Month: February 2017

I am ready for steady!

Thanks, Cindy! Perfect perception!

Recently in our Wednesday night service, the readings were about spiritual understanding. One of the citations from the Bible was when Jesus explained to the disciples why he used parables with the masses. He spoke of people seeing but not perceiving of hearing but not understanding… the truth. He said, “This is why I speak to them in parables: Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.” Matthew 13:13

A correlative passage from Science and Health, p 34:21, spoke of spiritual dullness and blind belief rather than spiritual understanding of the divine idea.

The readings made me wonder….am I one of the masses…not perceiving but wanting just a physical healing or a fix? Or, am I a disciple, willing to let go of my plan, my agenda, my idea of how things should be? I think I am, perhaps, both at different times.

Then, I wondered, how can I be more steady in my understandinginstead of ping ponging around when challenges arise?

The dictionary included these words for steady:

“Firmly fixed, supported, or balanced, not shaking or movingStable, firm, secure, fast, safe, immovable, unshakable, dependableRegular even, and continuous in development, frequency, or intensityConstant, unchanging, regular, consistent, invariable” Merriam Webster

Wow! These synonyms of steady are exactly where we all are as God’s reflection. We perceive, understand, and demonstrate them now and always. When I’m tempted to feel threatened by something or someone, I can be firmly fixed in recognizing God as my support and balance. Then I don’t shake in my boots or move back and forth in doubt and fear.

If thoughts of anger, loss, criticism crop up, I know we are all safe because we live in immovable, unshakeable, dependable Love. There is no fluctuation in the supply of Mind’s ideas and so we experience constancy and regular, consistent, invariable goodness.

In working with these ideas for a while, life seems to flow. Obstacles melt away, Right ideas and right timing are at hand before a need is known. The effect of letting God control instead of trying to personally control is steadiness.

“By purifying human thought, this state of mind permeates with increased harmony all the minutiae of human affairs. It brings with it wonderful foresight, wisdom, and power; it unselfs the mortal purpose, gives steadiness to resolve, and success to endeavor. Through the accession of spirituality, God, the divine Principle of Christian Science, literally governs the aims, ambition, and acts of the Scientist. The divine ruling gives prudence and energy; it banishes forever all envy, rivalry, evil thinking, evil speaking and acting; and mortal mind, thus purged, obtains peace and power outside of itself.” Miscellaneous Writings. 204:23

Steady is the only way to go!

Lovin’

Eyes wide open, or we can almost miss it. It’s everywhere…and has many different faces….. so much present, selfless…..

….the beautiful orchid from a friend, – a reminder how much mom loved orchids……(now I do too…who knew?)…heacuddles from a kitty…..womderful  technology sent by one who knew the need when I didn’t even know there was a need….selfless, loving calls,….. a grammy who cleaned up all the toys to the delight of her 2 year old grandson ……a text saying miss you…. bright porch lights on when coming up the long drive….tea from Thailand (!)……. sweet, tender thank you’s…..kind chatty grocery baggers…..servers who take that extra minute……the phone guy who works after dark to get it working again….the patient workers who guide us around mud slides..(‘course they’re paid…is there every enough money for their kindness?)….the one behind the wheel who flashes his lights to say, go ahead, I’ll wait….the sweetie who bought gold balloons for all the adults to take home….the love email note from a friend, assuring you are loved, …..the let’s go out when there’s nothing inspiring for dinner…….sharing a tangerine…..asking how you’re doing during the storm,…..saying, I’ll be so happy to do that for you…..saying, how bout we do that together…..the phone call that simply says, I love you…..calls that just say hi…..

It’s tiny, it’s big, it’s kind, it’s gentle, it’s life filled up full of so-called little things…..it’s enough. It’s most important. It’s affirming, unselfish, calming…..caring…..

It’s love. It’s divine. It’s what we do and why we’re here.

It’s so golden, such a sunrise. So beautiful. It’s everywhere. See it. Witness it. Enjoy it, and never miss being it. It’s an email that is always signed. “Endless love”

That’s life changin’…. that’s lovin’.

Loving YOU!

 

Always required, the higher choice!

With so much concern over current events and circumstances, each day who we are as healers, and how we think and pray is important, even vital. So as I post the following, apologies if it is very direct, but it seems we need to be sure we are not caught up in feeling helpless, or acting or living outside our roles as healers. Please don’t underestimate your role or the effectiveness of the truth you know and have confidence in. And have the trust and patience required to allow healing to be evident.

