Mother's Evening Prayer

I’m impelled to post this poem by Mary Baker Eddy today. Hope it inspires you.

Mother’s Evening Prayer

O gentle presence, peace and joy and power;
O Life divine, that owns each waiting hour,
Thou Love that guards the nestling's faltering flight!
Keep Thou my child on upward wing tonight.

Love is our refuge; only with mine eye
Can I behold the snare, the pit, the fall:
His habitation high is here, and nigh,
His arm encircles me, and mine, and all.

O make me glad for every scalding tear,
For hope deferred, ingratitude, disdain!
Wait, and love more for every hate, and fear
No ill, — since God is good, and loss is gain.

Beneath the shadow of His mighty wing;
In that sweet secret of the narrow way,
Seeking and finding, with the angels sing:
"Lo, I am with you alway," — watch and pray.

No snare, no fowler, pestilence or pain;
No night drops down upon the troubled breast,
When heaven's aftersmile earth's tear-drops gain,
And mother finds her home and heav'nly rest.

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Just keep moving

My friend Travis has an excellent entry on his blog today: Just Keep Moving (thanks Trav, I stole your title). He relates how spiritual healing helped him with a recent neck injury, and how part of his discipline to effect the healing was to keep moving.

I love the spiritual concept he’s explaining. It’s worked for me a bunch of times. I just want to share one of these times, actually the first time I employed this idea when needing healing.

Many years ago, I developed a twinge in my hip. It hurt whenever I walked. It would zing a little and make me favor that side. I tried to take it easy, but I had a job where there was a lot of standing and sitting and walking involved.

As I remember it, the key spiritual idea that helped me was the conviction that my thought governs my body, not the other way around. Indeed, it was my thought in alignment with divine Mind that truly enacts harmony, in every instance. Science and Health states: “Experiments have favored the fact that Mind governs the body, not in one instance, but in every instance.”

I was at a place in my spiritual journey where reasoning things through helped clarify things. So, I reasoned away. If Mind governs the body, then it’s Mind that tells the body how it feels and how it can perform. And Mind knows no limits or impairments. Mind sees me as its own idea, whole and perfect. Mind knew nothing of the twinge. I was free to live according to Mind’s knowledge, meaning, I didn’t have to accommodate something that Mind didn’t even know about.

I resolved to stop favoring my hip and to move about normally no matter what. I remember starting to straighten up as I walked, and again moving with evenness and freedom. I didn’t cave in or lean to one side when I felt the twinge, but, as Travis says, I just kept moving.

It was a great feeling to pull myself up this way. I felt a sense of stature, of dominion. I walked with Mind, standing tall. I was on top of this problem, with Mind.

In a few days the twinge was gone, but the discipline remained. I call on this discipline often. I use it on twinges, sniffles, bonks, you name it.

It seems to me that mortality and carnal beliefs will try to creep into our lives first with twinges. We wonder if something’s wrong, but we don’t do much about it. The twinge develops into an ache or a pain. We become frightened. We start to believe in its reality. And then we have something larger (in belief) to deal with.

But what if we cut it off at the pass? If we stand tall as soon as it shows up, shaking our heads and saying, “Not today.” The twinge will yield. It can’t help but do so in the face of Mind’s correct assessment.

Just keep moving. Excellent strategy.

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A different Memorial Day

Memorial Day is usually about those who have fought and died in armed conflict in the United States, but today I’d like to memorialize something else.

Over the weekend, the new pope, Pope Benedict XVI, visited Auschwitz. The pope is German-born, and he was an unwilling member of the Hitler Youth as a boy, even being drafted to fight in the final months of WWII. He refused and deserted, however, yet still feared for his life as a prisoner of war by the Americans who occupied his town.

What most moved me about the CNN account of his visit to Auschwitz is his referring to the slaughter of Jews by Nazis as “Shoah.” This shows a sensitivity to a nuance of the Jewish perspective, which has not been the Catholic church’s tendency in the past.

According to James Carroll’s monumental book Constantine’s Sword, many Jews consider Shoah to be a more accurate term than Holocaust. The initial impulse for Carroll, a Catholic, to write his book was to gain a deeper understanding of the protest from Jews when Pope John Paul II erected a cross at Auschwitz to commemorate the handful of non-Jews (i.e., Catholics) who were also killed there, and to acknowledge their martyrdom. But to claim martyrdom is to claim God had a hand in these deaths. Carroll writes:

Jews as figures of suffering—negation, denial, hatred, guilt—are at the center of this long history [between the Christian church and Judaism], although always, until now, their suffering was [supposedly, to the Christian view] proof of God’s rejection of them. Is Jewish suffering now to be taken as a sign of God’s approval? Golgotha of the modern world—does that mean real Jews have replaced Jesus as the sacrificial offering, their deaths as the source of universal salvation? Does this Jew-friendly soteriology turn full circle into a new rationale for a Final Solution?

