Psalm 119

Okay, I've finally made it to Psalm 119! (I know, I know, it's been more than 119 days since I started my Psalms read-through. But I'm still loving it.)

And, serendipitously, lately I was trolling LibraryThing's blogger's message board and happened upon James Kubecki's site. He's just started a series, Blogging through Psalm 119. He's doing it in sections and I'm doing one section a day in my read through, so I am printing out his thoughts to go along with what I'm reading. Very inspiring.

He links to a very cool resource site I wanted to share, that shows the Psalm is an acrostic, meaning each line in a section starts with the same letter. (Remember Hebrew reads from right to left and you'll see what he means.)

Kubecki also explains in his introductory entry that Psalm 119 is all about the Word of God. He gives a lot of great Bible background. I love what he has to say about the "promise" of God's Word:

Isn't that really what the Bible is all about, anyway? The promise (word, faithfulness, testimony) of salvation? Isn't that the whole purpose, to make us, like Timothy, complete and wise for salvation through faith?

So, since I'll be gone for a few days (until the 6^th), I'd like to invite you to join with me in my Psalm 119 reading, and check out Kubecki's thoughts as well. We can compare notes next week!

Have a Spirit-filled week.

p.s., I'll be checking my email while I'm gone, so if you need me, feel free to email!

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God help the outcasts

Whenever my kids are gearing up to leave home, often there's a sudden desire to watch some Disney movies. Last week, we watched Beauty and the Beast, and Hunchback of Notre Dame, and I continued the trend with Lion King yesterday. We hadn't watched these in years.

Hunchback especially flooded me with memories. The movie came out in 1996, and I remember gasping at the inclusion of the below song "God Help the Outcasts." To me, this was one of the first media events that tapped into the growing interest in spirituality that took hold in the '90s.

The fact that Disney was including spiritual content in a major motion picture just demonstrated how mainstream the topic had become. Remember, this was long before 9/11. 9/11 just gave us something central to talk about, but the spirituality trend was already there and quite strong.

So, here are the lyrics. If you'd like to listen to the song, check out this page on YouTube. (The words start about a minute into the clip. Don’t watch the images, though, they don't really match up with the song.)

In the movie, Esmeralda is walking through Notre Dame where she has just claimed sanctuary. She is a gypsy, and this group was persecuted by officialdom at the time of the story. Regular churchgoers are praying as well. Her song goes to an icon of the Virgin Mary and the Baby Jesus.

Artist: Disney
Song: God help the outcasts
Album: The Hunchback Of Notre Dame

Esmeralda
I don't know if You can hear me
Or if You're even there
I don't know if You would listen
To a gypsy's prayer
Yes, I know I'm just an outcast
I shouldn't speak to you
Still I see Your face and wonder...
Were You once an outcast too?

God help the outcasts
Hungry from birth
Show them the mercy
They don't find on earth
God help my people
We look to You still
God help the outcasts
Or nobody will

Parishioners
I ask for wealth
I ask for fame
I ask for glory to shine on my name
I ask for love I can posess
I ask for God and His angels to bless me

Esmeralda
I ask for nothing
I can get by
But I know so many
Less lucky than I
Please help my people
The poor and downtrod
I thought we all were
The children of God
God help the outcasts
Children of God

The first time I heard this song, I sat in the theater with tears streaming down my face. My thoughts mingled with hers in prayer, truly, as my heart ached for all the outcasts the world over.

But I was uplifted by her strong affirmation at the end—"I thought we all were the children of God." This is the genuine truth that fuels the spiritual trend. We are all the children of God, divine Love. Each and everyone has an innate desire to know Spirit and a right to feel loved.

After that movie came out, I started to watch for opportunities to share the message. It became clear to me that the conversation had started long ago and I was just now joining it. I could talk to just about anyone about spirituality and what I'd learned (as long as I kept it from seeming preachy or denominational). And I learned from so many others in ways that deepened my spiritual connection.

So my prayer today is to keep the conversation going. Who can I talk to today about Spirit, in a way that will bless them? And, dear Father-Mother, please lead me to the outcasts who so deserve to hear Your comforting word, and let me help them through You.

Reminder:
Due to traveling, I will not be blogging from August 30 - September 6.

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"In heavenly Love abiding…"

Today is favorite hymn day. What with meetings and packing up two kids and trips to the airport and hurried meals, I want this hymn to be running through my head all day.

If you're not familiar with it and you'd like to hear the tune, check out this link. (I was able to play the MIDI file with Windows Media Player.)

Hymn 148 in the Christian Science Hymnal

Words by Anna L. Waring

Tune: EWING, by Alexander Ewing

In heavenly Love abiding,
No change my heart shall fear;
And safe is such confiding,
For nothing changes here.
The storm may roar without me,
My heart may low be laid;
But God is round about me,
And can I be dismayed?

Wherever He may guide me,
No want shall turn me back;
My Shepherd is beside me,
And nothing can I lack.
His wisdom ever waketh,
His sight is never dim;
He knows the way He taketh,
And I will walk with Him.

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.

*Sigh.* Sing it with me today!

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Not really empty

There are some wonderful responses in the earlier Empty nesting post, just wanted to make sure you saw them.