**********

The world needs what earnest students of Christian Science are able to do, perhaps more now than ever.  Mrs. Eddy tells us the importance of our contribution when she writes, “Earth’s actors change earth’s scenes;” (Message to The Mother Church, 1902) We have work to do, prayerful work, that finds God that we claim to understand as All, to be All!

So as always, we make choices in how we think, – about  ourselves, another, or our world. A choice based on spiritual discernment would be,   “I will think badly of no one.” However, this requires a commitment and a discipline to be willing to see what is really true according to God rather than according to men.

In terms that Christian Scientists understand, we might say, “I will not practice, or be involved in, malpractice.”

(To me mal means bad, with all that includes, the practice of bad thinking, – about myself, another, or the world. What an interference in our life and work that would be if we allowed our thoughts to dwell there.)

Choosing the higher, prayerful, Christ-consciousness road is our commitment to bring healing to any situation through spiritual understanding. It requires the recognition that harsh emotional judgment, condemnation, hatred, deep seated anger ultimately won’t serve any healing purpose. And moreover, by not guarding our thought carefully,  such thought allows a mental space detrimental to our own health, well-being, peace, and harmony. Then our effectivenss as healers is compromised.

The Discoverer of this essential-to-the-world Christ Science knew the vital nature of a healing consciousness, and the requirement of purity, spiritual clarity and insight, intelligent discernment, in our individual thoughts and in our lives.

Mary Baker Eddy lived and healed through her spiritualized, God-governed, thought and life. Through her life which was led by her love of God, good, she knew protection and progress followed. Faithful lives trust that.

She assures us that it takes courage to do right, acting and living according to our highest ability in our own lives. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, we read, “It is Christian Science to do right, and nothing short of right-doing has any claim to the name. To talk the right and live the wrong is foolish deceit, doing one’s self the most harm.” (SH 448)

And,

“The wrong done another reacts most heavily against one’s self. Right adjusts the balance sooner or later. Think it ‘easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle,’  than for you to benefit yourself by injuring others.” (SH 448)

To my sense, this applies to how we think about others.  Would we wish them ill, even regardless of the wrong they had done, or how we perceive their lives? This is not ours to do, nor is it our highest right. Ours is to have the obedience and humility which knows that God, divine Mind, is governing His creation, currently, (presently,) and permanently.

We are assured, “Mankind will be God-governed in proportion as God’s government becomes apparent, the Golden Rule utilized, and the rights of man and the liberty of conscience held sacred. Meanwhile, they who name the name of Christian Science will assist in the holding of crime in check, will aid the ejection of error, will maintain law and order, and will cheerfully await the end — justice and judgment.” (First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellanyy. 222)

Can’t we see how each of the requirements does not point fingers “out there” somewhere; they are the requirements for our own living: God’s government apparent in my life; the Golden Rule lived right here; my recognition that we each live according to our highest right without judgment from another.

Out love for God, and our very deep trust in God’s ability to govern His children, and His universe in justice and harmony, will lead each of us to spiritually discern how to pray for that which concerns us.

Let’s trust this promise and hold steadfastly to our work. Trust God, cheerfully await the right adjustment, and think and live the healing that is required right in our own daily lives.

Living Love

“So I give you a new command: Love each other deeply and fully. Remember the ways that I have loved you, and demonstrate your love for others in those same ways. Everyone will know you as My followers if you demonstrate your love to others.”

Jesus, to his disciples. Now, for us today.

The Voice Bible translation

John 13

You have but to agree with God.

Then there is a settled calm. Admitting our oneness with God removes feelings of separation, fear. Agreeing with God removes from us ungodlike opinions. Recognizes spiritual fact as our consciousness. Clarifies our identity as one with divine Mind, and recognizes our safety in divine Love. Agreeing with God is immediate strength, purpose, and conviction. We are God’s team! And the best teamwork is when the team is one active, invincible unit!

Agreeing with God reveals to us our security. We love it! We are obedient to God, good.

“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Exodus 20

Agreeing with God is active. It conquers, and subjugates, defeats and gains control over, the arguments of a material view. It opens our thought to prove the truth of spiritual understanding.

Down through the centuries, spiritual thinkers accepted and rejoiced in this relationship, its beauty, strength, and purpose. Pure Spirit. Purely spiritual.

Christ Jesus did
Mrs. Eddy did.
You and I do.

What wonderful revelations come through defining.