Uneasiness with such associations has prompted some Jews to reject the very word “holocaust” as applied to the genocide, since in Greek it means “burnt offering.” The notion that God would accept such an offering is deeply troubling. When the genocide is instead referred to as the Shoah, a Hebrew word meaning “catastrophe,” a wall is being erected against the consolations and insults of a redemptive, sacrificial theology of salvation. Shoah, in its biblical usage, points to the absence of God’s creative hovering, the opposite of which is rendered as “ruach.” Ruach is the breath of God, which in Genesis drew order out of chaos. Shoah is its undoing.

Carroll’s book is full of challenging ideas like this. I highly recommend it as a way to increase understanding between Christians and Jews.

I hope the visit by Benedict to Auschwitz heralds a new level of understanding on all sides, indeed a new trend of understanding between all religions. As I’ve written about before, I believe the opposite of hate is understanding.

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Nice job, God!

Note: fun little bird video in response to yesterday’s posting from Japanese friend Edel. Enjoy!

Wanted to share a workplace story on this end-of-the-week day.

Right out of college, back in the early 1980s, my first job was as a clerical worker on a clerical team in a high rise office building. My first supervisor, a woman, was a doll. Taught me everything I knew, was very patient and professional. Of course, then she got promoted, and was replaced with a new guy. I’ll call him Phil.

My fellow clerks and I soon discovered Phil had strong misogynistic tendencies. We were all young women, unsure of our place in the world. Phil began to throw his weight around, asking us to do things that were inappropriate to make his life easier. Basically, we had to do our jobs and his job too. However, we weren’t authorized to do some of the things he was trying to avoid. He literally wanted to sit around all day just telling us what to do, but he offered no support or encouragement or management, really. Weird dude.

Well, we put up with this as best as we could. We all developed different tactics. One worker feigned incompetence so he would leave her alone. The other made herself very very busy whenever he was around. This left me. I simply refused to do what he asked whenever I deemed it outside the scope of my job description.

When I prayed about this, as I did occasionally, I tried to see him as a child of God. This didn’t work real well, meaning I wasn’t able to do it. But prayer did open my thought to the understanding that God would take care of it. I didn’t need to do anything, God would protect me and my fellow workers. I could feel secure in this understanding and not fear.

If I’d been more experienced I might have been more worried. But as it was, I had an almost childlike faith that all would turn out fine and that I should stick to my guns. I resolved to continue to express complete cooperation about doing my own job well but to also adhere to my own integrity in not doing things I wasn’t authorized to do.

Next thing you know, our manager, Phil’s boss, called the three of us into her office for a dressing down. Apparently *he* had complained about *us.* Well, then the proverbial caca hit the fan. The three of us let rip about what had been going on. Our manager was shocked, and Phil was out of there within a few days.

Nice job, God!

I was reminded of this story the other day while reading Psalm 64:

1 Hear my voice, O God, in my prayer: preserve my life from fear of the enemy.
2 Hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked; from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity:
3 Who whet their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words:
4 That they may shoot in secret at the perfect: suddenly do they shoot at him, and fear not.
5 They encourage themselves in an evil matter: they commune of laying snares privily; they say, Who shall see them?
6 They search out iniquities; they accomplish a diligent search: both the inward thought of every one of them, and the heart, is deep.
7 But God shall shoot at them with an arrow; suddenly shall they be wounded.
8 So they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves: all that see them shall flee away.
9 And all men shall fear, and shall declare the work of God; for they shall wisely consider his doing.
10 The righteous shall be glad in the Lord, and shall trust in him; and all the upright in heart shall glory.

“So shall they make their own tongue to fall upon themselves.” The principle revealed in this psalm has stayed with me all these years. When I’m feeling attacked, I don’t need to *do* anything. I just stay the course, acting under my own integrity. The Divine will cause to be revealed whatever needs to be revealed, and I will be protected. It’s happened time and again.

God’s pretty smart. You can count on it.

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Angel creatures

Despite the title of her entry, Red Fork Hippie Chick wrote about birds yesterday: Frog Songs. I woke up thinking about birds.

This time of year, birds are my alarm clock. This morning at dawn the cacophony started. First there’s one lonely chirp off in the distance, then another. Then the twitters begin. Then the caws. Soon an entire symphony greets my ears. The loveliness of all that life and activity and joy braces my mornings no matter what was on my mind as I drifted off to sleep the night before.

