"The best-laid plans of mice and men...

...often go awry."

Clearly, even with all my best intentions, I was not able to blog today or yesterday. I did, however, get a large pile of various and sundry other things done, and am *this close* to being able to get on the plane tomorrow morning at 8am.

So, have a great week until the 10th, when I'll get on here and tell you all about it!

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Soak up the sun

Weather where I am:


Weather where I'm going:


This just brings to mind one of my favorite Sheryl Crow songs, Soak up the Sun, which includes the immortal lines,

It's not having what you want
It's wanting what you've got.

So she's saying she wants to soak up the sun, but then she's telling me to be grateful for what I have. Ha! A little difficult when the snow is coming down in big, white, clumps.

As you might surmise, my schedule is getting tight, but I do hope to post both tomorrow and Thursday. And then it will be toes in the sand and excellent Mexican food until March 9th.


Note: FYI, my Web host is not letting me send out my notification email today, so sorry about that. Should be back to normal tomorrow.

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$25 venture capitalist

Yesterday, with only a few clicks of my mouse and a PayPal account, I turned into an international financier.

I've been entranced with the micro-lending industry since I first heard of it, and Kiva.org just allowed me to get directly involved. After looking through their site pages and seeing how easy the whole thing is, I was able to specify gender, continent and industry to search for a small business needing a loan. For the same price I'd paid earlier that day for a new pair of running shoes (on sale), I added to the tally for Igamba East a Group. My little photo is now on their list of lenders. When they pay the money back, I'll be able to lend the same amount again to some other borrower—and so on, and so on. Amazing!

This is how wealth is created. A little bit from one person turns into a lot for another person. Same as the minimal effort I expended in helping my mentee. A little from me, a lot for you. Who can resist that math?

To me, it's an example of what we can expect to learn more clearly about the nature of the Infinite. For what is infinitude but inexhaustible, spread-able, fill-all-space-able good?

Wrap your head around this with me today. I'm finding it wonderful.

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The answer is always to be myself

I've got a lot on my mind this week, what with my trip out West coming up next week. It always seems like there's a lot to get done before you can even think about leaving town! Not to mention doing double the freelance work so you can make up for the lost income. And arranging for the health and feeding of the other life forms that depend on you, like canines and teens.

But all that seems to pale in comparison with the mental preparation needed. I'm taking the trip to investigate if I want to move back to SoCal. So, it's really a working trip. I'll be reconnecting with friends and also trying to make some professional connections.

And, I have to admit, I've got a bit of nervous energy about this trip. What will it be like? What will I find out? Who will I meet?

In light of all this frenetic tension, today's phone session with my life coach was a true blessing. I brought to her the concern that I might be labeled by the people I meet before they know me. She then asked all the right questions to get me to sort out my core beliefs and convictions.

She helped me boil things down to two choices:

1. I can try to win people over by arguing my way through those attributes with which I might be labeled, or
2. I can be myself.

When I worry about how I might be labeled (I told my coach), it's like my identity is a creature in my chest trying to get out. Like it's bigger than me, pushing against the inside of my rib cage—some alien being that will blow out of me and make a bloody mess.

When I think about being myself, it's more like there's a star shining from within me, radiating outward and being fully recognizable to anyone who sees me. I don't have to do anything for it to be seen; it's just self-evident.

It's the difference between having to prove myself, and having to be myself.

So my assignment from my coach before I leave is to run scenarios in my imagination of being placed in a situation where I'm being labeled and rather than trying to prove myself, I respond instead with who I am.

Sounds a lot easier, doesn't it?

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She got in!

Got some great news yesterday. When I met with my mentee from the Mazie Foundation, she handed me her acceptance letter for a local community college.

I'm stunned, she's in! It was the school of her choice, and she'll be studying what she wants. Now we just have to file her taxes, apply for FAFSA, mail in her acceptance confirmation, finish some essays for another scholarship—oh, and get her graduated from high school.

She'll be the first in her family to get an actual diploma rather than a GED, not to mention the first to go to college. I am so stoked. I can't tell you the disadvantages this young woman has had to deal with, and to see her now so determined and upbeat is truly amazing.

I get the privilege of a ringside seat for all this, just for putting in a few hours a week. The return on investment for this kind of activity is off the charts. I didn't have to *do* anything really, just be there for her and guide her steps. These are things I knew anyway, but she had no one in her life to tell her. Simple for me, invaluable for her. What a payoff!

