Tonight - Wednesday Dec 11 we are online only!

Dear friends!

Tonight we will be online only for our healing Wednesday testimony meeting. We can’t wait for you to join us tonight at 7:30 p.m. with your open hearts.

"Testimony in regard to the healing of the sick is highly important. More than a mere rehearsal of blessings, it scales the pinnacle of praise and illustrates the demonstration of Christ, 'who healeth all thy diseases.,’" writes the discoverer and founder of Christian Science, who provided that we hold these meetings. The apostle John says, "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." And David exclaimed, "I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee."

Bring your healing and your pure thought of gratitude for Life, Truth, and Love, and their innumerable and constant manifestations to "the children of men," together with the loving desire to persuade others to investigate Christian Science, should impel us tonight!

See you soon!

Monday night Monitor Prayer Watch

Dear Friends,

We are eager to meet together for our next Monitor prayer session on Monday, November 11th at 7pm ET. These meetings bring forth insightful discussions and wonderful  opportunities to come together in a thoughtful and prayerful way for our world. Tee will be our host. We would love to have you join us.

 

This week we will consider the most recent article from Sudan. Its  focus is COMMUNITY. We will also include the current Why We Wrote This podcast that shares why and how they went deep on Sudan, where a civil war has been devastating, but where resilience and agency endure. Both links are listed below. It is helpful to have read the article and listened to the podcast beforehand, but you are welcome to join us regardless. Feel free to share this email with others who might want to participate, as well.

Article: How a Sudanese refugee in Uganda is keeping his homeland alive through food

by Sophie Neiman, 10/25/24  KIRYANDONGO REFUGEE SETTLEMENT, UGANDA

This is the fourth article in a series from Sudan that we are publishing this week, highlighting that country’s travails and citizens’ efforts to overcome them. Read the first three articles here, here, and here.

WHY WE WROTE THIS  

Sudan’s civil war has forced more than 11 million people to flee their homes. In a refugee camp in Uganda, one restaurant owner is trying to resurrect his homeland with food.

https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2024/1025/sudan-war-uganda-refugees-food

Podcast: ‘A bridge to humanity’: Behind a Monitor series on an underreported story,

Why We Went Deep on Sudan

Clay Collins, Peter Ford and Ryan Lenora Brown, 11/1/24

 

“Our stories in and from Sudan are about how … people can rise above that chaos and the difficulties and they can find ways of working together to overcome their problems,” Peter says on our “Why We Wrote This” podcast. That coverage, which included a recent series organized by Johannesburg-based editor Ryan Lenora Brown, helps give readers “a really different picture of life in Africa.”

https://www.csmonitor.com/Podcasts/Why-We-Wrote-This/wwwt_2438

There is also an episode transcript available as one scrolls down on the linked page.

The podcast is available on Apple and Spotify, as well.

We are looking forward to this expression of church that propels us towards prayer.

Warmly, 

Your JP Monitor prayer team (Brian, Janell, Joe, Sarah and Tee)

Come to our Open House!

Friends we are delighted to invite you to our grand opening! After months of renovation we’re ready to share with you the fruit of our labor. We are excited to meet you.

Come have a look around and see what we’ve been up to.

This space is a space where we want you to feel embraced by Divine Love in a cozy hug and can find healing and inspiration.

We meet here every Sunday to hear readings from The Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy to elevate our thought to a more spiritual perspective. We also meet here on Wednesdays to share healings we’ve had through our study of Christian Science. The space is also a Reading Room and Bookstore, where you can sit and read articles or books that radically inspire. Meet the folks who helped us create this spot and see where you, too, can come to uplift your thought and study!

Wake Up the Earth May 4

Jamaica Plain’s annual “WUTE” celebration of art, culture, and activism spotlights sustainability and social justice always featuring a vibrant parade with a costume twist for participants, such as this year’s jedis and dragons. Our booth featured “Born into Crisis, Building Solutions,” a Christian Science Monitor series on how the ‘climate generation’ born after 1989 is reshaping our understanding of work, culture, “progress,” human rights, and community.

