Chemicalization

"Chemicalization" is a great term in Christian Science. It denotes the upheaval sometimes caused by change and progress. Mary Baker Eddy says it's not always pleasant, but it is a sign that things are on the move. Here's a selection of her thoughts on the subject (all from Science and Health).

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 fermentation even of fluids is not pleasant. An unsettled, transitional stage is never desirable on its own account. (p. 65)

By chemicalization I mean the process which mortal mind and body undergo in the change of belief from a material to a spiritual basis. (p. 168)

I like the term and the concept because their clinical nature makes me feel unblamed for the shifts and changes my own progress sometimes cause. But the uncomfortable part of it—the unsettled feeling—motivates me to keep going until the change has fulfilled its promise.

It's not supposed to be pleasant. If it were pleasant, there we'd sit, basking in temporariness, always unfinished, floating aimlessly, too satisfied. It's being in that very uncomfortable boat that makes us pull for the shore.

So, I guess (I guess!), today I'm grateful that it's unpleasant. Being on the road to somewhere, even if it's a rocky road, at least means I’m moving forward.

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Aspiration

Good morning! Some people have commented about the new masthead here, "Reasoning together." I just got tired of seeing my own name up there. And I really do want this to be as much of a conversation as possible. So yeah, chime in!

Fresh off a meeting last night of my fellow mentors with the Mazie Foundation. We discussed how to help our mentees make the transition from high school to college successfully. The mentees had their own meeting about applying to college in another room down the hall, and on the way home, my mentee and I talked about her plans. She has some great plans. She's really thinking things through.

"Plan" sounds so prosaic, so finite. But a plan is just the tactic supporting the overarching strategy—our aspirations. Every plan is an outward attempt to realize an inward aspiration. Before we solidify a plan, then, a question we could ask is, "What's the big picture?"

We could reason like this:

1. I want to go to college because
2. I want to learn a profession because
3. I want to be successful because
4. I want to be an influence for good because
5. I want to fulfill my purpose as a creation of the Divine.

That last one to me seems like it could be the master plan for all our doings. Here's another one:

1. I want to get a car because
2. I want to be able to get places because
3. I want to be independent because
4. I want to be myself because
5. I want to fulfill my purpose as a creation of the Divine.

My challenge has always been to keep my eyes on the overarching strategy. I get caught up in the plans, the tactics, and they become an end in themselves. Sometimes the plans don't work out, and I get disappointed. But when I can remember the big picture, and can see that step by step I'm moving in that direction, the particular plans don't matter as much and I'm more flexible.

I have some new plans forming these days. I don't know how they will turn out. I think what I need the most, though, is to stick with the big picture.

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Gratitude to the Father

Have you done a gratitude list lately? Here's mine for today:

• My son and I are getting along. Yay!
• My daughter is happily settled in her new apartment in Brooklyn.
  
• The dog is a riot. He was leaping and snapping at a housefly the other day—hysterical.
• My work is going well. I'm getting a lot of editing in, and am developing a "Do-It-Yourself Publishing" phone seminar.
• I'm working on a novel that I'm in love with. Very energizing.

But I think what I'm most grateful for is this:

• When I pray, I get an answer.

This morning, in the wee waking hours, so relaxed and at peace, I simply thought the word "Father." (Even with all the exploration I've done with words like Spirit, Soul, Love, Truth, etc., the word Father is still my most powerful entry point to prayer. Go figure.)

So I sent the word "Father" up as a thought balloon, and instantly was filled with reassurance and gladness. It's a feeling for me, that all is well, that I'm in His hands, that life is unfolding as it should and I can enjoy the ride. It's like breathing in fresh air. It puts everything in perspective.

Today my week is going to shift into overdrive, with a bunch of appointments and assignments to accomplish through Friday. I'm so grateful to have this foundation of peace to rest in as I go.

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Just deserts

Saw two movies recently: 3:10 to Yuma and The Brave One. And they both ended funny. Not funny "haha" but funny strange, from a storytelling point of view. The lead characters didn't seem to quite get their just deserts. The wrong people died or got hurt, or got away clean with what they had done.

For some reason it's reminding me this morning of the story in the Bible of Rahab, the whore of Jericho. She's the one who hid Joshua's two spies and snuck them out over the wall, thereby earning the right to live when the Israelites made those walls fall down and slaughtered the rest of the city. (Josh 2:1-6, Josh 6:16-25. Gotta love those Old Testament stories.) Paul writes about her later, "By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace" (Heb 11:31).

Okay, so, she's a whore. The Biblical writers state that fact without comment or judgment of any kind. They could have said, "Rahab the accountant," with the same emotion. The spies were more than willing to take her help, too, and to stay in her house with her family. In fact, she had a family. The Bible talks about how her acts saved "her father's household." So it seems to everyone around her, this was just her line of work, no biggie.