And, they are a constant presence. I placed a bird feeder strategically outside my office window, and I can see them swooping down and fighting over the seeds all day long. Their antics often make me laugh. Combine that with the squirrel who I think I’ve finally outwitted but who still keeps trying, and my day is filled with moments of glee that I couldn’t get anywhere else. Here are some pictures, just for fun.

This reminds me of a time in Los Angeles, when I was feeling very lonely and low. My desk at that time faced a window that looked out on a tree between my building and the one right next door, about fifteen feet away. I had been trying to pray, but the words on the pages of the books had no meaning. I was lost in a blank space.

As I stared out the window at the leaves, suddenly a hummingbird appeared. It came right to my window and pointed its little snout right at me. Hovering there, no more than two feet away, it hummed at me, allowing me a good long look at its ruffous feathers but no glance at its ever-active wings. I began to laugh with delight. Once it saw I was happy again, it flew off.

It struck me that I’d just been visited by an angel. I grabbed the books before me and looked up birds and related words to see what I would find (all from Science and Health).

God is the Life, or intelligence, which forms and preserves the individuality and identity of animals as well as of men. --550:5-7

Genesis i. 20. And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

… Spiritually interpreted, rocks and mountains stand for solid and grand ideas. … The fowls, which fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven, correspond to aspirations soaring beyond and above corporeality to the understanding of the incorporeal and divine Principle, Love.

Genesis i. 21. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Spirit is symbolized by strength, presence, and power, and also by holy thoughts, winged with Love. These angels of His presence, which have the holiest charge, abound in the spiritual atmosphere of Mind, and consequently reproduce their own characteristics. Their individual forms we know not, but we do know that their natures are allied to God's nature; and spiritual blessings, thus typified, are the externalized, yet subjective, states of faith and spiritual understanding. --511:19-16

Genesis i. 25. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

God creates all forms of reality. His thoughts are spiritual realities. … Mind, joyous in strength, dwells in the realm of Mind. Mind's infinite ideas run and disport themselves. In humility they climb the heights of holiness.

Moral courage is "the lion of the tribe of Juda," the king of the mental realm. Free and fearless it roams in the forest. Undisturbed it lies in the open field, or rests in "green pastures, . . . beside the still waters." In the figurative transmission from the divine thought to the human, diligence, promptness, and perseverance are likened to "the cattle upon a thousand hills." They carry the baggage of stern resolve, and keep pace with highest purpose. Tenderness accompanies all the might imparted by Spirit. …

All of God's creatures, moving in the harmony of Science, are harmless, useful, indestructible. --513:22-515:10

My angels are exalted thoughts, appearing at the door of some sepulchre, in which human belief has buried its fondest earthly hopes. With white fingers they point upward to a new and glorified trust, to higher ideals of life and its joys. Angels are God's representatives. These upward-soaring beings never lead towards self, sin, or materiality, but guide to the divine Principle of all good, whither every real individuality, image, or likeness of God, gathers. By giving earnest heed to these spiritual guides they tarry with us, and we entertain "angels unawares." --299:7

If living creatures are the “angels of His presence,” and angels are divine messengers, then my little hummingbird friend flitted by to tell me something. And I got the message—joy rather than depression, soaring aspirations rather than despair. It put me back on track.

What are the creatures in your life telling you today? Right now the blue jay is taking his prize from the feeder up to my roof and hammering it open with his beak. I hear his “ponk ponk ponk” throughout the day, a constant reminder of my feathered companions. And I smile, knowing I’m being visited by angels.

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Spotlight: Philippians 4

I had occasion to read this chapter in Paul’s Philippians a few days ago, and much of it resonated. So I thought I’d share a little commentary here.

Philippians 4, selected verses

4 Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.
5 Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.
6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
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.

Here, to me, Paul is promoting a mindset. Keep your thought filled with good, and be at peace. Be sure to include rejoicing as well. Be moderate. Don’t worry about anything. Bring your requests to God, and He will fill you with peace. This washed over me like a cool breeze on a hot night. Just reading it again makes me breathe deeply and relax. All is well.