Hosts (from left:) Sarah, Christa, Gretchen, Emily, (also Kendra, Victoria and Janell) had great conversations and gifted at least 100 Monitors to visitors.

Church member Joe Ninesling (VT) provided the wind-proof structure to secure blow-ups of climate series covers.

Examples of what we shared... 
- the series’ first article (11/6/23) featuring a Turkish teen with a teenager visitor
- "His gift of gab and hope may determine the temperature of your world " (11/13/23) featuring Namibian Deon Shekuza with an interested South African 
- a Science and Health and recent Sentinel with a woman uncertain about medicine who wanted to know know how prayer heals 
- a Monitor article on Israel and Palestine with a booth dedicated to social justice
- a MediaBias chart and Monitor with a podcaster focused on fair reporting
- clarification of the difference between Christian Science and Scientology
- “The incredible shrinking family” cover story with several young families

Wake Up the Earth May 6

“Wake Up to Progress” activities at Jamaica Plain’s annual Wake Up The Earth festival included Monitor Points of Progress articles located on a world map.

We offered Monitors with a special one-month free subscription and young people enthusiastically painted over 100 rocks in a reprise of last year’s popular activity.

Christa, Janell, Sarah, Joe and Gretchen enjoyed many connections with our beloved JP community!

It's all about seeing....

Artist Alex Cook hides ‘illusion’ paintings along nature trails in Boston’s Franklin Park

The artwork blends into its surroundings. But if passersby spot it, they’re bound to do a double take.

By Steve Annear Globe Staff,Updated March 2, 2023, 1:38 p.m.

Artist and muralist Alex Cook painted two illusion paintings that he placed in Boston’s Franklin Park. One was recently stolen from the tree it leaned against.JOHN TLUMACKI/GLOBE STAFF

When Jeffrey Jacobs went for a stroll along the trails in Boston’s Franklin Park last month, on a day when winter briefly gave way to spring, he expected to see the usual brown and beige leaves blanketing the ground, bare trees towering overhead, and a smattering of wildlife.

But something else caught his attention that day: A clever piece of camouflaged artwork, just off the beaten path.

The large painting perfectly matched its surroundings, but made it appear as if the trunks of the two trees it leaned against had been partially removed, replaced by a stack of gray stones and a twig wedged between the missing parts as if holding them up.

For full story, please click on link below.

Wake Up the Earth May 7

After a two-year hiatus, a beloved tradition returned to Southwest Corridor Park. “WUTE” began in 1979 when a group of neighbors and activists stopped a proposed I-95 expansion into Jamaica Plain. It remains today a vibrant celebration of what people of all traditions, cultures, ages and beliefs can accomplish when they come together.

This year, a gusty, blustery 10 hours kept vendors and performers improvising ways to ground themselves. JP Church was “rock” solid grounded in painting activities on stone and board. Energy abounded. Engagements were fun and respectful. Soul inspired lots of creativity and conversation.

Our mirror mosaic asked: ”How do you see respect?”
In other words (from members):
- How does respect grow?
- How do we honor one another better… for our good qualities… for our differences?
- What do you respect in your community?
- Where would you like to see respect grow in your community?
- How have you been touched by respect in the past – in a way that changed you?
- Can you respect someone you disagree with?
-How do we grow the respect that liberates?
-How do we model respect for our children?
-How have you been moved by seeing respect expressed?
-How have you been touched by someone who made you feel respected?
-How have you felt respected in the past?
-What’s the difference between showing respect and respecting someone?

Rom 12:10 Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other. (NLT)

With openness, curiosity and respect, we connected visitors at our literature table - as well as neighboring booths - to Monitor issues of particular interest to them. Four or five neighboring climate-focused vendors welcomed the issue with the cover story on climate scientist moms.

Psalms 19:14  I hope my words and thoughts please you. Lord, you are my Rock, the one who saves me. (ICB)

How do we move from duty-bound expectations to the soul-feeding respect of seeing the actual good in the people around us and being moved by that?

I Thess 12-13  We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. (ESV)

Story boarding the “Take no thought for your life” parable

John 13: 34 I give you a new command: Love each other deeply and fully. Remember the ways that I have loved you, and demonstrate your love for others in those same ways. (Voice)