We're the ones who read into it a value judgment. The Bible writers apparently were comfortable with her deserving to live for her service to Joshua, no question. We're the ones who go, "But she was a whore!" (Or, we go, "Cool, she was a whore," depending.)

Mary Baker Eddy writes, "Let Truth uncover and destroy error in God's own way, and let human justice pattern the divine" (Science and Health).

Human justice. In movies and in brief Bible stories, we can focus on one or two single aspects about a person and come up with their just deserts. When things are clear from a storytelling point of view, we know what "should" happen to the characters.

But real people are seldom that clear cut. The cruelest criminals might love their dogs. The most righteous leaders might drink too much. We're a mixed bag, all of us. What are our just deserts?

One thing that did happen in both movies I mentioned above is that the lead characters changed. While the physical endings that they came to didn't seem to fit their "crimes," they each displayed a moral shift, changing from what they had been before to something new. They learned something.

This, to me, is the point. We slog our way thought the fires of experience, making mistakes along the way and perhaps being punished for them by circumstances or laws. The real "just deserts" are when we learn from our mistakes and therefore do not repeat them. We might learn by punishment; we might learn from revelation. Either way, we need to get there. We're not done with an experience until we learn from it.

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Scheduling, schmeduling

Just a little policy change announcement for today.

Regular readers may have noticed that my blog entries are getting later and later on Fridays. Because of some ongoing weekly commitments, it seems that Friday has become the busiest day of my week.

So for now, I'm thinking I'll be moving to a Monday – Thursday blogging schedule, starting next week. (I'll also most likely give myself holidays off, if that's okay with you, unless I’m particularly inspired by the meaning of the day.)

The best way to be sure you don't miss a new blog entry is to subscribe to my daily reminder email (see link in the right hand navigation) or through an RSS feed such as Bloglines.

I still really want to hear from you! So please keep those emails, calls and comments coming. I'm available to talk with anyone about Christian Science and to encourage you on the path toward healing. Please be in touch any time!

Have a great weekend!

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What if...

Along the lines of yesterday's post, I'm reminded of a moving piece from a recent Newsweek: The Love That Will Finally Speak Its Name by Loraine Barr. I hope everyone reads it, but I want to be fair and warn anyone who might be still new to the subject that it's about homosexuality.

It's the story of a woman who didn't come out of the closet until the death of her partner of 44 years. She tells of the times she lived in, and how there was really no way for her to be open through much of her life. Then, when being open became more okay, the two of them simply had the ingrained habit of staying hidden. So they were never able to publicly celebrate their union.

Kind of the reverse in some ways of what I wrote about yesterday, huh? But still similar—the context of the times causes someone to hide the truth.

My heart aches for people even now who cannot reveal all of themselves because of the context in which we live. What do people feel compelled to hide today? It might be a strongly held belief system, like creationism in a blue state or Darwinism in a red state. It might be having a psychological condition or a child in jail. It might be having a past that includes bankruptcy or drug abuse.

And the whole reason we have to hide these things is the intolerance we expect we'll receive if we reveal them. The shunning, the uncomfortable looks, the outright disapproval and rejection.

But what if it became a priority for all humanity to learn to see through all that? What if everyone learned how to see the good in others *first,* before the label or the controversy? What if we all first thought of each other as children of the Divine, created in the image of Light, the likeness of Soul? Don't you think then any other characteristic would become less important? And we'd be able to love each other where we stand?

It's occurring to me today that that's why I'm so on fire about sharing Christian Science. I think Christian Science is a great way to learn how to see the Truth about each other. It's part of the Christian Science discipline to prioritize the good as way more important than any perceived flaw. In fact, good is all we're supposed to see when the discipline of Christian Science is applied fully. The flaws, if they were flaws to begin with, become inconsequential, nothing.

If everyone did this, what a world it would be.

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"There, but for the grace of God, go I"

Time for The Contrarian again, I think I love this guy. John Cloud's column The Psychology of Hypocrisy in 9/17's TIME got me thinking for a couple days. The subtitle is: "Why we're wrong to assume that Larry Craig and other fallen moralizers are hypocrites."

Huh. I dug in, sure I would not be convinced. But Cloud makes the argument that hypocrisy might on occasion stem from a sense of guilt. In other words, one feels guilty over one's own hidden perceived "sin," so therefore spends public effort trying to stamp it out as some sort of penance. Is that hypocrisy? Or just trying make up for the good you're not doing?

It's really made me question my own lack of trying to stamp out sin in others. I simply don't try to force anyone else to conform to my own definition of "good."