Agree:
to concur in (as an opinion)
admit, concede
to achieve or be in harmony (as a, feeling, or purpose)
to come to an arrangement as to a course of action
to say that you will do, accept, or allow something that is suggested or requested by another person
to decide to accept something after discussing what should or might be done
to accept or concede something (as the views or wishes of another)
agree to a plan
to get along together
to be consistent,
to be fitting, pleasing, or healthful
to have an inflectional form denoting identity

As the manifestation of Mind, Life, man is one with God.This is fact, spiritual truth. Agreeing with God simply removes all suggestions of resistance to good in our thoughts about our lives and our world, and awakens us to the revelation of new, necessary, specific-to-our-needs, ideas and inspiration. We have aligned with what is right now true, – our own, man’s, wonderful, pure, good, spiritual nature. This is the power of the promises throughout the Bible and the discovery of this Christ Science. Accept these promises! They are for you and all men who love God, good. They will not be denied!

No good is ever withheld, and all good is recognized as permanent, eternally provided, because man, is one with God, his only true source and origin.

Today, you have but to agree. How lovely is that?

See as God sees.

And be willing to see only as God sees.

Daily, hourly, we need new views. We need clearer views, of ourselves and of others. We need to be willing to see as God sees. We need to be willing, not to be mesmerized by what others think we should think, or what others believe we should believe.

Our standard must be in our willingness to see only what God sees and knows. That will always begin, never with false opinion, judgment, of ourselves or others, but with perfection. Perfect God perfect man as our starting point, and our staying point. Choose God, choose good, to see what you see.

Here I am including a favorite statement on Perfection. See how this stand for identifying perfection brought healing to Irving Tomlinson, the author of “Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy.”

“PERFECTION”
Irving Tomlinson (Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy), in one of his lectures, told what he learned to do to keep his thought in tune or in oneness with God. It is entitled “perfection”, and I quote:

“I have learned to make Science a thing of life, and I’m going to tell you what the wonderful secret is. For it is wonderful. Now it is this: not to feel, see or repeat any kind of imperfection. It is seeing, hearing and repeating good, and only good… at all times, under all circumstances, in spite of everything that appears to the contrary.

“I make the resolution every morning when I first open my eyes, and review it every hour of the day. I see perfection, the perfect cause the perfect effect, perfect God and perfect man, and I refuse to make any kind of exception. I refuse to admit the slightest imperfection in myself, and my friends, in my so-called enemies, and in the affairs of the world.

“I take that radical stand every day for the perfection of God in everything and everybody He has made. I look upon the world with God’s eyes, and in it, see it as He sees it. I refuse to see it any other way. I stop a dozen times a day and review the resolve and make sure I’m not repeating error, giving way to fear or criticism. I watch my thoughts, even about people, the lame, the old, the unlovely to sense, that I pass, and the stray animals.

“I have taken my radical stand for the perfection of all things and I absolutely will not release the perfect standard. The result has been marvelous. Try it and you will forget to wear glasses; they will become unnecessary. You will be seeing with God’s eyes and will behold a perfect universe. The outward worlds are the pictures of the inward thinking. To change the picture, one must change the thought that produced the picture.”.

Unconditional

Adjective
having no exceptions or restrictions.

Synonyms
all-out,…clean, complete,
outright, perfect, profound, pure, sheer, simple, total, unadulterated, absolute, unqualified

Related Words
authentic, genuine, real, veritable; constant, endless, eternal, perpetual, undying, unremitting; extreme, unrestricted; confirmed, habitual, extraordinary, huge, supreme, surpassing, terrific

Near Antonyms
doubtful, dubious, equivocal, qualified, questionable, restricted, uncertain

 
Unconditional. Love.

Jesus’ instruction: “Thou (you, me, us, all, and each one) shalt (have (to), must, ought (to), need, should) love the Lord,YOUR God with all your heart and soul and mind; and your neighbor (him or her right here, over there, or way over and out there) as yourself. (assuming you are starting with loving yourself because you know you are God’s loved child.) Matt 22:37.

This is Love without condition, or judgment, or exception. It is the Love that is available to all because it is not personal but divine. This divine Love is the source of all good for each one everywhere. Knowing this is the break through for all needs and all problems. It has nothing to do with limits. It has nothing to do with deciding if someone, ourselves or another, is worthy of love. They are. You are.

“They” are loved. You are loved. Divinely, unconditionally loved.

Rest there.

…then move on.

Receiving, understanding, loving this gives you freedom. Freedom to know who you are, why you are. To love. Freedom to look at others, and at life, in a brand new way.

Freedom to release your thoughts of others from who you thought they thought they were and what you thought they weren’t.

Is it a selfish commandment? Rather, isn’t it the very means to the possible? To the very hub of our reason for being.

The commandment is summed up: “Perfect Love casts out fear.” I John 4:18

More later.