Sunday, August 2nd, 2026 Roundtable

Our salvation is through Love. Call God Love always and bend all your efforts toward achieving perfect love in thought, word and deed. This is the way. All is won through it. Its presence gives me all. Its absence takes all away from me; therefore “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” Love is heaven, and hate is hell.

Our only way to heaven is through Love; our sure way to hell is through hate.

from Collectanea, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 134

WATCH — All is peace and Truth; there is no error, no hatred, no sin, all is Love, love for God and man. There abide, for if you abide in Love and Truth, and Truth and Love abide in you, no evil can come of it, and the result must be, is, health, harmony, heaven. The freedom of the children of God comes with this true consciousness.

from Watches, Prayers, and Arguments, as given by Mary Baker Eddy, page 195

173 — WATCH lest you call your brother a fool, and thus be in danger of hell fire. To hold anyone as being a channel for error, or animal magnetism, without rebuking such a picture and making nothing of it, is to call your brother a fool, since you are holding him as cut off from Mind, the only source of wisdom, and making error real.

Our household requires us to do more work to see them as perfect children of God, than do strangers, since we are more apt to harbor an unscientific sense of man without resisting it in our homes than outside.

Our motive for uncovering and handling error in our homes should not be just for the sake of protecting ourselves. We should do it because we desire to release our brother man, if possible, from the unconscious servitude which lending oneself to being a channel for error always carries with it.

It is true that you must admit your brother a fool, because he is functioning under a foolish mind, before you can know that his real self is wise because it is functioning under the unerring wisdom of God; but this first step is telling the truth about the lie, namely, that the acceptance of foolish mortal mind causes one to manifest foolishness — even though this be the testimony of a lie.

It takes careful demonstration to change one’s concept of one’s nearest and dearest from being channels for error to being channels for God; but this must be done for one’s own sake, as well as for the sake of one’s family. You must hold your brother man as being a channel for an infinite blessing to you. You must declare and know that God is using him at all times to bless you, as well as to bless himself and others.

Jesus’ query, “Who made me a judge over you?” is a rebuke to the smug way we judge between people, calling one a channel for good and another a channel for evil. Jesus’ statement can be paraphrased, “Do you credit me with harboring mortal sense, that I should declare that one mortal is better than another, when I know all men in reality to be children of God, and hence channels of good to each other and to me?”

500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter

Golden Text: John 15 : 12
“This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.” — Christ Jesus

Christian Scientists are not running their lives by the key-note of Christianity so long as smug self-satisfaction preserves enough of a personal sense to deal grudgingly with each other, instead of overflowing lovingly and healingly, etc.

Class of 1923 Notes by Joseph G. Mann

The SECRET Challenge by Gregor Collins

gregorcollins@gmail.com

A 21-day spiritual rewire that will change your life — and the world

Inspired by this excerpt from a 1901 lecture by Irving Tomlinson called The Wonderful Secret:

I have learned to make Science [The Science of Christ] a thing of life and not of words, and I am going to tell you what the wonderful secret is, for it is wonderful. Now, it is this: not to see or repeat or hear any kind of imperfection. It is hearing, seeing, and repeating good and good only, at all times and under all circumstances, in spite of everything that appears to the contrary.

I make this resolution every morning when I first open my eyes, and I renew it every hour of the day. I see perfection—perfect cause and perfect effect; perfect God, perfect man—and I refuse to make any kind of exception. I refuse to admit the slightest imperfection in myself, in my friends, in any so-called enemies, in my affairs, and in the affairs of the world. I take my stand every day for the perfection of God and everything and everybody that God has made. I look upon the world with God’s eyes and I see it as He sees it. I refuse to see it any other way.

I stop a dozen times a day to renew my resolve and make sure that I am not repeating error or giving way to fear or criticism. I watch thoughts even about people—the lame, the old, the unlovely (to sense)—that I pass. I have taken the radical stand for the perfection of all things, and I will not—I absolutely will not—release the perfect standard.

