The lyrics from “Big Yellow Taxi” popped into my head a few minutes ago. I was thinking about a gift we received from an out-of-state person who attends another New Thought church/center but evidently fell in love with Ernest Holmes when she came across his writings. She couldn’t find a Center for Spiritual Living in her area with which she resonated, but she found us online and loved what she watched. She sent us a very nice financial gift as well.
The truth for me is that I didn’t begin to really appreciate Dr. Ernest Holmes until I had been a minister for at least five years. That is quite an amazing confession, if you know my history. I served on the Religious Science Board of Education and I wrote curricula for our beginning students in my first two years of ministry.
Thank God for Divine Guidance and peer support! Specifically, thank God for Dr. Jane Claypool, Dr. David Walker and the rest of the Board.
Thanks to many years of reading and re-reading The Science of Mind, diligently studying it, my appreciation for the wisdom and wit of our founder has grown and flourished.
Over the years, I have heard many arguments for using more contemporary books in our classes. One of the arguments is to have a greater appeal to younger people. I actually think it is great to use contemporary teachers to help reinforce the principles that Holmes was expressing, but we can’t afford to throw the baby out with the bathwater. That would be like paving paradise.
This past year, I was blessed to have a number of students for whom English is their second language. They loved the textbook. Two of the students purchased the textbook in Spanish also and would read both in English and Spanish. They thought the English version was more poetic, more profound.
One of my spiritual practices is to read two different issues of The Science of Mind Magazine. Of course, I read the current one but I also read the daily guides of one of the magazines written in the early 50’s. Almost always the writer would give us a reading from the text to study. It would often be a great deal more than a quote, usually a section of several pages. I really appreciate how the ministers and practitioners who wrote the guides back then knew the textbook. And I appreciate that there wisdom has blessed me.
What I am really confessing to, is the lack of clarity within myself regarding the substance and depth of the Ernest Holmes’ writing. At one time, I would have loved to have a substituted modern book to use as the foundational materials. I read and re-read Louise Hay, Wayne Dyer, Eric Butterworth and others. They are wonderful! Their writing has inspired me, but it is not Ernest Holmes! I am so grateful that I didn’t get my way!