Month: October 2018

Living God’s Story

From Cindy

 

I was recently led to think about life in a clearer way.   I am beginning to see that it is not about what God means to me nor what God can do for me.  It’s really about Love’s unfolding.  My life isn’t about plugging God in when I need Her or when I am trying to be good.  It is about living God’s story, letting God lead in every minute decision, turning moment by moment to God and really listening, and being willing to do what I hear.  

 

Each morning as I study the Bible Lesson, I wait for the “morning moment” of inspiration and guidance.  And, key to that listening, is being willing to use the morning moment throughout the day, especially when the minutiae of daily interactions, the push and pull of human reactions, and  sometimes a feeling of apathy, try to sideline my demonstration.  Willingness and persistence have really kept me in God’s story and out of the drama of mortal mind.

 

This week I had an example of living God’s story and seeing the protection it includes.   I was riding my young horse down a paved road, which we have done many times.  This time, however,  a bear came out of the pond behind us and my horse took off at a gallop.  Nothing would dissuade him from the fear that gripped him.  We were careening across slippery leaves, cement driveways, and the road, heading toward a busy 60 mph road.  This normally thoughtful horse was “out of his mind.”  

 

As this was happening, I felt no fear.  I was confident that God’s story is always good for all.  Humanly, I could have executed a one-rein stop which causes the horse to turn and stop, but we had a fence on one side and pavement on the other.  That kind of turn would not be safe.  Instead, I turned to God, stayed there and just worked the reins back and forth.  Before we got to the busy road, we were well in hand.

 

To me, the experience was profound, because I was not thinking separately from God, I was one with God’s thoughts.  There was calm, trust and love.  I hadn’t tried to get God to help separate me in a dangerous position, but rather, I understood God, Love, as my and my horse’s life and mind.  All is well always.

“There Is No Out There!”

By Kit Kurtz

A few weeks ago, in the middle of praying to consistently see God’s presence, but also to feel closer to God, I felt an angel thought (a message from God) flood my thinking, “There is no out there!” I understood immediately that I was never outside God’s consciousness trying to get back in. There is not a place outside what God knows. I was not ‘out there,” metaphorically working and praying and hoping to find just the right inspiration to feel my closeness to God. I, and all God’s children, are always on the inside, are always right with Mother Father God.
I was so grateful and am so very grateful for this gift of Christian Science that teaches us the practical fact that God is all there is and that God is very very good. When we look, we see God’s presence operating everywhere in our life

A couple of days before we were to leave on a big trip I was working at our reading room. I joyfully applied the concept that there is “no out there” for our church, our community, and all the world.

I almost immediately saw this fact of God’s loving presence in action. I left the reading room at 2:15, just in time to be home when my son arrived home from his day program. But, as I pulled out from the parking lot my car started to shake violently and all the lights on the dashboard started to flash. It was very scary. Flooding my thought was, “Oh no. It’s Friday afternoon. How will I ever get the car fixed? I am leaving on a trip in a couple of days. Will I need to get a rental car? How will I get home to be there for my son?” Then the message came again, “There is no out there.” I stopped human planning and was still. I reminded myself that I was always and only in God’s consciousness and I should just relax and see the order of Principle, God, in action.

I then calmly drove down the street to a repair shop that I have used before, eager to see what God had planned. Their parking lot was empty. “Oh no, are they open?” I thought. Yes they were open. But the place was empty except the service manager and another man. I explained my car trouble and time sensitivity. The man next to the service manager immediately went out to check my car. In a few minutes he had discovered the problem and they said they could fix it in an hour. My check maintenance light had been on. They could fix that in an hour too. God guided me to call a church friend to meet my son when he got home. She lovingly dropped everything and drove up to our home just as my son arrived.

In talking to the service manager I discovered the reason that they were able to promptly fix my car. Their company was sponsoring a daylong Christian worship musical event the next day, and they had cleared their schedule in preparation. Also, the mechanic was in the process of going home as I drove in and they got the needed parts before the parts house closed early to check inventory. No details left out of God’s plan.

While we were talking, the mechanic came in to inform me that my back brakes were metal to metal, not a surprise as we live on a steep mountain-side. They could fix those within the hour too.

