“Love inspires, illuminates, designates and leads the way” – why, honey, how romantic!
ByGuest post warning! Below is a piece by our friend in the UK. I thought we all needed a dose of love today and Tony Lobl has supplied it. Enjoy the read.
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Google Alerts is a helpful web tool if you want to track the way the broad public think about a particular subject of interest to you. Like most internet-connected males, one of my Google Alerts is for me! More importantly, as someone whose day job is to represent Christian Science in the media, one of my Google Alerts tracks articles, comments, etc. about Mary Baker Eddy.
Among many other things, the wise words of the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science frequently appear on quotation sites or in people’s blogs. Nevertheless, it took me a little by surprise to see a familiar quote of hers in a blog titled Favorite Meaningful Messages under a heading of Romantic One Liners. ”Love inspires, illuminates, designates and leads the way” is one line and it is a meaningful message. But is it romantic?!
I certainly can’t recall wooing my wife Jenny while we were courting, or wowing her in our 21 years of marriage since, by looking lovingly into her eyes and whispering “Well, honey, love inspires, illuminates, designates and leads the way”. The idea behind these words, though, has been invaluable to both of us in our marriage.
Mary Baker Eddy was certainly not averse to romantic love. One of her more practical and compassionate “one liners” is “Husbands, hear this and remember how slight a word or deed may renew the old trysting-times.” The main thrust of her life-work and her writings, though, is the kind of love which romantic love, at its best, can hint at, but which goes far broader and deeper: the understanding and expression of God’s love that is powerful enough to heal. ”The way” that most engaged her thought was “the way” in which one could faithfully follow the Way-shower, Christ Jesus. And the line preceding the quoted phrase about love inspiring, illuminating, and designating the way is “Love for God and man is the true incentive in both healing and teaching”.
Following years of, as she put it, God “graciously preparing” her – and after a dramatic healing of her own in 1866 propelled her deeper than ever into Bible research as to the “how” of the healings of Jesus and the early disciples – Mary Baker Eddy’s ensuing career was certainly no path strewn with (romantic) roses. She encountered hostility, prejudice, slander, disbelief and betrayal along the pathway of progress that was illuminated and designated for her as she prayed. Yet she never wavered in following it, motivated by her deep desire to “reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing” and to share as widely as possible the freedom that can bring. She did this by healing and teaching others and by publishing her ideas in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.
It was out of this life that she was able to say, with the authority of experience, that divine Love, God “inspires, illuminates, designates and leads the way”.
Many people today - like these - can testify to the benefits still being brought about by Mary Baker Eddy’s devotion to proving and articulating, in systematic language, the spiritual perception of the Bible’s meaning that enables lives to be transformed for the better. The reconciliation of reason and revelation she discerned through her own scriptural study and practical healing proofs has brought to light, and captured for posterity, how the love of divine Love, God, is the best guide for the way forward to be inspired, illumined, designated and wisely lead in all aspects of human life…
Including in relationships…
Including in romantic relationships…
Hmm. Maybe the author of Favorite Meaningful Messages has a point after all! And many thanks to the blog for including this thought-provoking quote.
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You can find all of Tony Lobl’s splendid posts here.
Find Keith on Twitter:@TexasCS
Related post: 5 Simple things to make you a better healer