We may think we have little to offer. We may think there's nothing in our life experience that would be of value to someone else. But there's always someone, somewhere, who could benefit from what we know and have learned. It could be our own kids, it could be our kids' friends, it could be any person, young or old, who is walking a path we've gone before.

Look for those opportunities. Offer that help. Pave the way for them. It's so simple for us, and can make all the difference for them. Who knows, maybe someone will do the same for you when you need it.

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Take it easy

Something that's come up in several conversations lately is the belief that it's more virtuous to pursue the things that are harder for us than the things that come easily to us.

An example from my own life was the choice to be a stay-at-home-mother. It was absolutely harder for me to run a home myself than it would have been to have a job and a housekeeper, but I had accepted the idea that being a SAHM was better. Everyone and everything around me reinforced the idea that staying home with my baby was the best thing to do and that I would be a substandard mom if I didn't. My own mother loved staying at home and running a house, so maybe I thought that was the only way a mom should be.

But I tell ya, I went nuts. Within a few years, I simply self-destructed, blowing apart both my home and my marriage. Climbing out of that mess, I instead opted for a situation that included full-time work for me and a nanny for the kids. A SAHM friend of mine said at one point, "Maybe some people *should* keep working."

As hard as juggling a job and kids as a single parent might sound, it was easier for me than staying home. And, I think I turned out to be a pretty good mom regardless.

I believe now that doing the thing we love, rather than the thing that's hard, is our mission. There are no extra brownie points waiting for us in heaven because we forced ourselves to do the hard thing. In fact, I think we can tell we're doing what's right for us by how easy it is, not by how hard.

If we bounce out of bed in the morning, energized and eager for the day ahead, chances are we've found the activity that fits us best. If we drag out of bed and find every task irritating, forcing ourselves to do the deed doesn't make us any more virtuous.

Of course, there are things we have a duty to do, but I guess what I'm really advocating today is not to create a life for yourself that is entirely duty or obligation, but is also filled with a good proportion of what you love, of what comes easily to you.

The thing that comes easily to you is most likely the very thing the Divine wants to express through you. Don’t truncate that expression with a false sense of obligation or a misguided attempt to be virtuous. The Divine needs you to do what you love.

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A Valentine to share

I received this inspired message from a dear female friend for Valentine's Day, and wanted to extend it to everyone. Please enjoy!

May your Valentine's Day be bright and beautiful with the consciousness of God's husbanding presence.

May you rejoice in His adoration of you, care for you, delight in you.

May you pay special attention to His heart-decorated cards—angel messages from the great heart of Love.

May you relish His glorious bouquets—His smiles perfumed with Soul.

May you wear His elegant Valentine garment—the seamless robe of divine Science, which defines and shelters you.

May you feed on His delectable chocolates—His Truth-constituted ideas, which satisfy and heal.

May you dance a waltz of joy and grace with Him.

It's a glorious day.

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Speak gently

This hymn is speaking to me today, for a lot of reasons. It's probably the one thing I most often mess up.

Speak gently, it is better far
To rule by love than fear;
Speak gently, let no harsh word mar
The good we may do here.

Speak gently to the erring ones,
They must have toiled in vain;
Perchance unkindness made them so;
O win them back again.

Speak gently, 'tis a little thing,
Dropped in the heart's deep well;
The good, the joy that it may bring,
Eternity shall tell.

David Bates
Christian Science Hymnal

God help me, I don't always remember the long term benefits of gentleness and too often I opt for the instant gratification of the outburst. It's a battle—but only with myself.

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Practical practice

I've reached the chapter Christian Science Practice in my read through of Science and Health, and as usual, new things are popping out at me.

Early in the chapter, Mary Baker Eddy discusses the proper mental attitude of the healer. She says, in part, "…if the unselfish affections be lacking, and common sense and common humanity are disregarded, what mental quality remains, with which to evoke healing from the outstretched arm of righteousness?" (p. 365). This time, as I read that passage, I was struck by her valuing of common sense. Christian Science is not an excuse to eschew common sense. I'm seeing a lot of common sense in this chapter.

MBE later on that same page mentions "…the patient's spiritual power to resuscitate himself" (p. 365). To me, this was always my goal—to awaken in patients the ability to heal themselves. I never felt like I was the healer. Maybe this was my limitation, and I'd be willing to accept that. Certainly I have worked with healers who effected a change in my situation without my having to do much; this was early in my experience of Christian Science. It seems to me, though, that as I've matured, it's become more and more incumbent on me to effect my own healings.