Now, I used to. In my early twenties, I was quite conservative. All my own ducks were in a row, so to speak, with a safe little job at my church, marriage to a brilliant engineer, a contained, appreciating condo in the outlying areas of a metropolis, and a firm devotion to Ronald Reagan and trickle down economics. I didn't drink, smoke, do drugs, and all my sex was consecrated by marriage. I thought nothing of telling my wayward friends and family members just why their lives were such a mess. If only they'd walk the straight and narrow, they'd be perfectly happy. I was a stalwart example of holier-than-thou. I shudder to think now how insufferable I must have been.

Well, it didn't take that long for my façade to crack. I didn't realize it, but it was all outward appearances. My unhappiness eventually caught up with me, and I began to experiment with ways to be happy that were decidedly outside the boundaries I'd set up for myself. Mistakes were made, lessons learned. The lessons became so valuable to me that I began to appreciate the process. I had to forgive myself frequently, but I finally became a real, three-dimensional person. By the time Bill Clinton came along, I had freed myself to a degree and was a single mother. My vote for him was less about him and more about anger at Dan Quayle.

It was around this point that I discovered I could no longer tell anyone else how to live. I mean, what did I know? I truly had no idea what path another needed to take to learn the lessons that would bring them into themselves. I stopped talking and began listening.

Friends began to notice the change in me. My best guy friend finally came out to me, after 17 years. My best girlfriend took me in when I fled, pregnant, across country to Los Angeles, and I was able to be supportive to her as she ditched her loser long-time boyfriend and met the man of her dreams. My family relationships smoothed out as well. I was just less of a jerk.

So now I'm wondering if I've gone too far the other way. Am I able to point out evil when necessary? When is it necessary to point it out? And what should my position be?

There are a lot of problems in this world, and perhaps they need voices to combat them. But the voices need to be un-hypocritical. And what that means to me is, I need to be mindful, not of my own righteousness, but of my own flaws before I speak up. Even as I'm working to correct something, my inner refrain needs to be, "There, but for the grace of God, go I." And that prayer might be the one that saves us from hypocrisy. Given similar circumstances or options, I might have made the same choices, so who am I to judge? My goal should be only to correct with understanding and love.

The column from TIME made me think that perhaps it's self-hatred that makes these vocal opponents on social issues so vituperative. In fact, the stridency of their rhetoric might be an indicator of an inner struggle they are hiding—and hiding from. I can have compassion on that, because I've done that. I've always hated hypocrisy, wherever I've found it, but now perhaps I can understand it a bit more.

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Let them rock your world

Today some kid stories from three of my favorite blogs:

Maria's Musings: Inspired and inspiring

• Inspiring paper by a 14-year-old telling how she felt Love's presence when she needed it. Posted by her mom.

Ad Infinitum: Pocket knives, motorcycles, and a prophetic T-shirt

• Thrilling story of a high schooler who gets lost in the woods overnight, told from the mom's point of view.

Stone River Studio: "Let the river run…"

• This author gets inspiration from her Facebook membership—I know how she feels.

Teenagers and college kids rock my world. The ones I'm friends with have such clear vision and strong ideals. They are honest, straightforward, savvy, loyal, affectionate. They see the world is a mess, but they don't complain about it—they do something about it.

Have you hugged a kid today? It may be prickly at first, but get past that first moment and hang on. You'll get a fierce embrace in return. Take them as your inspiration, and you'll see the future.

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Ready to launch

What a great weekend. Last week, blog reader Pam Benjamin of Sense of Wonder invited us down to the launch of the 50' schooner Charlotte on Martha's Vineyard, the island alongside of Nantucket just south of Cape Cod.

I've lived in the Boston area for a total of about 15 years at different periods of my life, but I'd never been to the Vineyard. So, I thought I'd be spontaneous and go. At first I was going to go alone, then some random circumstances (always a risk with teenagers) made me realize it would be better to bring my son along. And then, we didn't have a place to stow the dog, so lo and behold, little Max came, too. On the ferry and everything. I can't believe I've turned into a person who travels with a dog.

Charlotte was designed and built by Pam's husband Nat of Gannon & Benjamin. It's a gorgeous piece of work, all wood, lovingly constructed, gracious, sound. The ceremony this weekend, attended by roughly two hundred supporters on the Vineyard, marked the occasion of the hull's first run into the water. Christened after Nat's grandmother, Charlotte was blessed by acknowledgements, prayer, song, and the sprinkling of water from all around the island by a host of the Benjamin grandchildren before dipping gracefully into the harbor and traveling under motor around several friendly boats waiting nearby. We all then got to climb aboard in bare feet to investigate above and below deck. Truly thrilling.

