The Sun Rises After the Darkest Night © 2011 Brad Brubaker I have woken from a dream (1) It really was a morbid scene A wilderness you may have known (2) Rest assured you’re not alone I’m trying to forgive old debts (3) And make my peace with past regrets A lesson I have learned from them: You cannot love when you condemn I’ll say a prayer of gratitude A new life-changing attitude Cuz there is more than what I see Something stronger than belief There’s so much goodness in my life Sometimes I miss it, try I might It helps to share it when you can Then you will receive again Things can sometimes get me down Perhaps you’ve seen my stormy cloud But what I’m seeking now is grace: Gain a little more each day (4) I’ll sing this prayer of gratitude My new life-saving attitude The truth that came to me with time: The healing power, Love divine --- This song contains many ideas taken from the Bible and the Christian Science textbook for understanidng Jesus' teachings, Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. These footnotes provide insight. (1) There are two accounts of creation given in Genesis. In the first, God man and woman in His image. Furthermore, he sees everything he created as good. In the second, the Lord God creates flawed, material man from dust. Christian Science believes in perfect God, perfect man, and "Whatever indicates the fall of man or the opposite of God or God's absence, is the Adam-dream, which is neither Mind nor man, for it is not begotten of the Father." (S&H 282:28-29) (2) The concept of the wilderness story is one that exists in many faiths. In Christianity, the wilderness story most referred to are the 40 days and 40 nights Jesus spent in the desert fasting and encountering temptation immediately before he went out teaching and healing the people. I feel we each have our own wilderness story. The significance of wilderness stories cannot be denied. Science & Health even includes it in it's glossary: "Wilderness. Loneliness; doubt; darkness. Spontaneity of thought and idea; the vestibule in which a material sense of things disappears, and spiritual sense unfolds the great facts of existence." (S&H 597:16-19) (3) In the Lord's prayer given during Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, there is the line "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." (Matthew 6:12) Sometimes it is written "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." Regardless of how you say it, practicing forgiveness is key to a spiritually-centered life. (4) "What we most need is the prayer of fervent desire for growth in grace, expressed in patience, meekness, love, and good deeds. To keep the commandments of our Master and follow his example, is our proper debt to him and the only worthy evidence of our gratitude for all that he has done." (S&H 4:3)

Science & Health With Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy p. 468 "Question: What is the scientific statement of being? "Answer: There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual."

II Corinthians 4: 17-18 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Go Away, Error © 2012 Brad Brubaker When error is coming at me like a scream (1) I think of what my grandma said to me: “Anytime you feel scared or all alone Say ‘Go away, Error, and leave me alone!’ ” (2) Nothing is bigger than the Great I Am (3) And every living thing was made by him God is power, there’s nothing to fear So if you gotta cry you can dry your tears When an ugly little thought creeps inside your head Or monsters are crawling underneath your bed You should really do what my grandma said Say, “Go away, Error, and leave me alone!” Go into your closet when you need to pray (4) Sometimes you even gotta deadbolt that thing If you feel tempted by the father of lies Say it loud, “Get thee behind me” (5) You gotta stand porter at the door of thought (6) Some thoughts you let in, others you should not Stick to the good and the true and kind And listen to the bouncer inside your mind When an ugly little thought creeps inside your head Or monsters are crawling underneath your bed You should really do what my grandma said Say, “Go away, Error, and leave me alone!” If someone said a dinosaur walked outside Would start looking for a place to hide? (7) Or would you say, “God is protecting me. And dinosaurs are gone incidentally”? When an ugly little thought creeps inside your head Or monsters are crawling underneath your bed You should really do what my grandma said Say, “Go away, Error, and leave me alone!” --- This song contains many ideas taken from the Bible and the Christian Science textbook for understanding Jesus' teachings, Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. These footnotes provide insight. (1) "It requires courage to utter truth; for the higher Truth lifts her voice, the louder will error scream" S&H 97:22 (2) “The unlikeness of Truth, — named error, — the opposite of Science, and the evidence before the five corporeal senses, afford no indication of the grand facts of being…Man is, and forever has been, God's reflection. God is infinite, therefore ever present, and there is no other power nor presence. Hence the spirituality of the universe is the only fact of creation…This Science teaches man that God is the only Life, and that this is Truth and Love; that God is to be understood, adored, and demonstrated; that divine Truth casts out suppositional error and heals the sick…Sickness, sin, and death, being inharmonious, do not originate in God nor belong to His government. His law, rightly understood, destroys them. Jesus furnished proofs of these statements.” (S&H 471-472) (3) The Great I Am is one of the many names for God. It comes from the story of Moses in Exodus 3:14 in which God is telling Moses what to say to the children of Israel. (4) "when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." Matthew 6: 6 (from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount) - It was in response to this idea that my friend Lane said sometimes she needed to deadbolt her closet. (5) When Jesus went into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights, he encountered much temptation to which he responded "Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." (Luke 4:8) While I do not personally believe in a literal devil or Satan, I do believe that there are temptations (acting contrary to the Golden Rule, thinking or wishing ill upon someone else, accepting sickness as a punishment for sin) we can face that must be cast away, not for fear of judgment, but for a more fulfilling life. (6) "Stand porter at the door of thought." (S&H 392:24) In Science and Health, the previous lesson of Jesus is emphasized and put another way. We all must stand guard of our thought. (She says "porter;" I say "bouncer.") She says in another place, "You must control evil thoughts in the first instance or they will control you in the second." (S&H 234:26) In my study of Christian Science, I've learned that "evil" is not a list of "dos and don'ts" but rather those temptations listed in the previous footnote. As children of God, we mustn't accept these ideas as our own or possible in God's Kingdom. We must instead ask, "What is God seeing?" When we do this, we see that come into our own reality. (7) Philippians 4:8 "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." Also, Science & Health 261:4 "Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts." (8) My friend Scott shared with me an Christian Science Association address given by Jack Hubbell. In it he says that it is easy when we are praying about something that the focus of our prayer can be misguided. Often we try to pray a problem away, when in reality we can simply realize that God is all-power, the only cause and creator. This means any so-called problem is not and never could be any part of our being or have any reality. If we pray to realize this truth of God's loving protection, we recognize that anything to the contrary is error and is powerless.

Lyrics available online at many websites, including http://www.elyrics.net/read/c/civil-wars-lyrics/from-this-valley-lyrics.html

Matt. 6: 9-13 9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. 10 Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.