This one from Sandy is especially inspiring:

For me, the key to meeting the challenges of an "empty nest" was to realize that it wasn't truly empty at all. To be sure, the parenting process changed radically when our only daughter left home after college for her first job in a distant city. And I will admit that it hasn't always been easy. Sentimentalist that I am, I occasionally find myself looking back wistfully on the days when the whole family was together under one roof every evening after school and work. However, I find strength and comfort in Mrs. Eddy's counsel that "Home is the dearest spot on earth, and it should be the centre, though not the boundary, of the affections." (S&H 58:21) Now, although I can't sit beside her on the living room couch every night, I am with her daily in prayer, and emails and phone calls provide a good way to share both news and inspiration. Letting go isn't meant to be easy, I've decided, but it opens new opportunities for growth for child and parent alike.

I love the idea that it's not truly empty. After all, divine Love fills all space. There is no void or vacuum of Love.

I'm reminded of a passage from "We Knew Mary Baker Eddy" ( a really terrific volume that I wish were still in print), in the reminiscence by Emma C. Shipman about Eddy's final class:

After [Mrs. Eddy] asked about the great need of love in everything we do, a pupil asked, "Do you mean love of person?" Mrs. Eddy replied, in substance, No, I mean love of good. Then she was asked, "How shall we know whether our love is personal or impersonal?" Her reply, in substance, was, When your love requires an object to call it forth, you will know it is personal; when it flows out freely to all, you will know it is impersonal.

Loving with no object? Can I do that? It's an interesting challenge that empty nesting is placing squarely before me. What does it mean to simply love, letting divine Love flow right through you, without pointing it at something or needing something to remind you? Just being filled with Love, existing in it, experiencing it, expressing it.

Sounds wonderful actually. And not at all empty. Maybe September will be my month of Love.

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Dropping our stones

In reading the story of the adulterous woman this week, I was struck for the first time by the question—what happened to the guy involved?

The story is in the Bible Lesson, which focuses on the words and works of Christ Jesus. Here's the whole story from the Gospel of John, for those who are not familiar with it:

1 Jesus went unto the mount of Olives.
2 And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them.
3 And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,
4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?
6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.
7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.
9 And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

--John 8:1-11

It was the "in the very act" phrase that caught my attention. Clearly, then, the guy involved must have been right there. Did he get grabbed and threatened with stoning?

My friend pointed out to me also that the ones wanting to stone her were all men. And Jesus was a man. So Jesus did more than simply rectify the situation and pacify a violent moment. He also turned these men around, from a more animal reaction to a more introspective one.

Causing people to examine themselves instead of judging another seems to me to be one of the hallmarks of Jesus' ministry. But really digging into our own failings and exposing them to the open air is about the hardest thing we'll ever have to do. I know whenever something new is revealed to me that I should deal with, I spend the first moments (sometimes days) justifying or rationalizing or excusing myself. I think, People should understand me better rather than expecting so much. This rationalizing could be my own modern version of stoning—attacking outside myself instead of recognizing the sin within.

A few tough-love words from Mary Baker Eddy:

We confess to having a very wicked heart and ask that it may be laid bare before us, but do we not already know more of this heart than we are willing to have our neighbor see? We should examine ourselves and learn what is the affection and purpose of the heart, for in this way only can we learn what we honestly are.

--Science and Health

Do I really want to know what I honestly am? Or would it make me, like the men surrounding Jesus and woman, turn shamefacedly away and drop my stones?

And I wonder about the man involved in the adultery story. Did he love the woman? Was he horrified that his actions led to her disgrace? Did he stand aside helpless, or did he run away in fear, abandoning her to the harsh judgment of that day? Or did he pray for her, lurking on the sidelines watching to see what would happen? And was he, too, healed by Jesus' words?

I like to think so. And I'd like to be healed myself the same way.

Reminder: Due to traveling, I will not be blogging from August 30 - September 6. But I promise to come back with lots of good material!

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New feature and other treats

Added a new feature today, see the sidebar under "Comments on Recent Postings." This is a cool little code I found on another blog, so I snagged it from the site BloggerHacks, who created the code and allow people to use it for free.

I hope it will encourage more comments! Because I love to see people's ideas on what I write, and I want you guys to see each others' as well. The feature only posts comments made to my most recent postings, but I do see all comments myself, even to the earlier posts.

Some other little treats:

• Kim has a lovely ode to friendship, with a photo of the Northern lights you must see, so check it out.
  
• Sweet Rose, otherwise known as Shoshana, has a posting on Beyond Teshuva called Honor All Your Failures, which I found inspiring. (Baalei Teshuva is a term for those who have returned to the observation of Judaism after an absense.)
• New friend Jun in the Philippines has a posting No Room for Superstition that is very enlightening.
• And On Location with Rick Lee, a photographer's site, is a blog I visit every day, just for fun.

So that's just a little potpourri or smorgasbord or buffet if you will of random stuff I've enjoyed. Hope it brightens your Tuesday!

Also, FYI, next week I'll be traveling for a family wedding, so will be taking a break from posting from Wednesday to Wednesday. Just thought I'd give advance warning, I'll mention it again then.

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No flipside to joy

I just finished the book Exuberance, which I wrote about several months ago. Clearly, it's not that easy of a read! And I'm not sure I agree with the author's conclusions, even though she has widely studied exuberance and what she considers to be its flipside, depression.