"No man is physically healed in wilful error or by it, …" (p. 369). I'd always thought MBE was talking about sin with this assertion, but the second half of the sentence is, "…any more than he is morally saved in or by sin." So what is "wilful error"? When I read it this time, it occurred to me that things like eating whatever we feel like or judging other people or allowing ourselves to hate a particular political party could be considered willful error. Anything we know is wrong, but we indulge it anyway. So to me, what she's talking about is stubbornly hanging onto unhealthy tendencies but then expecting to be able to achieve health. Doesn't work!

"Matter is not self-sustaining" (p. 372). This brief sentence struck me. You know I've been thinking for many months about the correct way to maintain the body. Here, to me, MBE is saying that matter doesn't take care of itself. As long as we're using the body to express harmony in this mortal seeming, we need to maintain it with uplifted thought leading to healthy habits. It is sustained by thought. This can apply to the planet, as well. It's not self-sustaining; part of our dominion over it is taking the steps to maintain it.

And, I love this further example of common sense: "…it would be foolish to venture beyond our present understanding, foolish to stop eating until we gain perfection and a clear comprehension of the living Spirit" (p. 388). Live according to your present understanding, yes, but don't venture so far beyond it that you're being foolish.

To me, all these concepts above are *just as much* a part of Christian Science practice as are the more metaphysical truths, and they are *just as essential* to healing.

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Bible and Science and Health: right and left brain?

Yesterday I went with my friend (who's working on that project about churches) to the local Christian Science branch church. It was intriguing to hear her thoughts afterward.

The lesson was Spirit. I showed her around the books and the Quarterly, so she could see the Lord's Prayer, the Tenets, the Scientific Statement of Being in context. I showed her the definition of God and Christ in Science and Health as well. She took copious notes.

Right after the benediction, she turned to me and said, "Oh, it's like a science!"

I mean, of course, it's right in the name, but just the way she said it gave me a new appreciation of that concept. Christian Science definitely takes a scientific approach. It holds together logically, and faith is defined in a way that is understandable.

Then my friend said, "It's like the Bible is the right brain, and Science and Health is the left brain."

Ha! That struck me as very astute. The Bible is the feelings, the faith, the hope, the poetry. Science and Health is the analysis, the logic, the reason, the understanding.

And personally, I need both. This has clarified for me much of the Christian writing I've been reading lately. Most Christians seem to rely on the "feelings" aspect of spiritual practice. There's a virtue, to them, of taking things on faith. I, on the other hand, have always had reason as a close companion to faith. I need it to make sense. I need it to hold together logically. Christian Science provides that for me.

I've never not had this, so I don't know what I would have concluded if I'd spent my life with another teaching. But I tell you, I feel very fortunate today to have a teaching that covers both the creative/intuitive and the logical/reason aspects.

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Little Rock Nine

Last night I attended a talk with my mentee at the local college by Minnejean Brown Trickey, one of the Little Rock Nine, the teenagers who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957, amidst rioting and the National Guard. Fascinating!

Elie Wiesel's statement "...to remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all..." was a theme of Trickey's talk. She used this illustration: There were perhaps twenty white kids who were kind to the Little Rock Nine, and one hundred who overtly tormented them. The other thousand kids stood by and said nothing. She asked, Whom did we (the audience) think felt supported by the silent majority? When regular people stand by and say nothing, it's the tormentors who feel supported, not the charitable.

Here's another passage from Weisel: "I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

Trickey also pulled a quote from a Hopi prayer (recently read in full by Maria Shriver at an inaugural event): "We are the ones we are waiting for."

Trickey, who was sixteen at the time of the integration, stayed strong throughout. She spoke of skipping home from school every day, as a way to show resistance and that they weren't beating her down. A famous incident involving a bowl of chili eventually led to her expulsion from the school. She has since spent her life as a crusader for civil rights for all people.

I got chills when she read this poem, dedicated to another of the Little Rock Nine.

Soul Make A Path Through Shouting

for Elizabeth Eckford
Little Rock, Arkansas, 1957

By Cyrus Cassells

Thick at the schoolgate are the ones
Rage has twisted
Into minotaurs, harpies
Relentlessly swift;
So you must walk past the pincers,
The swaying horns,
Sister, sister,
Straight through the gusts
Of fear and fury,
Straight through:
Where are you going?

I’m just going to school.

Here we go to meet
The hydra-headed day,
Here we go to meet
The maelstrom—

Can my voice be an angel-on-the-spot,
An amen corner?
Can my voice take you there,
Gallant girl with a notebook,
Up, up from the shadows of gallows trees
To the other shore:
A globe bathed in light,
A chalkboard blooming with equations—

I have never seen the likes of you,
Pioneer in dark glasses:
You won’t show the mob your eyes,
But I know your gaze,
Steady-on-the-North-Star, burning—

With their jerry-rigged faith,
Their spear on the American flag,
How could they dare to believe
You’re someone sacred?:
Nigger, burr-headed girl,
Where are you going?