I left with a renewed appreciation for the concept of "launch." Significant launches mark our culture in many ways—from births, weddings, graduations to bon voyage parties to barn raisings to spaceships. I know from personal experience as well that when you push the "on" button to a Website, it's known as a launch. We've woven these ceremonies into our lexicon as a way to take a moment after all the preparation is done to bless the results of all our hard work and give the increase to the world.

To me, a successful launch implies that the thing we're launching will take on a life of its own. It's no longer "ours," but has its own identity and purpose. We've done whatever handiwork required to set it up physically, but it's the mental, emotional and spiritual aspects that take over once the deed is done. Before launch, we work to assemble, organize, schedule. After launch, we become mere participants in the larger thing that sprang forth from our efforts.

It's the creation story all over again. God's creation, happening in an instant and for all eternity, is both done and unfolding now. The unfolding sense is our own growing appreciation of it, but creation itself has been complete since conceptualization. God's ideas don't remain theoretical. When He thinks it, it is done.

You and I are that creation, and we reflect the Creator when we conceptualize and realize the new idea. Then, we launch it forth, and delight in all that it can accomplish as it sails to its own destiny.

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Humility and confidence

Really want everyone to see this surprising blog entry about ego on Guy Kawasaki's blog:

Are you an egomaniac? Ten questions with Steven Smith

Smith is the author of a new book egonomics: What Makes Ego Our Greatest Asset (or Most Expensive Liability). Went right on my Amazon wish list.

Here are some excerpts from the blog interview that I loved:

Successful people usually start with big ambition/big ideas, and a “normal” or healthy ego. That combination of ambition, ideas, and healthy ego drives their success. If they’re not careful though, their success creates the illusion that it was them alone that achieved that success. … Once they assign all of that success to themselves, their ego whispers how great they are, and anything else they think or do will be equally great.

[T]o understand what healthy ego is, you have to understand the relationship between ego and humility. For most people, tradition holds that the opposite of excessive ego is humility, when in fact having too little ego is just as dangerous and unproductive as having too much. When we strike the right balance between ego and humility, we’re genuinely confident.

Question: How would we change if we did a better job of managing ego?

Answer: We would be more open-minded about views that don’t agree with ours, and less rigid in making changes when we’re challenged with them. Closed minds and fixed positions may be the most prevalent outcomes of mismanaged ego. Good leaders keep their minds open. But great leaders open the minds of others in the most intense circumstances, even against the odds of prejudice, politics, and habit.

I love this healthy approach to ego. It seems there is a way to be the image and likeness of the one Ego that is God without being arrogant or obnoxious—and that's with humility. The interview defines misplaced ego as thinking you did it all yourself. But healthy ego acknowledges your own achievements while recognizing you couldn't have done it on your own.

To me, then, the ultimate healthy ego would be to know that all the ability you express comes from the Divine. It's both humility and confidence—giving yourself credit, but also giving credit where credit is due.

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Personal sense and taking things personally

This topic has flitted through my life frequently lately, and then a reader actually asked me about it outright, so I guess it's time to address it here!

Christian Science includes the concept of "personal sense." I've heard it used in many ways over the years, most generally in the sense of personality, or a person's personal tendencies to be mean or impatient or to hurt people's feelings. "That's just personal sense," the observer will state. (Interestingly, the term is not often used to describe when a person is nice or loving or caring.)

However, at one point many years ago, I did a reading of Science and Health for the express purpose of defining terms such as this one solely from what the book said (rather than alternative meanings that had cropped up over time). And to me, when Mary Baker Eddy talks about personal sense, she means the five physical (or personal) senses.

John wrote this on his blog recently, in an entry called God Governs All:

In the first edition of Science and Health (1885), Mrs. Eddy (then Mrs. Glover) gives much attention to personal sense. Personal sense is made up of several related beliefs: that our senses are in matter—that the eyes see, the ears hear, etc. Another is the word “my”—MY eyes see, MY ears hear. In other words, my senses are mine because of organic factors in my physical body.

I found this to be true of the current edition as well—check it out by researching the term with a concordance.

So how does that relate to taking things personally? It can help to remember that when personal sense is working in your life, it's never what the other person is doing that gives it its bite—rather, it's always what you're perceiving that makes you suffer. It's your personal senses taking in the information and your reacting to it that gives you any bad effect. You would never have any problem with anyone else at all if you discounted what the senses were telling you and simply and only believed what spiritual sense tells you about them as God's image and likeness. Think about it—there are no exceptions to this.

Personal sense, then, is something *we* do, not something someone else expresses. Part of the discipline of Christian Science is to discount the evidence of the personal senses and see only divine being. To see the light, even in the darkest personalities.

Lately, this came up in my life in three different ways.