The author, Dr. Jamison, is herself a manic-depressive sufferer. So her work follows the familiar path—that excessive joy is the opposite of deep depression, and if you have one, you'll most likely suffer with the other.

And perhaps this is true if the exuberance is physical in nature, a simple influx of adrenaline. When it's like a drug making you high, being without it would predictably make you low.

But the reason I was so drawn to the title and I read the book is my conviction that joy can be permanent. It's more than a wild peak followed by a dark valley. Non-physical joy, i.e., spiritual joy, is sourced in Spirit, so need have no end at all.

I think Jamison comes closest to this in her chapter "Forces of Nature," where she explores the exuberance felt by scientists on the path of discovery. I'd never linked joy with scientific discovery before, yet that's what these highly dedicated men and women feel when they unravel a mystery for the first time. It's a childlike delight in being the first to see or understand something—that ooo-aah of revelation. Many of these scientists are described as then bounding around a room or quick calling everyone they know to share what they've found. These folks, once on that path, stay on it, making their life work to continue to discover and rejoice.

Much of the rest of the book explains, however, that many people characterized as exuberant were also frequently depressed and suicidal. "Mania," which to me had always been highly negative, apparently is the irrationally positive flipside of depression. This then slides into mental illness.

So what's the dividing line between being mentally ill and genuinely joyous? It seems to me the discussion is void if you stay in the realm of human emotions. One looks much like the other. What's needed in this as in many human dilemmas is the injection of the Divine. For without the Divine, we can make no sense of the puzzle.

Genuine joy is not sourced in material sense. It doesn't require physical sensation or circumstances to burst forth. The euphoria associated with things physical devolves to its opposite state; spiritual joy has nothing opposite to devolve to. It is self-existent and permanent.

Mary Baker Eddy writes about this transition from the impermanent to the permanent several places in Science and Health. Note how she's revealing that it's as we drop our faith in matter that our joy becomes more real.

Sorrow is turned into joy when the body is controlled by spiritual Life, Truth, and Love.

--p. 14

Job said: "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee." Mortals will echo Job's thought, when the supposed pain and pleasure of matter cease to predominate. They will then drop the false estimate of life and happiness, of joy and sorrow, and attain the bliss of loving unselfishly, working patiently, and conquering all that is unlike God. Starting from a higher standpoint, one rises spontaneously, even as light emits light without effort; for "where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

--p. 262

This is the doctrine of Christian Science: that divine Love cannot be deprived of its manifestation, or object; that joy cannot be turned into sorrow, for sorrow is not the master of joy; that good can never produce evil; that matter can never produce mind nor life result in death. The perfect man — governed by God, his perfect Principle — is sinless and eternal.

Harmony is produced by its Principle, is controlled by it and abides with it. Divine Principle is the Life of man. Man's happiness is not, therefore, at the disposal of physical sense.

--p. 304

Joy, and its outward expression Exuberance, doesn't ever need to be limited by sense. "Mind, joyous in strength, dwells in the realm of Mind. Mind's infinite ideas run and disport themselves" (p. 514:6-8). "Disport" means to play. We can expect infinite play as we drop the limited view. There is no flipside.

Why not do a little running and disporting today?

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

--Psalms

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Improve your time

I love the phrase "improve your time." Maybe it's my Protestant work ethic shining through, but time to me is a precious commodity, not to be wasted.

I've had to learn a lot about what is valuable activity, though. For instance, it took me years to discover how valuable playing with my children is. One Christmas, this workaholic mother actually gave the gift of time to her children—she promised not to do any work, all day, on Christmas, but instead to just play with them and their toys. She didn't even cook that day, but did all necessary preparation the night before. The kids were perhaps 3 and 8. It was a great Christmas. So sometimes my challenge is actually allowing myself to relax, which has its place in our overworked world.

Other times I've been impatient for results so have spun my wheels in useless activity. Being between jobs is an example of this. My original tendency was to rush around, pursuing leads. In more recent years, I've viewed the in-between times as opportunities to stop, contemplate, re-focus. I mean, once you have a job, how much time to you have to really dig in spiritually and mentally? I now believe the in-between times are a gift that can be improved with steady focus on Spirit.

So, I'd like to share today what Mary Baker Eddy says on the subject. I believe she would definitely include spiritual pursuits and prayerful downtime in her list of quality endeavors, and I bet family time and relationship building would be in there as well. It may seem below like she's advocating constant work, but I think she'd also include proper balance and expression.

IMPROVE YOUR TIME

Success in life depends upon persistent effort, upon the improvement of moments more than upon any other one thing. A great amount of time is consumed in talking nothing, doing nothing, and indecision as to what one should do. If one would be successful in the future, let him make the most of the present.

Three ways of wasting time, one of which is contemptible, are gossiping mischief, making lingering calls, and mere motion when at work, thinking of nothing or planning for some amusement, — travel of limb more than mind. Rushing around smartly is no proof of accomplishing much.

All successful individuals have become such by hard work; by improving moments before they pass into hours, and hours that other people may occupy in the pursuit of pleasure. They spend no time in sheer idleness, in talking when they have nothing to say, in building air-castles or floating off on the wings of sense: all of which drop human life into the ditch of nonsense, and worse than waste its years.

"Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait."

--Mary Baker Eddy's Miscellaneous Writings

Today's moments have been given to our care. How can we improve them?

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A bigger family

Today ends my newest parental odyssey—my daughter returns from three weeks backpacking through Europe with a friend.

I never did even hear what her itinerary was going to be. Instead I got periodic emails from Internet cafes dotting the continent. Amsterdam, Vienna, Venice, Rome, Barcelona, Paris, Dublin. I'm so amazed that she did this!

I'm feeling close to my friend Kim, who just wrote a blog entry about launching her first kid. She mentions the qualities "freedom, flow and growth" as key to her own decision-making about whether or not to go ahead. I think my daughter really got those right with her journey.

And today she comes back home safely and we have a few precious days until they both leave next week. These will be filled mostly with laughter, hugs, frantic packing, room scouring, eating and talking. Not much time for much else.

I love my family. I suppose when I look back, the time when I had them both to myself, when they were both small and needed me to get anywhere, to me represents my core years of parenting. We did everything as a threesome.

That ended when my daughter became self-sufficient in high school. I didn't realize those days were gone until they were over. Now the family is different. My kids are still simply marvelous, but we're spreading out. Our time now is about sharing what we've done away from each other rather than building new memories together.

I'm a spectator in my own family. It's an odd sensation. But what proud moments to see them carrying themselves through the world with grace and confidence.

Maybe I'm being invited to enlarge my sense of family, as Kim says in her blog. I now can explore the "universal family" Mary Baker Eddy talks about: "[The] human sense of Deity yields to the divine sense, even as the material sense of personality yields to the incorporeal sense of God and man as the infinite Principle and infinite idea, — as one Father with His universal family, held in the gospel of Love."

This morning I'm going to a networking meeting. I'm serving as president at my own chapter for the coming year term. I'm volunteering as a mentor for high school students, since my own have flown. I continue to make inroads into my community, getting to know my neighbors better, adoring the newest baby at church, hosting an inspirational women's group in my home.

My family isn't getting smaller, it's getting bigger. I have plenty of opportunities to nurture and be nurtured. Eddy also writes, "Man is the family name for all ideas, — the sons and daughters of God." If that is true, I have one big family of innumerable brothers and sisters! I better get started on meeting them all.

God setteth the solitary in families: …

--Psalms

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Billy Graham and marriage

Really wonderful cover story in August 14^th's Newsweek about Billy Graham, by Jon Meacham. Here's the link, but it may require registration to read. (Feel free to email me if the link doesn't work and I'll send you the text of the article.)

Graham has impressed me in recent years, as he's transformed from a more political preacher to sticking more exclusively with the Gospel. For all his influence, there's a great humility there. This is from the article:

Others relish the battlefield; Graham now prizes peace. He is a man of unwavering faith who refuses to be judgmental; a steady social conservative in private who actually does hate the sin but loves the sinner; a resolute Christian who declines to render absolute verdicts about who will get into heaven and who will not; a man concerned about traditional morality--he is still slightly embarrassed that he kissed "two or three girls" before he kissed his wife--who will not be dragged into what he calls the "hot-button issues" of the hour. Graham's tranquil voice, though growing fainter, has rarely been more relevant.

I'm not going to be able to cite the source, but one report about Graham years ago has stuck with me. In it, a reporter asked him frankly about his own sexual practices. This was at a time when many well-known Christian preachers were being caught with their pants down, so to speak.

Graham's response made absolute Christian sense to me, if you know what I mean. He talked about focusing 100% of his sexual energy toward his wife Ruth. He never put himself in a position of being alone with another woman, he didn't let his thoughts stray to fantasizing about other women, he didn't even conjure up imaginary women. He kept all that exclusively for his wife. Mentally physically absolutely. It was the most marvelous definition of fidelity I'd ever read.

In the years since reading that, I've tried to embrace it. Meaning, whenever I found myself in a relationship, even though I had embraced chastity so wasn't having sex, I still tried to train myself to focus whatever desire I felt toward my new love. Perhaps it sounds strange, but I could see it would be a deep commitment to refrain from looking around when in a relationship.

We're so acculturated to keeping our options open. True fidelity would be firmly and insistently keeping our options closed. No options, but this one that we've committed to.

Graham has really walked that talk. Here's what the article says about the twilight of his marriage:

Ruth dwells at the center of his world. "At night we have time together; we pray together and read the Bible together every night," he says. "It's a wonderful period of life for both of us. We've never had a love like we have now--we feel each other's hearts."

What a sharing they have with each other. It's that true sense of marriage that I so admire about Billy Graham.

Marriage should signify a union of hearts.

--Science and Health

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Do the math

Medieval scholars branded void as evil—and evil as void. Satan was quite literally nothing. Boethius made the argument as follows: God is omnipotent. There is nothing God cannot do. But God, the ultimate goodness, cannot do evil. Therefore evil is nothing. It made perfect sense to the medieval mind.

--Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, by Charles Seife

Surprising words from a book ostensibly about mathematics. But it turns out from this fascinating book Zero that the story of mathematics is a metaphysical one. For at every turn, the nature of new mathematical discoveries threatened the prevailing concepts about God.