9 Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.
10 But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again; wherein ye were also careful, but ye lacked opportunity.
11 Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.
12 I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.
13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

Seems to me he’s referring here to what he’ll discuss more below, how this church is supporting him not only spiritually but practically. And while perhaps they couldn’t send as much as they had before, “now at the last your care of me hath flourished again.” Yet he doesn’t blame them, but understands they were doing the best they could. And this most gracious realization, “I have learned, whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” Would that I could learn this! But I am, day by day. For, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”

14 Notwithstanding ye have well done, that ye did communicate with my affliction.
15 Now ye Philippians know also, that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only.
16 For even in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto my necessity.
17 Not because I desire a gift: but I desire fruit that may abound to your account.
18 But I have all, and abound: I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, wellpleasing to God.
19 But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

In more detail here, he discusses how this church “sent once and again unto my necessity.” And he reassures him that even as they are giving, “my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” This comforts me so much today as I continue in the constant human battle to live abundantly. God is supplying all my need.

20 Now unto God and our Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
21 Salute every saint in Christ Jesus. The brethren which are with me greet you.
22 All the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of Caesar's household.
23 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

I salute you, everyone reading today, with a hope for your continued blessing and your deepening connection with Spirit. God bless.

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Hope springs

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

--Alexander Pope

I noticed something else when watching the movie United 93 over the weekend, and that is the quality of hope. (I wrote about this movie yesterday as well.)

Even though I knew the end of the story, I still hoped throughout that they would right the plane and survive. This feeling of hope did not leave me even when survival was clearly impossible. I kept thinking, if only they can get the cockpit, or if only that one experienced pilot could get his hands on the controls.

And it made me realize how much I rely on hope to get through the day. If I only went on how things appeared to be going, I would quickly curl up in despair. There are constant challenges to overcome and limitations to break through. Without hope, I wouldn’t even try.

So today I’m grateful that hope exists. Hope allows me to change my expectations from negative to positive. Hope gives me the strength to start fresh each day. Hope lets me think well of others even when they don’t think well of themselves.

I’m not sure I agree entirely with Pope’s sentiment at the beginning of this posting. Blessing isn’t some distant thing, but a present reality. Hope opens our hearts to blessing as an open window lets in the spring breeze. So I do believe this: Hope springs eternal.

Here are some passages containing hope:

And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee. --Psalm 39:7

Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God. --Psalm 42:11

Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man. For thou art my hope, O Lord God: thou art my trust from my youth. --Psalm 71:4,5

Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God: --Psalm 146:5

For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. --Romans 8:24,25

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. --I John 3:2,3

As human thought changes from one stage to another of conscious pain and painlessness, sorrow and joy, — from fear to hope and from faith to understanding, — the visible manifestation will at last be man governed by Soul, not by material sense. --Science and Health 125:12-16

Life, Truth, and Love are the realities of divine Science. They dawn in faith and glow full-orbed in spiritual understanding. As a cloud hides the sun it cannot extinguish, so false belief silences for a while the voice of immutable harmony, but false belief cannot destroy Science armed with faith, hope, and fruition. --Science and Health 298:2

Spiritual sense, contradicting the material senses, involves intuition, hope, faith, understanding, fruition, reality. --Science and Health 298:13-15

DOVE. A symbol of divine Science; purity and peace; hope and faith. --Science and Health 584:26

From Brood O'er Us

Thou to whose power our hope we give,
Free us from human strife.
Fed by Thy love divine we live,
For Love alone is Life;
And life most sweet, as heart to heart
Speaks kindly when we meet and part.

From Mother's Evening Prayer

O make me glad for every scalding tear,
For hope deferred, ingratitude, disdain!
Wait, and love more for every hate, and fear
No ill, — since God is good, and loss is gain.

From In Heavenly Love Abiding

Green pastures are before me,
Which yet I have not seen;
Bright skies will soon be o'er me,
Where darkest clouds have been.
My hope I cannot measure,
My path in life is free;
My Father has my treasure,
And He will walk with me.

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United 93 (and what I was doing that day)

Went to see the incredibly well-done United 93 movie this weekend. It left me speechless.

I had the strangest sensation of reliving the past. Like many of us, what I was doing that morning is etched into my memory. In watching the people in the film, I remembered moment-by-moment what I was doing, when I was acting and when I was praying.

I was in the unique position of being involved with a Website about spirituality. We were still very new, so when other sites were crashing from the increased Web traffic we stayed operational. But we had no communication besides the Web, so our best information came from the phone.

Like everyone else, the first we heard of the disaster was the plane crashing into the North Tower. For me, it was my mom calling. She was horrified, because my brother worked at the World Trade Center. I initially thought it was probably a small private plane that had gone off course, and anyway Steve worked in the South Tower. I had no TV at the office so couldn’t see what she was seeing. I tried to calm her down as others in my office were also getting the news and the buzz was increasing.