First, someone in my networking group did something that was personally offensive to me and at me in front of everyone else. To say I was livid would be an understatement. There were ramifications to what he did that I had to deal with for days. True, I did get many calls and emails of support, which was nice and is probably the only way I got through it without doing or saying something regrettable. I didn't achieve any real plateau of grace on the subject, though, until I did what I've been taught, and that was to see through the boorishness to a man deeply passionate about the issue at hand and to have compassion on his flaws. Later, the man apologized to both the group and to me.

Next, I had an interlude with a very dear friend where there was simply total misunderstanding and miscommunication. We both said what we felt, but neither understood the other enough to come to a place of resolution. It was like we were both so committed to getting our point across that we couldn't hear the other at all. In retrospect, I now feel I was as culpable on this score as my friend was, although I didn't realize this at the time. In the end, we just stopped talking about this issue. It's resting now, unaddressed. But I know I love this friend, and have learned so much from our relationship over the years. When I think of it, I fill my heart with love and trust that that will keep our relationship strong.

Finally, my son and I reached an explosive point after a few days of unresolved frustrations between us. This is the only circumstance where I feel I did what I should have, which was to state my case even though I was upset, to apologize for my tone even while I was venting, and to invite his response and promise to listen even though I was sure I was right. He was also upset, but didn't lash back at me. Instead, he pointed something out about how I had been communicating with him that needed to change. It was a very simple change I could agree to on the spot. I immediately felt so much love for my son and his growing maturity that the irritations I'd been so upset about suddenly seemed inconsequential.

I think the third way is the best way to get over personal sense or personality or hurt feelings or whatever. We make such a big deal out of little things, when in fact it's the love between us that is real and overwhelming. If we let it, Love could rule every relationship all the time—wouldn't that be nice?

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Unclutter your "house"

Okay, the most inspiring thing I've seen this morning is this article from Oprah.com:

Outta here! Professional purgers' organizing tips.

I was relieved to note that I do a lot of what they're suggesting already. I have a "bills zone" and a "reading zone," and my kitchen counters are miraculously clear due to the home staging I had done a few months ago (no, house hasn't sold, we'll try again in the spring). Of course, I resist any notion that I have to get rid of books—just my personal Achilles heel.

In thinking about uncluttering, I'm reminded of the concept that your spiritual "house" is your consciousness. Your physical home can be an expression of how you think.

It's been amazing to me to find that, at times when I've been most muddled in my thinking and I've had too much rattling around in there, a quick session of cleaning out the back room or putting laundry away will reorient me to a more orderly approach. It's like the outward process of creating order leads me to accept an inner orderliness.

This works in reverse, as well. If my surroundings become disordered or cluttered, it's a tip-off that something needs to be adjusted mentally. First, I take a firm internal stand. I commit to putting things right, to prioritizing, to streamlining my thoughts. I adopt a more disciplined outlook, not wasting time on the frivolous.

Sometimes this is as simple as determining to only check my lengthy list of subscribed Weblogs once a day (instead of several times a day). Other times it's more profound, such as when I'm doing a whole-scale re-evaluation of my goals or life purpose. In any event, what results is a clarity of thinking and then a decisiveness about the papers and clutter around me as part of the process of realizing the new outlook. I know better what needs to go and what needs to stay because I've done the spiritual groundwork first.

Clutter can drag you down, both mentally and physically. Clearing things out can open both thought and space for the new.

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This would have been a post about 9/11…

…but I just don't have the heart for it today. I tried writing something earlier, didn't work.

Just came back from a meeting where they acknowledged the day, and several people had comments to share. Even though this was a business meeting, the speakers got very profound.

The day continues to affect us in so many ways. I suppose you could say the world changed that day. Have you ever watched a pre-9/11 movie and thought to yourself, "That could never happen now"? Last Christmas, we watched Home Alone again, and the idea of almost missing your international, non-stop flight to Paris from Chicago and running through customs, with the flight attendant merely counting you as you pile into your seats in both first class and coach, was surreal. No way could they have left the ground like that today.

And every now and then in a movie set in New York, there will be the glamour shot of Manhattan with the Twin Towers in glorious display. I never realized how iconic they were until they were gone.

So today I guess the way to describe my emotion is pensive and contemplative, along with some mourning for how the world was altered. Any thoughts to share? Would love to have them.

And I guess this post was about 9/11 after all.

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How we learn from suffering

Loved this book review from TIME's columnist The Contrarian: John Cloud, When Sadness Is a Good Thing. He's commenting on the book The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow into Depressive Disorder.

The point of the book, apparently, is that not all sadness is sickness. Being sad is sometimes the natural, logical, rational response to circumstances. And, it serves the purpose of attracting support and causing us to change. (They're also saying then that medicating sadness away when we need to learn from it might be harmful.)