Zero traces mankind's wrestlings with two concepts that continually wreaked havoc with reason: nothingness and infinity. You and I learned about these concepts as a matter of course in school, yet until very recently they were unexplainable and contradictory.

And it seems, through the development of arithmetic, geometry, trigonometry and calculus, mathematicians have come to the same conclusion that Mary Baker Eddy did with Christian Science: there is no material infinity. There can't be. The material universe (the only one mathemeticians are concerned with measuring) came from nothing and will return to nothing. Infinity must exist outside this universe.

Okay, so, if matter came from nothing and will go to nothing, how can it be that it ever became something at all?

And this is the basic point that makes it possible to experience spiritual healing. For spirituality is something, indeed the only thing.

In Christian Science, substance is understood to be Spirit, while the opponents of Christian Science believe substance to be matter. They think of matter as something and almost the only thing, and of the things which pertain to Spirit as next to nothing, or as very far removed from daily experience. Christian Science takes exactly the opposite view.

--Science and Health

With matter being nothing, the only reality becomes consciousness. What fills your consciousness is reality to you. External forms, therefore, are subjective and able to be altered, since they are not true substance.

Have you ever tried to completely shut off physical inputs and dwell only in your thought? I try to do this whenever I pray. Physical inputs are the nothingness that have no past and no future, because they have a beginning and an end. On the eternal timeline of infinity they don't even take up a basis point. Our perception of time in the physical universe is not even a blip on the radar of infinity.

So I shut off physical inputs, mortality, the finite, when I go into the spiritual space that is prayer. I release my thought from material boundaries and allow myself to entertain a reality that has no limits whatsoever—where perfection is the norm and harmony reigns. This is only possible in the void of infinity—void only in the material sense, but filled with the substance of Spirit.

This reality is powerful enough to alter my very perception of the material universe. I lose my fear of what physical inputs are telling me and instead come to rely on Spirit. Once my perception is changed, the physical inputs themselves also change. I no longer even see or feel the thing that frightened me, it has returned to the nothingness from which it came. I am healed.

To say it in mathematical terms, prayer is not irrational or imaginary, nor does it have limits. Prayer brings you to the heart of reality. Spiritual reality resolves all of our questions. Do the math.

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Why prayer always works

It seems pretty self-evident that prayer doesn't always bring the results we wanted when we started praying.

I went to see Oliver Stone's World Trade Center this weekend. It's quite moving, my son and I cried in all the right places, and of course it was gratifying to see the two rescued officers reunited with their families. But a lot of people were praying that day for their missing loved ones. And, unless you were actually outside the buildings, chances are you went down with them. The 20 that escaped from the rubble—did they have better prayers on their side? Did the families of those who were lost not pray as well?

In fact, I hear this a lot in my practice. "I must not be praying the right way," people will say to me. I've read books that place the blame for unwanted outcomes squarely on the shoulders of the victims, claiming that if their thought had only been spiritually "correct," the misfortune would never have happened.

I rail against this. God is not mocked in this way. He does not play favorites, nor are our lives a cosmic roll of the dice. There is an order to the universe that is in play right now. What I believe is that in order to understand more deeply, we need to see from a universal perspective.

When we pray, we are fighting a larger battle than with just the particular circumstance confronting us. When we achieve harmony through prayer, we are winning the way not just for ourselves, but for all creation. We are soldiers of light in the army of Spirit, and our enemy is not our own circumstances but anything that is the opposite of that light.

Every time any one of us invites Spirit to the situation through prayer, we are opening the window for light to shine in. It is a battle that goes on moment by moment, day by day, millennia by millennia. It sometimes occurs that we as individuals do not see immediate results of the light we've helped bring to the world. But we have still done our part in the overall battle. And if we keep at it, we too shall see the light.

Every prayer that day in September five years ago worked. Every prayer was a protest for the light against the darkness. Spirit filled all space then, as it does now. Darkness cannot win against that light.

So keep shining the light with your prayers. It is working. Our world is making progress, step by step. Not all of it is pretty or smooth, but it is happening.

Your prayers work. Always.

From Science and Health:

Casting out evil and fear enables truth to outweigh error. The only course is to take antagonistic grounds against all that is opposed to the health, holiness, and harmony of man, God's image.

--p. 392

What I term chemicalization is the upheaval produced when immortal Truth is destroying erroneous mortal belief. Mental chemicalization brings sin and sickness to the surface, forcing impurities to pass away, as is the case with a fermenting fluid.

--p. 401

The lightnings and thunderbolts of error may burst and flash till the cloud is cleared and the tumult dies away in the distance. Then the raindrops of divinity refresh the earth.

--p. 288

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Spiritual responsiveness

I'm kinda jazzed this morning about what the team at SpiritOnTheJob.com accomplished last night.

In response to the news yesterday, one of the team wrote an inspirational article. Another team member posted it and made it pretty. A discussion was started in the discussion boards. Someone had the idea to send out a quick "prayer alert" to our newsletter list, along with pointing Google AdWords to the page. I got to do those two things. The whole process turned on a dime.

We've done this before in other settings, but last night was the first time everything came together for SpiritOnTheJob.com. I feel like we're finding our feet finally.

This part from the 91^st Psalm was included in the prayer alert, so thought I'd share it with you:

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High
shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. ...
Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night;
nor for the arrow that flieth by day; ...
For he shall give his angels charge over thee,
to keep thee in all thy ways.