The result has been marvelous. Try it; you will forget to wear glasses. They will become unnecessary (you will be seeing with God’s eyes) and you will behold a perfect universe. The outward conditions are pictured on our inward thinking. To change that picture one must change the thoughts that produce the picture.

The Challenge

After stumbling on “The Wonderful Secret” (TWS) amid a recent spell of what felt like infinite inactivity in my life, a 21-day challenge was born based on the theory it takes 21 days to make or break a habit. Since all right activity (good) originates not from out but from in—meaning from God—I knew I had to zero-in on the IN. Now if God was limitless good, my supposed stagnancy was but the mere effect of foggy vision, and that could only be the fog of human will—the constant claim we’re separate from God. We can’t fight the fog but we can shine through it with the Mind of Christ, our inner beam that sees true reality not as material (flawed), but spiritual (perfect). As we outshine the fog we find good (God) everywhere. Irving’s daily stand to see past mortal personality into our actual divine identity reveals present goodness is a spiritual fact. As our Christ Mind animates us, we start noting other discords in our lives—mental, physical, financial—fading away. I erred a lot, but swift rebounds were key. Each day saw more patience, more presence, more love, directly leading to unanticipated activity. A month removed and my “quicker shifts to good” are permanent, proof that spiritualizing thought is a law that locks in outward harmony. Jesus healed by seeing perfect God + perfect man—stating we can do “likewise.” The cool part: since God is the 1 Mind of everyone, your work not only transforms you and those you meet, but all in the world attuned to spiritual consciousness.

3 steps:

1. Wake up: Read/internalize TWS. Pray to adopt the Christ Mind. Allow only good to take root in thought.

2. Set hourly alarms as prompts to “renew resolve.” When you err, quickly shift to good/move on. No dwelling/ self-condemning: God isn’t aware of either (He’s 100% love). This is hard at first but trust that it gets easier.

3. Record all unanticipated good from the day. No phones before sleep. 1 down, 20 to go!

The clear sight of Spirit does not blind me to faults and errors. Rather I detect them more clearly — but as unrealities. I discern only the good and the true to be real, and so my eye is single. I positively look for the real, the good and the true. In Spirit, good vision is natural, and it is irreversible. …

My outlook is always positive, never negative, because my vision is spiritual.

Some Notes on True Vision by John L. Morgan

A Century of Christian Science Healing

The Greatest Thing in the World by Henry Drummond

Giving does not impoverish us in the service of our Maker, neither does withholding enrich us.

from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 79

“Owe no man” by Ella W. Hoag

from the August 11, 1923 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel

By the upright in heart, debts have always been considered as something to be avoided; while to fail to pay what one owes has been regarded as moral delinquency. The apostle’s injunction to “owe no man” has been ringing down the centuries, admonishing all men to refrain from debt. Many others have written on the undesirability of incurring indebtedness, and have portrayed the unhappiness and misery which accumulate from such a habit. All these writers have hoped by their wise counsel to help men to abstain from such evil practice. In spite of this, the contracting of debts still seems to flourish, even though few things bring more suffering and distress in their train.

Like other wrongs, becoming involved in debt generally starts from the mistaken belief that there is some good to be gained thereby. Its deceptive arguments commence by offering satisfaction in some form, — either as relief from a trying situation, or as presenting the possibility of gaining some material object which to personal sense it seems right and just for one to possess. To those attempting to solve personal needs with selfishness as a premise, results continue to be all awry. From this standpoint, try as one may, his obligations will increase rather than diminish, and limitation will appear more and more real.

Paul spoke with great wisdom when he said: “Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.” Jesus also taught us to pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,” which Mrs. Eddy interprets in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” (p. 17) as, “Love is reflected in love.” From this it is plain that the payment of one’s debts is an exceedingly important factor in the human problem, and that there is only one way whereby they are to be liquidated; namely, through the love which is the reflection of Love itself. How easy this sounds! To be freed from all one’s debts simply by loving! For thereby one would necessarily gain the understanding of good’s infinite supply. And yet is there to-day anything more apparent to the human sense of things than the unpaid debts of mankind?