We couldn’t get onto CNN.com to find out anything, the site was totally overwhelmed with traffic. The Breaking News reports started coming in our emails, though, very soon. Minutes of confusion continued until we heard of the second crash as well. We were hearing reports of which floors were affected. So I got on the phone to call the Washington office of my brother’s law firm. They told me his office at WTC was on the 38-40^th floors of 2WTC, the South Tower.

It was probably about 9:15 by then, and no one in the family knew if he’d gotten in to work yet. Of course cell phones in New York were maxed out and nothing was getting through. My incredibly naïve initial calls to his actual office rang and rang.

It was at that point that our team regrouped. We had already had our story meeting for the morning, and now we quickly re-gathered in our shabby garage-like office, crammed into a conference room and staring at each other. Our leadership got us going on a response. Each of us had particular points of view. One staff member was a veritable current events expert. One was up from New York City herself. I had a relative who worked there. As we all volunteered what we would do next, I found myself saying, “I just need to go pray.”

I went outside the building on that crisp clear fall day. Sitting near a fountain, I looked across a plaza to the one church I believe is the most beautiful on the planet. We suspected that this was terrorism, so my thought was drawn to a powerful sense of the oneness of God. That there is only one God, that we all serve Him, that there are no divisions among us, that we exist together in harmony in His creation. This feeling filled me. I became grateful as I sat there, still and convinced.

At a just about 10am, a coworker came out of the building and told me that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon. I took a deep breath and felt I was needed upstairs. As I walked onto the floor, my female boss came over to me and put her arms around me. She said, “The South Tower [my brother’s building] has collapsed.”

I stared at her blankly. Collapsed? How was that possible? Having not seen the footage yet, I thought she meant it fell over, like sideways. It made no sense to me.

By now, a colleague had gotten a small antenna TV from his nearby home, and had rigged it up with a coat hanger for better reception. So we began to be able to see some images. Rattled and upset but so yearning to DO SOMETHING, we gathered again. This time, I said, “I need to go write.”

I took my small NEC MobilePro laptop into a smaller conference room and wrote down my prayer. It absolutely came right from my head to the keyboard, very little editing. I don’t believe I’d had such clear thinking before or since. I prayed specifically for the people in the stairwells, the airplanes, on the ground, in the cities. I didn’t know yet to pray for the firefighters. Here’s a copy of what I wrote:

My prayer for my brother

Just as I was typing the final words, the colleague up from New York came into the conference room to let me know my mother had called back and we’d heard from Steve. He’d had to run for his life, but was fine and on his way home.

The prayer I wrote was published later that day, and was shared by thousands. It was read into the Congressional Record by a US congressman.

The last few minutes of the movie United 93 included footage of all the people on board praying—the Muslims prayed in their language, as many passengers prayed the Lord’s Prayer. I realized I had been praying—many of us were praying—at that exact moment as well. We were “united” in prayer. I had the strongest feeling as I was watching of my own prayer embracing them. As the movie ended with a sudden black screen, my arms went forward involuntarily to wrap them all up in Love. That’s where they are.

My prayer article was just one element of our response to the crisis. For the following weeks and months, our Website provided instant comfort and inspiration to thousands in the form of discussions, events, interviews, ecards. The WTC disaster galvanized our work, and we learned just why we were there. I continue to feel that the spread of practical ideas about spirituality is a worthy life-work, for spirituality is the one thing that’s always available no matter what the crisis. So here I am, still Webbing away.

Someday, when the movie comes out, I’ll tell about what we did for the tsunami.

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Do it now!

I’m having fun lately getting to know the works and ideas of a man we’ve all heard of: Dale Carnegie. As you may know, he wrote How to Win Friends and Influence People almost 100 years ago, and today thousands of people each year take courses associated with this book. (My family has a copy of this great little satire called How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, also a great read!)

Carnegie wrote another book, How to Stop Worrying & Start Living. As I browse through this book (I took a Dale Carnegie course a couple years ago—revolutionized my public speaking), I’m finding it laced with spiritual concepts.

For example, in his chapter “How to Cure Depression in Fourteen Days,” Carnegie gives Seven Ways to Cultivate a Mental Attitude That Will Bring You Peace and Happiness (he is very fond of capital letters). The first is, “Let’s fill our minds with thoughts of peace, courage, health, and hope, for ‘our life is what our thoughts make it.’”

Carnegie also quotes Theodore Dreiser, famed atheist of his day but also to my mind a spiritual man: “I shall pass this way but once. Therefore any good that I can do or any kindness that I can show—let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”

Reminds me of a Bible passage I love: “Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it. Say not unto thy neighbour, Go, and come again, and to-morrow I will give; when thou hast it by thee” (Proverbs).