--Psalm 91

Those immortal words just seem to fit so well to the situation, don't they? Astonishing. One person who saw the newsletter wrote in, "I tell you what got to me.....it was Psalm 91. I loved it. I'm sitting inside of its message."

The whole thing is making me think of how important it is to be spiritually responsive. Even if you don't have a Website at your disposal, you can be an instant spiritual warrior when you hear news of terror or tragedy. The natural flow of spirituality strengthening you makes you able to help others.

I used to not pay attention to the news because it was all bad and I didn't want it to bring down my day. Then I started working with the incredible team that I now work with on SpiritOnTheJob, and I learned I didn't need to have my head in the sand if I were ready with a response. I had grown a lot spiritually, and had more to offer the world than I thought. I truly believe that in many circumstances, we could actually see how our prayer response made a difference.

Today, I hope we'll all take a moment to turn our inspired thoughts to the airlines. There's a lot of confusion and inconvenience being reported, but of course the alternative story could have been much worse. Praise the Divine and that British intelligence worker for doing their jobs and preventing a horror from happening. And keep supporting everyone, each in their places just doing their jobs, as they continue to sort this all out.

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You are your Father's son

Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God:…

This passage from I John washed over me the other day in prayer. The very concept filled me with wonder—being a "son of God."

It was a genderless concept to me. I felt all the richness associated with being a father's beloved son.

A son represents the father. A son embodies all that the father has to give. A son inherits from the father all the father's wealth and status. A father is proud of the son, sees in the son the fulfillment of all the promise and plans. A father exists to make the world better for the son. The son, from the day of its birth, is the anointed successor to the father.

I am my Father's son. So are all the people I was praying for that day. It was a glorious, expansive feeling. I was in awe of the honor of being a son, and also of the established success and support flowing from the Father.

Today I move through the world as the son of the divine Father, with all the strength and promise that includes.

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

--Luke

Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. 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

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Empty nesting

It's official—I'll be empty nesting this fall, with both kids away at school.

I'm somewhat stunned. They've both been away these last few weeks as well, and it's been a bit disorienting. I've gotten a lot done, but in the down times I didn't quite know what to do with myself! So you'll be hearing about books I've read and movies I've seen—I just have had more time.

Strangely, it seems it's now time to find out more about *me.* What do I want to do with my life? I've been defined by the kids for close to 20 years. And even though I made a lot of moves and never felt the kids were tying me down in any way, they were of course always top of mind and in my plans. Now they won't be, so much. Yesterday I actually agreed to going to a weekend conference, and for the first time in 20 years I didn't immediately have to figure out childcare.

Who am I? Do I have a life purpose? Is there more to accomplish? Will I live alone from now on? Should I get a dog?

Just a few of the minor questions running through my head this morning.

So I'd like to ask all my wise friends out there: What words of wisdom can you offer me at this juncture? How did you handle empty nesting? What did you learn from it? What pitfalls should I look out for, and what opportunities await?

I'd really appreciate hearing from you!

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Children's growth

I love this blog entry by Emily: Busy. She's talking about her crops, but her final statement struck me as also applying to parenting.

You can’t do their growing for them, but you can keep ‘em hydrated and offer encouragement while they work.

I've often thought of parenting that way. You provide the environment, the light and water and space the kids need, and they do the growing. They have all within themselves already to become who they're going to be. The parent's job is to provide the proper environment and encouragement to help them get there more fully.

As parents, we may think (because we were similar seedlings in days gone past) that we can predict how they're going to grow, but it turns out we can't. Will they shoot out this leaf first, or this other one? Will they flower when all the other ones flower, or do it on their own time? No one can tell, except the divine spark that gave them life in the first place.

After all, you can't sit there and *make* a plant grow. I'm just imagining that—crouching next to a patch of dirt and pushing in the air saying, Grow! How absurd. You could do that all day and night, and not one shoot would break the ground because of it. Generally, we plant, we water, then we go away for a while. We come back later and rejoice at the blush of green coloring the earth, knowing that all the potential of a wide harvest is represented in that little bit of promise.

Children take more interaction, more direct caring, so maybe we get the idea somewhere that we're causing the growth rather than witnessing it. We think we're responsible for how the child thinks and feels and dreams and hopes. But there comes a moment I believe in every healthy parent/child relationship, sometimes sooner than the parent wants, when the parent has to step back and let the child be.

*Sigh.* Suddenly the plant that grew so close to home and under your sheltering care wants to walk around by itself. It wants to go places you've never been, accumulate memories that don't involve you, have its own life.

And the parent is then challenged to do her own growing. To change from thinking of the child as dependent and in progress to fully formed and self-determining.

I'm finding myself more and more praying for my children as fully realized ideas of the divine Father-Mother. I think less about their day-to-day details and decisions and more about the divine will of Love that is in action in their lives. I place them in His well-tended garden, knowing that now it's His job to provide the environment for growth.

My loving admiration follows them, and I trust that this is Spirit's natural way.

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More on the drinking thing

In thinking through further the discussion from last week, about whether drinking changes you or reveals who you really are, reading two more articles on CNN were illuminating. The actor's friends, some of them Jewish, are insistent that it was the "disease" talking. And the arresting deputy, himself Jewish, is sure "that stuff is the booze talking."