I’m just going to school.

My mentee and I left the event very thoughtful and quiet. In the car on the way home, lost in our thoughts, she suddenly said, "I wonder what I would have done." I turned to her and said, "I was thinking exactly that same thing."

These are just some things I'm thinking about today, as a white person in this great country of ours.

For more inspiration associated with Black History Month, visit Kim's blog entry, You don't know what you don't know.

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"The curse of man is that he forgets"

I haven't done this in a while, but today's Dear Abby made me want to share it. I do still read it every day!

TOLERANCE FOR OTHERS' BELIEFS
COULD HELP HEAL WORLD WOES

"Abby" asked her readers what the real problem with the world today is. Yesterday they gave a lot of answers of the complaining variety, but today is a continuation with even more substantive responses.

Kim from Columbus, Ohio, articulated something I've been thinking about lately:

If people were more concerned with doing the right things in THIS world, rather than preoccupying themselves with what is going to happen in the NEXT one, our world would be a better place.

Correct, no? Don’t wait for the next life to be all that you can be, do it now!

The next person talked about forgiveness as what is needed, and the last one (Maurice in Albuquerque) shared that we need to remember our own goodness long enough to express it.

It was this last person who quoted Merlin from the King Arthur fable as saying, "The curse of man is that he forgets." Maurice went on to say, "If only we won't forget that we are loving beings, capable of great love beyond measure, if only we would not ignore so much, but remember just a little."

And he had the final word. I think I'll let him have the final word here as well.

"…remember just a little."

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Vote early, vote often

Haha, the title of this entry is a reference to politics in my native Chicago in the years of the original Mayor Richard J. Daley. He was quite a character, and that seemed to be the motto of his political machine. But do vote early.

In honor of today's primary vote, I offer a few choice quotes from Mayor Daley himself.

The police are not here to create disorder, they're here to preserve disorder.

We shall reach greater and greater platitudes of achievement.

Television and radio do a wonderful job in focusing attention on the problems of our society.

Even the Lord had skeptical members of His party.

Look at our Lord's disciples. One denied Him; one doubted Him; one betrayed Him. If our Lord couldn't have perfection, how are you going to have it in city government?

Don't worry if they're Democrats or Republicans. Give them service and they'll become Democrats.

They have vilified me, they have crucified me; yes, they have even criticized me.

I'm not the last of the old bosses. I'm the first of the new leaders.

No poll can equal the day-to-day visits of the men and women of the Democratic Party.

Power is dangerous unless you have humility.

We as Democrats have no apologies to make to anyone.

What is inherently wrong with the word 'politician' if the fellow has devoted his life to holding public office and trying to do something for his people?

Interesting guy, that Daley. Never a dull moment in Chicago city politics.

I just cast my ballot even though it's pouring down rain here in Massachusetts. I always get a thrill when the machine slurps up my form—I feel so official, and heard.

So add your voice to the chorus if you're in a Super Tuesday state, and VOTE.

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A Christian nation?

Ran across this guest commentary on the Episcopal Life Website over the weekend and found it very interesting:

How would Jesus vote?

Here's an excerpt:

[T]he Christian character of the United States is comparable to the "Christian character" of the Roman Empire following Constantine, or the "Christian character" of the Holy Roman Empire in the 16th century. Christian trappings abound, but if one compares the Christian dimensions of the two empires with the teachings of Jesus, the differences are stunning.

Jesus counseled peace; empires practice violence. Jesus counseled humility; empires ruthlessly pursue power. Jesus counseled concern for the poor; empires exalt the rich. Jesus counseled modesty; empires embrace extravagance. Jesus counseled forgiveness and love for one's enemies; empires seek vengeance.

Like those ancient empires, America abounds in Christian trappings. Still, the United States as an empire embraces virtually all the values that have been common to empires for centuries on end: peace through violence, the rich over the poor, power over humility. …

If America were really a Christian nation, and if Christians were faithful to the mandates of Jesus, [they] would demand from [candidates] answers to where they stand on questions of war and peace, wealth and poverty, and domestic and world hunger.

The entire essay is impressive, read it if you have time.

And, what think? Is America a Christian nation?

If you're in a Super Tuesday state,
be sure to vote tomorrow!

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