True in business, true in life. If you think of something good to do for another, do it now. Don’t wait. If you wait, next thing you know days have passed and you rationalize it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Do it as soon as you think of it, though, and you build a habit of doing good and soon it will be second nature.

Lord, I’m sounding like Dale Carnegie! So let me be me for a second. I think this practice gets its power not from the results it incurs, but from the spiritual truth it represents. Divine Love fills all space. Infinite Mind is constantly coming up with ideas. Omnipotent Principle makes things happen. One moment of caring about another, having an idea to help them, and then following through enacts Love, Mind, and Principle all at once. That deed has the power of the divine behind it, giving it the force of good.

I think that’s what makes it all work. Check out this from Carnegie’s chapter on curing depression:

Here is the most astonishing statement that I ever read from the pen of a great psychiatrist. This statement was made by Alfred Adler. He used to say to his melancholia patients: “You can be cured in fourteen days if you follow this prescription. Try to think every day how you can please someone.”

This works not because of human will, but because it’s tapping into a universal spiritual concept: we are one with Love, and when we express Love, we feel Love.

Anyway, I’m enjoying Dale Carnegie’s writings. They’re worth investigating if you’d like practical tips on how to apply the ideas you’re learning on your spiritual journey.

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Inquiring minds

Phew! Had a GREAT experience last night. Went to speak at Sangha, a philosophical/spiritual club at a local high school founded by one of the students. What an incredible group.

I had a few introductory remarks, then they launched right in with question after question. I tried to be intelligent, but could barely keep up! I’d like to stay in touch with all of them, so if any of them are reading this, IM me any time!

One question I’m still noodling on was something like, What do I think is the place of religion? Do I think it’s okay for people to shop around? It’s interesting to me that this came up, because I’m wrestling with it personally as well.

Clearly, many people on their spiritual journey try a lot of things. Others choose to stick to a particular discipline. I guess I fall into the latter camp. I mean, I enjoy and am enriched by finding out about other teachings and other practices, and I love how it increases my understanding of another’s point of view. But I myself only practice Christian Science.

Something came out of my mouth when I answered that I’m still learning from. I said something like, it’s a choice between letting the discipline shape you or shaping your own journey yourself. To me, both are definitely valid, I’m not trying to say one is superior to the other. And my choice has been to let the discipline shape me, letting my deeper study of this one teaching and practice work changes in me and lead me on my path.

For, I’ve always had a problem with ego. Basically, I’ve got one. I’m far too inclined to think my way is the best way, that I know everything, that I’m always right. So for me, the more spiritually strengthening path is to be more humble in my approach. Hence, I try to submit. I let it shape me.

For someone else, I can see how too much submission would be counterproductive. Some folks need more of a sense of empowerment, of self-actualization, of determining their own destiny. This is a step of progress for them, and I applaud it.

This would probably be the worst thing for me, though! So I’ve committed to Christian Science. I stand for it, it’s part of my self-definition. And I’ll let that study and practice continue to shape me going forward. After all, it’s never let me down, and it’s taken me on the grandest adventure ever. For how else would I have found myself in a room with all those inquiring minds?

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Moving mountains and filling valleys with peace

Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:

--Isaiah

Yesterday I was thinking about those mountains and valleys. Does your life ever look this way, like a huge sine wave?

One minute you’re up, the next you’re down. The up times seem like such a good idea—it’s great to feel on top of the world like that. But then there’s the down times, where it’s a struggle to stay positive and buoyant.

These days, I’m more attracted to the steadiness of a plain gentle slope upward. Something like this:

Nothing too fancy, just steady progress.

How to maintain this gentle upwardness without slipping into the sine wave? For me, the best way is to cultivate a sense of peace. True peace.

Peace to me is more than just static inactivity where nothing happens. Peace is not just the absence of conflict. To me, peace is active confidence that all is well. It’s a joy and certainty that divine Mind is in control and I can align with it.

Peace is like the gimbaled compass on a boat that stays true to gravity no matter how the waves toss and turn. Unaffected by turbulence, peace continues on, straight as an arrow, true to itself.

Personally, I need a daily realignment with the ideas that bring me peace. If I go too long between conscious contemplation of spiritual truth, my life begins to be affected by the turbulence around me. But when I say spiritually “gimbaled,” so to speak, the waves can crash all they like. I move through them with equanimity.

The up and down motion now is a clue to me that I’ve got to regroup. I don’t care how great the highs are, I’m more inclined now to avoid the extremes. What I want is constant, steady, reliable peace rather than the rollercoaster of mortal existence.