The principal reason for this state of affairs, whether it be with the nation or the individual, is that men have not learned that to love God supremely and their neighbor as themselves is the only way out of the belief in limitation. The only correct premise from which to solve the problem of indebtedness is to remember that each one’s first obligation at all times, under all circumstances, is to God, divine Love. Christian Science points out very clearly that the student who would undertake to obey the command, “Owe no man,” must first of all pay his debt to God. This holds true not only in all his thinking but in all his living. Now the Christian Scientist who thinks first: How may I so unite myself with God and His interests that I shall first of all be able to pay my indebtedness to Him? will find an understanding of justice and right beginning to prevail in his consciousness. A larger sense of love will unfold, and in just the same ratio the beliefs of limitation will fade away. For where the true understanding of Love is there can be no lack.

Many are the false mental suggestions which claim to assail the student who thus attempts to pay his debt to God. Whether it be in the realm of purely mental activity, or whether it appear to involve the question of finances, the arguments will seem to be much the same. Human belief, always working for itself, will present all sorts of reasons why it should be considered. But so long as men forget that their first obligation is always to God, they will try to arrange their own affairs without reference to Him, and debts will thereby accumulate.

And yet God’s glorious law remains unchanged! In the degree that one first pays his debt to God, — in the degree that he works first of all for the advancement of God’s interests by loving Him with all his heart and mind and soul and strength, — he will find his ability to reflect Love to his neighbor increasing. As love for his neighbor thus unfolds, selfishness will diminish, and he will discover a great happiness in seeking his neighbor’s good rather than his own. Into such a consciousness as this there could not enter the thought of getting. As one thus learns to give, he will express honesty and uprightness in every thought, word, and deed; debts will be both undesired and unnecessary; and the truth of Mrs. Eddy’s statement will have again been exemplified; for as she tells us in “The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany” (p. 232), “The right way wins the right of way, even the way of Truth and Love whereby all our debts are paid, mankind blessed, and God glorified.”

Responsive Reading: Romans 13 : 1, 2, 5, 8-10
1. Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
2. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
5. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.
8. Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.
9. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
10. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Love is all powerful.

Love is all seeing.

Love is ever present.

Thy kingdom has come.

Thy will is done here on earth as it is in heaven, and earth is heaven.

(Mrs. Eddy told her students to put this prayer in their pocketbook, and, if they did, they would never want.)

from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, (the “Blue Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, page 60

There is no discordant claim that you cannot love yourself out of.

from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, (the “Blue Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy

I John 3:1-17
1 Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.

LOVE beholds me as its own beloved. The divine Mother, Love, conceives me as complete and perfect. I reflect this divine conception and accept it, and so conceive and behold everyone in Love.

“The light of ever-present Love illumines the universe.” I see that every idea is at rest, — never frustrated or thwarted, never tense, — and so my vision “rests in action” and is at peace and satisfied. Love’s viewpoint confers impartiality, forgiveness, constancy. As Shakespeare has it:

“…Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken …”

I look with the eye of spiritual innocency and behold no evil, for we are in the divine presence. I behold man in Love and blot out all sense of imperfection, all fear and dislike. I look with the eye of Love’s benevolence and behold in man all the hues and qualities of God. In this view there is full recognition of the divine nature. So I look with the eye of gratitude, for the divine glory fills all space. With a grateful outlook I mother my entire universe and draw into expression the beauty of holiness.

“I saw the love of God encircling the universe and man, filling all space, and that divine Love so permeated my own consciousness that I loved with Christ-like compassion everything I saw. This realization of divine Love called into expression the beauty of holiness, the perfection of being which healed and regenerated and saved all who turned to me for help.” (Attributed to Mrs. Eddy. From “General Collectanea” published by Gilbert C. Carpenter, Jr., C.S.B.)

Some Notes on True Vision by John L. Morgan