Here's an excerpt from the article:

[T]he authors also note that "loss responses are part of our biological heritage." Nonhuman primates separated from sexual partners or peers have physiological responses that correlate with sadness, including higher levels of certain hormones. Human infants express despair to evoke sympathy from others. These sadness responses suggest sorrow is genetic and that it is useful for attracting social support, protecting us from aggressors and teaching us that whatever prompted the sadness—say, getting fired because you were always late to work—is behavior to be avoided. This is a brutal economic approach to the mind, but it makes sense: we are sometimes meant to suffer emotional pain so that we will make better choices.

The last sentence made me do a quick study of Mary Baker Eddy's use of the word "suffering" in Science and Health. I found this fascinating, a much richer study than I expected when I typed the word into Concord. Those of you who are familiar with MBE's writings might be reminded of certain passages, as I was, but there were many more surprising ones where I hadn't been aware the word was there. Here's just a partial selection:

To cause suffering as the result of sin, is the means of destroying sin. Every supposed pleasure in sin will furnish more than its equivalent of pain, until belief in material life and sin is destroyed. p. 6

Waking to Christ's demand, mortals experience suffering. This causes them, even as drowning men, to make vigorous efforts to save themselves; and through Christ's precious love these efforts are crowned with success. p. 22

Better the suffering which awakens mortal mind from its fleshly dream, than the false pleasures which tend to perpetuate this dream. p. 196

Entire immunity from the belief in sin, suffering, and death may not be reached at this period, but we may look for an abatement of these evils; and this scientific beginning is in the right direction. p. 219

Every sensuous pleasure or pain is self-destroyed through suffering. p. 224

Mortals move onward towards good or evil as time glides on. If mortals are not progressive, past failures will be repeated until all wrong work is effaced or rectified. If at present satisfied with wrong-doing, we must learn to loathe it. If at present content with idleness, we must become dissatisfied with it. Remember that mankind must sooner or later, either by suffering or by Science, be convinced of the error that is to be overcome. p. 240

Progress is born of experience. It is the ripening of mortal man, through which the mortal is dropped for the immortal. Either here or hereafter, suffering or Science must destroy all illusions regarding life and mind, and regenerate material sense and self. The old man with his deeds must be put off. p. 296

The poor suffering heart needs its rightful nutriment, such as peace, patience in tribulation, and a priceless sense of the dear Father's loving-kindness. p. 365

If grief causes suffering, convince the sufferer that affliction is often the source of joy, and that he should rejoice always in ever-present Love. p. 377

Constant toil, deprivations, exposures, and all untoward conditions, if without sin, can be experienced without suffering. Whatever it is your duty to do, you can do without harm to yourself. p. 385

A blundering despatch, mistakenly announcing the death of a friend, occasions the same grief that the friend's real death would bring. You think that your anguish is occasioned by your loss. Another despatch, correcting the mistake, heals your grief, and you learn that your suffering was merely the result of your belief. Thus it is with all sorrow, sickness, and death. You will learn at length that there is no cause for grief, and divine wisdom will then be understood. Error, not Truth, produces all the suffering on earth. p. 386

Instead of blind and calm submission to the incipient or advanced stages of disease, rise in rebellion against them. Banish the belief that you can possibly entertain a single intruding pain which cannot be ruled out by the might of Mind, and in this way you can prevent the development of pain in the body. No law of God hinders this result. It is error to suffer for aught but your own sins. Christ, or Truth, will destroy all other supposed suffering, and real suffering for your own sins will cease in proportion as the sin ceases. p. 391

The sick unconsciously argue for suffering, instead of against it. They admit its reality, whereas they should deny it. p. 394

Suffering is no less a mental condition than is enjoyment. You cause bodily sufferings and increase them by admitting their reality and continuance, as directly as you enhance your joys by believing them to be real and continuous. When an accident happens, you think or exclaim, "I am hurt!" Your thought is more powerful than your words, more powerful than the accident itself, to make the injury real. p. 397

If a man is an inebriate, a slave to tobacco, or the special servant of any one of the myriad forms of sin, meet and destroy these errors with the truth of being, — by exhibiting to the wrong-doer the suffering which his submission to such habits brings, and by convincing him that there is no real pleasure in false appetites. p. 404

Resist evil — error of every sort — and it will flee from you. Error is opposed to Life. We can, and ultimately shall, so rise as to avail ourselves in every direction of the supremacy of Truth over error, Life over death, and good over evil, and this growth will go on until we arrive at the fulness of God's idea, and no more fear that we shall be sick and die. Inharmony of any kind involves weakness and suffering, — a loss of control over the body. p. 406

In some way, sooner or later, all must rise superior to materiality, and suffering is oft the divine agent in this elevation. p. 444

The very circumstance, which your suffering sense deems wrathful and afflictive, Love can make an angel entertained unawares. p. 574

Interesting, isn't it, that MBE weaves a discussion of suffering throughout these many "CS Top 40" passages? I didn't realize she addressed it so thoroughly. It seems that she's saying there's two kinds: appropriate suffering for mistakes (sins) to get us to stop doing them, and fallacious suffering for circumstances where we think something bad happened but it actually didn't.