Peace today. My hope is that it touches all of us.

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Mother strength

Maybe it was Mother’s Day on Sunday, or maybe it was all the extraordinary women I’ve been working with lately. Yesterday in prayer I explored the concept of Mother strength.

I don’t often think of those words together. Mother to me usually implies soft and gentle. Sunday’s Dear Abby, though, featured a different kind of mom—a real rootin’ tootin’ hell raiser. I loved reading about this woman’s dynamic womanhood, hope you enjoy it, too.

So yesterday, when the idea of motherhood was rolling around in my thought, I kept with it a sense of strength. It’s the strength of Spirit. Mothers do what they need to do. They have the strength to get up every morning to rouse the household, they have the strength to love even when disappointed, they have the strength to keep everything running so everyone else can go forth and conquer the world.

I started having visions of Rosie the Riveter, the goddess hunter Diana, Eleanor Roosevelt. I also recently re-read with my son Cheaper by the Dozen and its lesser known sequel Belles on Their Toes. The mother, Lillian Moller Gilbreth, is beyond the pale regarding both love and strength. I mean, twelve kids! And got them all through college in the early part of the 20^th century as a single mom/industrial engineer, after her husband’s passing. [Note: at the link, she's known as the Mother of Modern Management.]

Mary Baker Eddy, a woman called affectionately by her household workers “Mother,” once wrote: “As Mary Baker Eddy I am the weakest of mortals, but as the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, I am the bone and sinew of the world” (Emma C. Shipman Reminiscences).

It was the “bone and sinew” concept I found myself focusing on yesterday. Motherhood is the bone and sinew of the world. Motherhood shapes and influences through love and undying affection. It is probably the largest yet most unseen influence contributing to human progress, for what mother doesn’t want to give their children more than they had?

And, lest we forget, God is Mother as well as Father. God is both, neither to a lesser degree but both in full flower. I’ve often stumbled in the past when I’ve seen God referred to as “She.” Yesterday, with the towering strength of divine Motherhood in my thinking, for the first time I could think of God as She and understand.

To all my readers today, both male and female, think about the strength of motherhood that you express. When you do as a good mother would do, you are part of that strength.

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It's a happy day

Good morning everyone! And it’s a rainy cold day here in New England, one of a series of rainy cold days that promises to continue for the next week. Yet this finds me cozy and happy with no reason to leave the house until Wednesday, plenty of work and my kids nearby.

So today I offer a few lines about being happy.

yea, happy is that people, whose God is the Lord.

--Psalms

God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me.

--Genesis

Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. … She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her.

--Proverbs

When a man hath taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall he be charged with any business: but he shall be free at home one year, and shall cheer up his wife which he hath taken.

--Deuteronomy

And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.

--Matthew

And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away. And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone. But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear. But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.

--Matthew

Soul has infinite resources with which to bless mankind, and happiness would be more readily attained and would be more secure in our keeping, if sought in Soul.

--Science and Health

Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh.

--Luke

I agree with Rev. Dr. Talmage, that "there are wit, humor, and enduring vivacity among God's people."

--Mary Baker Eddy, Miscellaneous Writings p. 117

Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish; therefore it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to share it.

--Science and Health

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How does your best friend see you?

I had the joy of spending a weekend with my best friend lately. We’ve been friends since my tenth grade, but hadn’t seen each other in, golly, several years I think. Clearly it had been too long. We live on opposite coasts and the opportunity doesn’t arise often enough.

The total unconditional love we feel for each other bears no explanation. We’ve never been able to figure it out. We’re very different, yet we simply just adore each other.

And it got me thinking. What if I went through the day thinking of myself the way my friend thinks of me? With just wholehearted approval, never-ending patience and genuine affection? Can I even stand to think of myself that way?

Think of your best friend. How does that person see you? You know, how they look at you ready to share a joke or a memory, interested in the minutiae of your life, always giving you the benefit of the doubt and trusting that your higher self will win the day.

What an amazing gift a friend like that is. They’re the ones in our lives who see with the eyes of divine Love. To me, it’s a direct manifestation of God’s love for me, to be gifted with such a friend. I like to think I’m her gift in return.

So for the weekend, I’m going to change my own perspective. I’m going to see myself as she sees me. I’m going to walk through the world head held high, knowing that if she sees it, it must be there. I’m going to finally give myself some credit for being the person she sees.

Here are some further thoughts on friends.

One marvels that a friend can ever seem less than beautiful.

--Science and Health

Hast thou a friend, and forgettest to be grateful?

