer world. It’s wonderful to realize that our inner world is the reality – the true substance – and the outer world the form that substance takes, be it home, health, or wealth.
“I must have all things and abound, while God is God to me.”
(Hymn #225:2, Christian Science Hymnal)
St. Paul has a further description of the temple, the building, of God, telling us that
“… we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building. According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (I Corinthians 3:9-11).
“… for the temple of the Lord is holy, which temple ye are” (I Cor. 3:17). Joel Goldsmith writes often about the temple which we are – the wholeness which we are, because God made the form which we have in order to show forth our identity. “My body is a manifestation, the image of the I that I am, because my body is the I that I am formed, and formed spiritually, eternally, and immortally… and my body is the temple, the instrument of my activity and of my living” (The Art of Meditation, p. 77).
We have all been given a marvelous example of this immaculate temple of God in
Gabrielle (“Gabby”) Gifford’s experience of being shot in the head by an assailant. She is currently serving as a Representative in the United States Congress. I didn’t see the documentary narrated by Diane Sawyer on television because I avoid any descriptions of accidents such as Gabby went through. However, as I heard of the program’s contents, I wish I had seen it!
The morning after the program was aired I was called on the telephone by my granddaughter who was so thrilled with the message that she had “heard on National Television” that she wanted to share it with me. When Gabby’s mother [who I had been told is a Christian Scientist] was riding to the hospital after the shooting, all she could say was “My baby, my baby, they’ve shot my baby.” Suddenly a sense of peace completely enveloped her, and the words from Psalm 46:10 came to her from within as a “still, small voice”: “Be still, and know that I am God.” When that “voice” comes to one, he/she enters into a rest.
Gabby’s mother had obviously been already “prepared” spiritually for that reception of the Christ. From thereon in, there was no turning back. Gabby has a beautiful support system in her “cheer-leading mom” and her husband, Mark Kelly (a Shuttle Commander), who are not allowing her to accept any sense of giving up. Failure is not an option for her! That angel message, coming as the still, small voice, was and is the healing, and even though the evidence seems to be coming slowly, it’s already complete in God who only knows perfection! When that “voice” comes to one, he/she enters into a rest. Even the doctor who is treating Gabby told her to acknowledge the existence of miracles (“miracle: that which is divinely natural” [Mrs. Eddy]).
Joel Goldsmith tells us that “the first step in our spiritual experience must be learning the nature of God, and in learning the nature of God, we are praying! …That’s the highest and finest prayer there is on this plane. There is one higher prayer that is attained – when the human senses are entirely stilled and the voice of God says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God.’
” There are many people who make that declaration and think that when they are saying they are God, they are praying a very high prayer. That isn’t true. That is atheism. That is trying to make a human being God. … But when our human mind, when our thinking, reasoning mind, is entirely still and we hear a voice saying, ‘Know ye not that I am God?’ then you have reached the highest prayer there is in all the world” (Rising in Consciousness, p. 126).
Joel further explains that prayer, to him, “is the word of God, and the word of God is never uttered by the ‘man whose breath is in his nostrils.’ The word of God is uttered only by God, the universal, divine, infinite wisdom and love, to the individual expression of God’s being – you and me” (op. cit., page 128).
“For us in the occidental world,” Joel says, “the only difficult part of it is to learn to be still long enough to hear the still, small voice. Once we make the contact, from then on it’s as easy as watching the gentle rains fall in spring. What isn’t easy is to raise the whole world or to heal everybody or even to heal ourselves of everything. We are dealing with a great mesmeric force in the world – call it universal belief – and it’s really powerful even in its nothingness. It baffles us and it fools us, even the smartest of us.
… even the spiritually enlightened come under that spell once in awhile” (op. cit. p. 132, 133).
* * * * *
Upon returning home from a Class recently I had such a pile of mail that I couldn’t believe my eyes – and most of the mail contained requests for money. I knew that it was impossible, even in my wildest dreams, to donate money to all those petitioners who were seeking it. My gratitude, however, went out to those organizations which have such loving concern for the thousands of men, women, and children in desperate need; for all the homeless, neglected animals; and for our precious environment.
Feeling concern and having the desire to bless in some way – not wanting to throw many of them away into the waste basket without first including them in consciousness – I opened to Paul Gorman’s book The Giving Self which I had recently purchased, and this is what I read — addressing the prayer to my “Giving Self”:
“It is not ‘your’ activity that gives; it is the giving Spirit that flows out from your stillness and silence.
“Ah, let me pour out … to my whole street, my whole community, then to this whole world: ‘I give you Love, I give you Supply, I give you Life, I give you Peace. You are the Peace, I see you as The Peace.’ You realize that you are the very pouring out, Itself. You are the Spirit, Itself. You are the Substance of your world, the Life and the Supply of your world, and so you pour It out continually, non-stop.”
Then Paul advises his readers to meditate for a few minutes with this realization: “Get the feeling that you do not ‘want’ anything from your meditation, but that you are simply giving. You are being the givingness Itself, the giving flow, the Giving Self. You are being the transparency of givingness, of outpouring-ness.
“Be still now and let Spirit do all the work. …Leave the false images alone. Lift consciousness above them to reveal the One Real World of Perfection all around” (page 82).
“What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell with them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (II Corinthians 6:16).
“My consciousness is the temple of God. My consciousness is a house of refuge. Even the sinner can enter here and be forgiven. Let the sinner find peace let the thirsty find drink; let the hungry find meat; let the sick find health; let the dead find life in this sanctuary which I am, this holy temple where I am not, but I AM” (The Altitude of Prayer, page 104).
Blessings Infinite within your Temple,
Hope
Across the Desk
On Thanksgiving Day our family attended the yearly Thanksgiving service in The Mother Church in Boston. There is a period in the service devoted to testimonies of gratitude, and one testifier spoke about her life becoming “unraveled,” about problems currently occurring in the world, and then suddenly a beautiful “unfoldment” came quickly on its heels. She warned us all to “hold on to our hats,” for when any “unraveling” occurs, that is when the activity of Spirit is pushing through!
©Copyright Hope Anderson 2011
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