This informs my response to the suffering I'm aware of in the world. For example, friends who suffer due to indulgence in unhealthy activities must get my unconditional love, but also wise words on ceasing those activities when I can say them without judgment. Loved ones who suffer because of loss or illness must be comforted with all the empathy I have to offer, but also reassurance that these experiences are not the final word.

To circle back to the TIME article and the book, suffering is not therefore to be avoided at all costs. It's to be embraced for the lesson it brings, either to destroy a desire for sin or to correct a belief in sickness. Lessons learned reduce suffering, and keep it from coming ever again.

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Healing of eating disorder

This great testimony came in response to the how to stop smoking entry, the one about changing your self-definition:

Something like this concept helped me finally conquer bulimia about 12 years ago. I'd struggled with this and anorexia (and the combination of the two) for the previous 12 years. Ups and downs, stops and starts, etc., but couldn't totally stop.

During the mid-90s, I really started growiing spiritually in earnest, delving deeper into the Bible and actually *reading* Science and Health like a book, not just with the Bible Lesson. I was learning a lot, and LOVING what I was discovering and learning—much was familiar to me as I'd "grown up in Christian Science", but it all seemed so new and it was really resonating with me. But I was still falling into the eating/binging/purging pattern with great regularity.

Then one day, while in the midst of "an episode", it was soooo clear to me—like a direct statement in my thought, a bolt of lightening—"This isn't me! Doing this is not part of who I am!" And that was it. Literally it. No more binging and purging since.

Yes, there have been some times, really very few, that I've been "tempted" to do this again. At those times, I reaffirm that this idea is not mine nor God's to me, that it has not part of me and my identity, and it quickly subsides. Can't even remember the last time I've felt tempted! It is such a feeling of freedom to remove this false label that I'd applied to myself and to see more clearly the real me as God has labeled me. Not a binger or bulimic, but whole, healthy, balanced.

Thanks for your post today and the reminder it provided for me!

Golly, I love it when people write in. Keep those cards and letters coming!

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Billy Graham, Pastor In Chief

You may know I'm a Billy Graham fan, even though he and I wouldn't agree much theologically. I wrote about him once before here.

So when a recent TIME magazine arrived with "The Political Confessions of Billy Graham" on the cover, I ate it up. The article coincides with a new book on Graham, The Preacher and the Presidents, which is now on my Amazon wish list.

It's fascinating to me now to find that with all the ups and downs of American politics for the last 50 years, there has been a constant—Billy Graham. Here are some excerpts from the TIME article.

Billy Graham, Pastor In Chief

At a time when the country was bitterly debating the role of religion in public life, we [meaning TIME] thought Graham's 50-year courtship of—and courtship by—11 Presidents was a story that needed to be told. Perhaps more than anyone else, he had shaped the contours of American public religion and had seen close up how the Oval Office affects people. We wondered what the world's most powerful men wanted from the world's most famous preacher. What worried them, and what calmed them? "Their personal lives—some of them—were difficult," he told us. "But I loved them all. I admired them all. I knew that they had burdens beyond anything I could ever know or understand."

And we wondered, too, how all that time in the White House changed Graham. What temptations did he face, what compromises did he have to make to preserve his access to the Oval Office without becoming a serial prisoner of the men he informally served? In our conversations over the course of 13 months, Graham talked candidly about the dangers of power and politics, about how it was a struggle for him for all those years and about what he learned. "I was aware of the risk at all times, political risk," he said. "Politics has always been ugly to me, and yet I accept that as a fact of life. The emphasis I tried to leave was love, not ... my own love for them but that they need to have love for the people who were opposed to them."

…

Graham also keep[s] a close eye on the progress of Hillary Clinton, whom he knows the best of all the candidates. "I keep up with her," he said of his old friend. "I think a lot of Hillary."

That feeling is mutual: Clinton first met him in person when she was First Lady of Arkansas, but they became close when she was First Lady of the United States. She needed some pastoral care of her own in 1998, at the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and became the latest public figure to sense Graham's unique attraction to the occupants of the Oval Office. He was, she concluded, a political junkie himself. "He loved elections," she told us, "because he knew that you had to tell a story, you had to connect with people—all the things we talk about in politics." To the Presidents, Graham's fame and charisma made him a virtual peer: "I think there was a recognition there, and a comfort, with dealing with someone who was a public person," Clinton observed, "who had to put up with what's wonderful about being in the public eye and what's kind of a drag."