I'm becoming more and more convinced that these external substances are just a bad idea all around. There's nothing redeeming about them.

I'm reminded of Mary Baker Eddy's comment, "Strong drink is unquestionably an evil, and evil cannot be used temperately: its slightest use is abuse; hence the only temperance is total abstinence" (her Miscellaneous Writings).

I used to think she was reflecting some Victorian more of her day, that she had just led a sheltered Puritanical life and therefore labeled everything outside it as evil. But then I read in Gillian Gill's most excellent biography that Eddy had to deal with alcoholism in her own family, with both a brother and a brother-in-law. She saw the misery alcohol caused first hand. Her conclusions, then, were not some teetotalling prissiness, but actually based on observation.

In my own life, too, I've seen just too much of it. Not so much the extremes of the being out of control, but the minor shifts that take place when you get even a little of this stuff into your system. I grieve when someone I love or respect allows their true nature to be muddied over with something so useless and wasteful. On occasion, in my naiveté I've been on the receiving end of some supposedly positive character changes and thought they were really how the person felt about me, only to find later that whatever intensified affection they'd shown was the chemical talking.

Joy, love, enthusiasm, happiness, relaxation, buoyancy, wit, freedom—these are spiritual qualities. They cannot be acquired by a chemical. Our yearning for these qualities is natural, but turning to a chemical to find them is a dead-end. These qualities, which we all deserve, are sourced in Spirit, and it's only through Spirit that they can be found.

The irony is the actor in question has an active spiritual life. He's well known for being devoted to his religion, and he recently gave us one of the most compelling depictions of Christ Jesus ever committed to film. I believe *that* is who he really is. The one thing he could do to make a difference is perhaps to talk to the millions who admire him about the dangers of substance abuse. How it makes you do things you wouldn't ever do. How it makes you feel things about yourself that are untrue. How it makes you have to pay for actions done "under the influence" that were never really you.

Today, to fight the evil of substance abuse, I'm going myself to look to Spirit for all that I need. And make myself available to share what I've learned with anyone who asks. And to commit to seeing the real person, even if they don't see it themselves.

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Love the journey

Here's a picture from my morning walk:

It reminds me of a poem I love:

The Road goes ever on and on
   Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
 And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
 Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
 And whither then? I cannot say.

    -- J R R Tolkien

Life's a journey, isn't it? It never stops, just flows forward even if we try to stand still. I love the wandering, the discovery, the potential.

I love the sense that everyone else is on a journey, too. It makes me delight in their discoveries and more patient with their foibles. Sometimes if a person displays ignorance or closed-mindedness, I'll think to myself, they've just not gotten to that part of their journey yet. And I can let them go their way without trying to persuade because I know their own journey will take them there.

And I love meeting people whose journey is so different than mine. Hearing their stories gives me a taste of their path without having to travel it. I talked with a young man yesterday with a young family who's following his dream of having a house on a farm. He's taking his chickens to the county fair this fall with his son, and next year they will show a cow. I could just picture this family there, happily building their memories together, living so close to the land. I'm so glad we met.

I think of all of us, you and me, as facing that path every day. Stepping forward into the light with a crisp breeze in our faces, taking strong strides toward progress and growth. Godspeed on your journey today!

Some thoughts on the path:

The discoverer of Christian Science finds the path less difficult when she has the high goal always before her thoughts, than when she counts her footsteps in endeavoring to reach it. When the destination is desirable, expectation speeds our progress.

-- Science and Health

The understanding, even in a degree, of the divine All-power destroys fear, and plants the feet in the true path, — the path which leads to the house built without hands "eternal in the heavens."

-- Science and Health

Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.

-- Psalms

Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil.

-- Proverbs

And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers: And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.

-- Isaiah

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

-- Psalms

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How to experience abundance

Yesterday's prayers led me to this wonderful feeling of abundance.

Like most people, I have my stresses about money. Will I have enough? Am I worth enough? Do I deserve enough?

Yesterday, though, as I prayed with this Bible passage (which appears in this week's Bible Lesson), I got this wonderful sense of being "gifted":

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

--James

"No variableness." I thought about my immediate circumstances. I have a home I love, work I love, family I love. That family in question is healthy and happy, every one doing their own thing and loving it. I got very specific in my gratitude yesterday, down to the detail that on that hot day, the hottest day so far of the heat wave, I had air-conditioned meetings all day. One meeting even provided a free meal.

I mean, what more could I ask for? Abundance is already here, all around me in my life. It exists *now.* Why wasn't I seeing it and experiencing it? The only thing that blocks my appreciation for what I have now is fear about the future. But does my fear change anything? No! The abundance is still here, and always will be. All my fear does is keep me from enjoying it.

So the answer is not to scramble around, trying to gather what I think I'll need for the future. The answer is to stop being so afraid. And since the Father of lights is omnipotent and infinite good, there is indeed no need to fear.

If I'm not afraid, I can experience abundance. I don't mean to say that lack of fear makes abundance happen. Abundance is already there. But I don't experience it when I'm afraid. In order to feel abundance, to recognize it, to embody it, fear has got to go. I can replace that fear with the recognition of the infinite good of Spirit. I don't have to fear for one moment more.