--Mary Baker Eddy, Miscellaneous Writings 339:23-24

Strongest deliverer, friend of the friendless,
Life of all being divine:
Thou the Christ, and not the creed;
Thou the Truth in thought and deed;
Thou the water, the bread, and the wine.

--Communion Hymn

And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.

--Exodus

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God is Like

You know that feeling of loving someone intensely but not necessarily liking them all the time? I used to think God was like that.

You know, He loves me because He *has* to, because God is Love, so what else can He do? The same as the way parents have to love their kids, it’s just required. But as for liking me, well, I figured if He really knew me, He wouldn’t like me that much. So I avoided eye contact and figured it was best if He just loved me from a distance.

God didn’t leave it there, though. He really is like the father in the prodigal son story, who comes running out to meet his returning son. God came to get me, to let me know how He really feels about me.

It was a time when I wrestled with depression about how my life was going. I’d experienced rejection yet again and was weighed down under it. Yet as I prayed I came across this passage from the Bible:

the Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.

--Deuteronomy

The “apple of his eye” phrase glowed to me that day. What does it mean to be the apple of someone’s eye? To me, it means I am special to God, that when I walk into a room His delighted attention is immediately drawn to me, that I interest and even entrance Him, that whatever I’m up to has His full and complete approval.

In short, He likes me.

This insight had profound impact. If He likes me, then heck, I can call Him any time. I can bring Him my thorniest problems and He’ll drop everything to help. For a moment, I felt like the kid up at the top of the jungle gym, who looks over at his parents to see them smiling and waving. God was waving at me, grinning from ear to ear, happy I exist--seeing all that I am and being delighted with me.

I loved that feeling. The glow of approval and genuine interest healed me that day of my depression. I moved through that day with a spring in my step and a buoyant heart.

I still turn to that feeling now and then when feeling low. And there God is, smiling and waving.

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So much of beauty is motion

I like to take pictures with my digital camera, especially now that it’s spring. There are incredible colors being displayed by nature, and I want to capture all of them.

When I walked along the river’s edge the other day, I wanted to capture the shimmering of the water. I took this shot:

It’s not a bad shot, but it doesn’t capture what I saw. What you can’t see in the photo is the ripples moving along the surface, sparkling in the light. It’s made me think a new thought: So much of beauty is motion.

Motion to me implies a journey. The wind passes through the maple, and the leaves dance. The blue jay alights on the feeder and nibbles, then is off again in the blink of an eye. The rain leaves its bounty on my roof, which flows through the gutters, which waters the lawn. Movement tells a story of purpose and growth.

That which is making progress doesn’t stand still. Progress is dynamic, not static. Because this is true, I do not need to fear the ride. I have to admit sometimes I just want things to settle down. To stay in one place for a minute or two so I can catch my breath. But truly if the world were to stop, it would be dead.

Infinite Life bursts forth continually. It doesn’t stop and it can’t be stopped. I am on this ride and need to love it. To embrace the changes as they come, no matter how new or outrageous they are. I used to pride myself on loving change for change’s sake, but lately I’ve felt myself resisting. I want things to be predictable. This is the beginning of aging however, and I’m now setting my mind to resist *that.* To resist stultification by embracing change.

Because I do want to stay in motion--it will keep me beautiful.

Here’s some more pictures from that day, hope you enjoy. But keep in mind: a snapshot is only a memory. These flowers and trees have changed even since then.

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My day in court

I never mentioned much about that day I had to go to court. And, not much happened that day besides scheduling various other dates that we’d have to appear. So the case is still ongoing.

Spiritually, though, I felt comforted. My psalm reading for that day happened to be Psalm 50.

Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined.

Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence:

He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people.

And the heavens shall declare his righteousness: for God is judge himself.

--Psalm 50

I read those words while sitting on a wooden bench surrounded by lawyers and officials, and a peace settled over me. I am in God’s hands. Divine Love is evaluating the situation and caring for me.

I understood better that what I really want is not to win or for the other party to lose, but for what is fair. It’s clear that I have my point of view, and they have theirs. I don’t have the objective perspective to know what the outcome should be. Yet God knows. He is Principle as well as Love, so He knows what is fair.

I’m also revisiting a posting I wrote some time ago about fairness. That day I had a “play on words” inspiration, which uplifted me. Now those same words are making me go deeper.

Human fairness seems to take time; Principle’s fairness is already enforced. There is already harmony, equity, balance, righteousness. My life is the unfoldment of that already established fairness—the “perfection of beauty” from the Psalm.

As I think through these ideas, I regain the confidence that all is well.

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