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Christ and Christmas - a poem about the unfolding of 'light.'Christ and Christmas is a poem about light, about divine light, about the unfolding of the divine quality reflected in advancing stages of human experience. The divine 'light' of course has always existed. Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Truth, Life, and Love, are as primordial as the universe and those other laws and principles reflected in the mechanics of the stars that are manifest in the minutest structures of quarks within an atom, to the most majestic structure of billions of clusters of galaxies that are deemed to exist in infinite reality. In Christ and Christmas both aspects are brought together, so that the star that appears throughout the interpretative paintings of the work stands in metaphor for the sum-total of the qualities of God. The poem traces the multifaceted manifest thereof, in human history. In the first painting the star stands alone. It stands above the "grim night of chaos." This period covers all history from the dawn of man to the advent of Jesus of Nazareth. During this period the light is seen through clearings in the 'clouds' in the night sky. That period corresponds with the rise of civilization and its brightest manifest in such figures as Plato, Eratosthenes, and the historical figures traced in the old testament of the Bible, etc.. The next painting shows the same star and its light above Christ Jesus as he is raising a 'woman' to life, sitting up in a coffin. The woman who is raised to life, and two other people who witness the process with awe and wonder, are touched by the light of the star, though faintly as compared to the light touching Christ Jesus. Next, we see the scene of an upper room of a boarding house. We see the same type of room where the first copy of the Christian Science textbook was compiled (Published in 1875, the year that the Specie Resumption Act was introduced in the U.S. congress). We see the quill on the table, a pot of ink, the Bible open, we see the manuscript paper, we see a scientist at work, but her image is not that of Mary Baker Eddy. And high above her is that star again, projecting its light. A clock in the background tells us about the scientist. The time on the clock is 12:05. In Revelation 12 John the Revelator introduces his famous perception of the divine idea as "a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars." In verse 5 of that chapter we read that the woman brought forth a "man child" (a new identity of man, the scientific identity of man). We also see that star above the scientist. The star is not seen, however, in the Christmas scene, in the way humanity interprets the divine idea. Here, we see Adam and Eve (mythology) handing down gifts to little children; and we see theology telling mankind that the Christ is dead. Also, we see the 'woman' whom Christ Jesus had raised from the dead, put in a wheel chair; and we see Science represented by an old woman wearing a crown of thorns. She is placed in a rocking chair. The verse for the next painting is telling us that the Christ is not dead. We see a pastoral scene of human activity. We see a stream of water; a bridge; sheep in the field; a city in the distance; we see the light of the morning sun streaming from below the horizon; we see the angels of perception and discernment in flight above the scene. The age of true Science is dawning. In the next painting we see the woman of the Apocalypse again, standing beneath the star with authority and dominion, healing humanity. Out of this, we see a new generation of humanity dawning. We see the old, the 'wise,' the elite, placed in a rocking chair with the Bible (human history) placed on a side table as a closed book. The new generation of humanity is painted in the image of a little girl. We see the star solidly above her. Her dress is gleaming with light. In her hands a book is open that contains the outcome of the spiritual history of man, the title is Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. The clock in the painting points us a verse in Revelation that says "Weep not: behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof (the seven aspects of God)." || - page index - || - chapter index - || - Exit - ||
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