I find myself just feeling grateful that somehow our presidents were provided with a spiritual advisor who had an understanding of the pressures they were under. Who else would get it the way Graham does? This almost seems like heavenly provision to me, a spiritual force supporting the Oval Office, a continuity in the struggle to be good and do good. Isn't that cool?

My prayer today is that even though Graham himself has eased out of the spotlight, there will still be a spiritual continuity when we choose a new president in 2008.

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No limit to change

Fascinating talk with my friend Chris yesterday, who is facing a new career opportunity she writes about here. We agreed that every step is preparation for the next step. If we don’t take the step before us, we won't be ready for when down the road comes.

Our talk reminded me about the shark in the Anderson Cooper book, Dispatches from the Edge, which I blogged about here. The shark breathes through water flowing through its gills. To keep the water flowing, it has to keep moving, or it will die.

Transition has been a constant theme for me for the last few years. Daily changes are now the norm. I've been wafting along and doing pretty well being flexible and willing. Now I want to be a bit more intentional, so I'm going to start working with a life coach friend.

I'm very excited about this, and truly terrified. My dreams tend to be quite big, and Deb, my coach, has this nasty habit of saying, "What's stopping you?" Which just brings up all the limitations I've been ignoring. Gradually, though, lately, I've had the courage from somewhere to start facing those limitations. I'm finding that most of them are imaginary.

There really are no limitations. Any that we experience are self-imposed. Because of this, we can actually toss them. Isn't that amazing? We have complete say over what we decide to be limited by. This could be constructive—for example, choosing to raise kids or stick with a job you believe in might be appropriate limitations for a time. We can learn a lot from that kind of choice.

But at other times, the limits need to come off and we need to fly. Or swim like that shark, as the case may be.

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Divine approval (#2)

Got some nice supportive comments and emails re: the Mother Teresa entry last week. Thanks everybody!

Here's one in particular that helped a lot:

Hi Laura,

It is refreshing to hear you say -- in effect, anyway -- that institutional approval, as desirable as it may seem to be, is not to be more desirable to you than having God’s approval (when you can’t seem to have both together).

One of Jesus’ statements to his Father before his crucifixion was, “I have given them they word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:14). Of course, the church institution is supposed to be “not of the world” too, but, unfortunately, this hasn’t happened yet.

So some will love you as a sister in Christ, while others may not. You are doing good right where you are, I think.

Another of Jesus’ statements was, “How can you believe, who receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” The KJ reads, “from God only” (John 5:44). Having God’s approval is what a person needs – long term – in order to keep on keeping on.

It reminded me of a time when I learned more about divine approval in a workplace situation. I wrote about it here: Divine approval.

Here's another one I wrote called God is Like, about being the "apple of His eye."

It's a glorious fall day here in New England—the air crisp, the breeze gentle, the sunlight glittering. It's the perfect day to feel divine approval—that back to school, shiny red apple feeling. Time to sharpen the pencils and get to work.

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How to stop smoking--and other stuff

Here's an article from CNN about smoking cessation for women:

How four women quit smoking—and you can too

The first two, especially, hit on what a friend of mine used to talk about as the way to quit. They changed their self-definition from smoker to non-smoker.

• The first, Liz, says, "I used to love it, but now the smell makes me sick," she says. "It's not who I am anymore."
• The second, Natasha says, "I realized that I was becoming a nonsmoker."

I love this! There are many ways to approach changing your self-definition. I think no matter how you slice it, it's a transformation of thought based on a higher concept of yourself that you need to adopt to dispel unhealthy habits or traits.

And whenever you're doing something like this, aren't you turning from the physical evidence and declaring, "No! That's not who I am!" You almost have to declare and accept this *first* before the outward transformation takes place. You have to let it fill your mind before you see it happen outwardly.

Some people might find this hard to do in the face of overwhelming physical evidence. I mean, some of these ladies had smoked for years. To appearances, they were smokers. But internally, they began to entertain the notion they were *not* smokers, and they then began to be able to adjust to that new outlook.

Some people can do this through their own strong wills. Others need a bit of a boost. I'm one of the latter. My boost comes from Christian Science reasoning, which, no matter what the physical evidence I'm facing, always brings me back to the core concept that I am the image and likeness of the Divine. If I'm dealing with something that's unlike the Divine, I can instead adopt mentally, then outwardly, its opposite—harmony, peace, health. I never have to put up with anything in my self-definition that is less than that.

You can uplift that self-definition any time, no matter what it seems you're stuck with. Start with accepting something higher in your thought, and let that shape your experience.

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