I love my abundance list. I may make it a part of my daily spiritual regimen. What a great kickoff to every day—to recognize and record everything abundant in our lives. It's only a thought away.

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Choice, not coercion

I wanted to comment a bit more on one of the ideas from Jon Meacham's American Gospel:

The great good news about America—the American gospel, if you will—is that religion shapes the life of the nation without strangling it. Belief in God is central to the country's experience, yet for the broad center, faith is a matter of choice, not coercion, and the legacy of the Founding is that the sensible center holds.

Faith being a choice to me is essential to its effectiveness. When you make faith an obligation, the person is faced with having to decide whether to bow to that authority or not. They either have to accept the authority out of obedience or fear, or reject it out of a sense of rebellion. Yet, neither decision is related to the faith itself. Whenever faith is obligatory, a block is placed in front of its sincere implementation.

So faith *must* be a choice. It must be something that's decided in individual hearts. It can't be imposed from the outside—once it is, it's no longer faith. It becomes then a reaction to outer human authority rather than response to inner spiritual calling.

Choosing freely to embrace a transcendent concept because it has inspired you or healed you fuels further spiritual growth even as it uplifts. There's no comparison between that and external human law attempting to impose spiritual understanding. Even writing about the two in the same paragraph is making me shake my head. They can't share the same space.

When I pray today about the world and its problems, this issue will be at the forefront of my thought. We see all too often the imposition of rules and dogma where what's really needed is freedom of faith. We see it in far-away lands where theocracy holds sway. We see it in religious conflicts where one sect wants to control another. We see it in countries where state religions have been around so long the people no longer even bother to go to church. We see it here in America, in regions where particular beliefs hold sway, and even in our own churches where how one person practices is subject to criticism by those who practice another way.

If I could do my own crusade, it would be to make freedom of choice obligatory. Where each individual *must* hammer out for themselves what they believe and want to practice. Where each one is encouraged to listen to their own hearts and let the Divine influence them directly. But even that might be taking away freedom from those who would really rather just have someone tell them what to do. So I guess no crusade for me!

Today is about cherishing my own freedom of choice, knowing that I'm where I am spiritually because I've chosen to pursue it and embrace it. And appreciating all those around me who are also on their own journey, and loving them right where they are.

Spiritual rationality and free thought accompany approaching Science, and cannot be put down.

--Science and Health

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Does drinking reveal or change the real you?

All over the news has been what could be considered a minor incident—a major Hollywood power player arrested for DUI. But what makes this a bigger story is his apparent inflammatory, bigoted remarks made to the arresting officer while under the influence.

So my question is: Does drinking reveal what's really within, or does it change you into something you're not?

My recent strugglings with someone close to me who smoked always made me feel that the nicotine changed the person into someone they weren't. There was an actual personality change into someone less patient, more hateful, more angry. There was a definite lack of empathy as well, an inability to see how they were hurting others even as they hurt themselves.

Another friend of mine who is trying to stop smoking weed told me lately that they can tell that the weed changes them—makes them more "mellow," as they said, and they fear they're losing their ability to be sharp.

I've observed in many instances when people have imbibed only a little alcohol, they begin to do things they never intended to do nor even remember doing. Some friends of mine get slightly more irritable, and they show that irritability to their children, even after only one glass of wine. Another acquaintance lost inhibitions after a few beers only to have a brief affair with a friend they actually had no romantic interest in, with disastrous results.

But these are all my friends. They are good people, loving people, responsible people. I cannot believe that the behavior that surfaced when they were under the influence was really them after all. My spiritual sense rebels at this notion.

My conclusion then is that the outside influences, the chemicals, the stimulants or depressants, are an overlay, a sham, a counterfeit. They fool even the users into believing something untrue about themselves. What each user needs is the support of clear spiritual thinking that says, "I know this is *not* who you are. I know you are good and whole and worthy. The drug is the liar; you are still a child of God."

Interestingly, the weed user was of enormous help to me when I was trying to help the smoker. They said to me, about the smoker, "It doesn't change who they really are. They are still God's child." This was the first thing someone said to me that really calmed me down.

I wish I could wave a magic wand and make all the world stop drinking, smoking, doing drugs. I wish it were that simple. But what I can do is see through the haze as best I can to the real man. The creation of Spirit, upright, free, strong, joyous. No matter what, that's who we really are.

The depraved appetite for alcoholic drinks, tobacco, tea, coffee, opium, is destroyed only by Mind's mastery of the body. This normal control is gained through divine strength and understanding. There is no enjoyment in getting drunk, in becoming a fool or an object of loathing; but there is a very sharp remembrance of it, a suffering inconceivably terrible to man's self-respect. Puffing the obnoxious fumes of tobacco, or chewing a leaf naturally attractive to no creature except a loathsome worm, is at least disgusting.

Man's enslavement to the most relentless masters — passion, selfishness, envy, hatred, and revenge — is conquered only by a mighty struggle. Every hour of delay makes the struggle more severe. If man is not victorious over the passions, they crush out happiness, health, and manhood. Here Christian Science is the sovereign panacea, giving strength to the weakness of mortal mind, — strength from the immortal and omnipotent Mind, — and lifting humanity above itself into purer desires, even into spiritual power and good-will to man.

--Science and Health

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