In the consciousness of Love, all is in order. The car problem was fixed, the maintenance done, and the brakes changed, and I got home within an hour and a quarter to see my son happily reading books with my friend. As a side note, the name of the repair shop is Akua Automotive. Akua means God in Hawaiian.

Do You Want Butter with that Popcorn? 🍿

By Pam

Have you ever gone to a movie and become so completely immersed in the story that you sort of forgot it was a movie, and that those are actors?

Ok, well, I guess that’s kind of the hope of everyone who is part of the film. Maybe that’s how you know it’s a good movie. Unless it takes over your ability to think and reason! And I’m not proud to say that was my experience recently.

I wont bother to tell you the film. But I will say that it was so compelling I had to go a second time! Even that’s ok until I found myself actually researching the real personal lives of a couple of the actors and ,….here’s the embarrassing part, pondering if I approved how they were living them!

Now I bother to write this up and do the true confession moment because it was significant.
It truly illustrated how caught up we can get in a story, and then how it can compel us to think and even act in ways that really we would not do if thinking clearly and rationally.

When I was flummoxed by what I was finding out in my hypnotizing research, I mentioned it to my very reasonable husband, who looked at me a little surprised at my strange involvement, and said simply, “They are ac-tors.” What pithy wisdom.

But what took me down such a strange path? It had to be the classic statement about film in which we are told to “suspend disbelief.” Good advice for a couple of hours of a movie, bad advice for living a productive life!

Rational thought and reasonable, intelligent thinking help protect us from such divergent paths. Clarity between reality and imagination is certainly the whole real story. But taken from the higher perspective, an ethical, even spiritually discerning viewpoint, we are better than this. We are individually prayerful people with an eye for good, not bad. The Golden Rule that Christ Jesus gives us as a guide for successful living and relationships, guides us to do to others (including how we think about others) as we would have them do to us. So it is very obvious it really isn’t helpful to give ourselves over to what is unreal. Or of no significant value to us, our life, our better purpose, or our thoughts about others.

One question, then, is how many decisions do we make in our day before we consider if something we are doing, or thinking, or a part of, is really worthwhile, or should be an influence to us?

Way too much of what is “out there for our consumption” adds no real value to our lives, yet we get drawn into conversations, or news stories, or personal relationship issues, or films, without considering what this is doing to the rest of our day, and to what is really important. We need to have the courage and discernment to be wise about what influences us away from our value and real purpose of our lives.

It’s pretty obvious in my case that I led myself down a rabbit hole that had no real significance in my life. And remember, I did this all by myself! No one influenced me, nothing but the temptation to be distracted, or know some gossip.

In the end, it did alert me to be so aware and conscious of my own thoughts, and activities and to remain alert to that which holds no real value for me. So it has been a good lesson to stay awake, and to decide consciously about my own real worth, purpose and value. It makes me realize I do have the ability to think and act rightly, and that I will not allow anything to dispossess me of this ability, and trespass on my life of Love. *

I am now wondering, if anyone else has had a similar experience, and how this kind of scenario might be instructional.

I will say that now if I find myself wandering or considering wandering into non-productive moments and disturbing distractions I simply ask myself, “Do you want butter with that popcorn?” And I have to choose!

Anyone else ever do this?? Give me a call, I’ll provide the popcorn! ♥️

*”Know, then, that you possess sovereign power to think and act rightly, and that nothing can dispossess you of this heritage and trespass on Love.” Mary Baker Eddy. Pulpit and Press. 3:7

Life’s Healing Currents

 Acquaintance with the original texts, and willingness to give up human beliefs (established by hierarchies, and instigated sometimes by the worst passions of men), open the way for Christian Science to be understood, and make the Bible the chart of life, where the buoys and healing currents of truth are pointed out.

SH 24: 4-10

Sausalito Sunset by Jennifer

Pray and Ponder 🌹

By Pamela DeBolt

Just reread the quote by Jenny Sawyer that Jennifer included in her post entitled “Greetings.” It’s worth rereading. It gets “us” right. Here it is:

As we pray about a problem, it’s easy to think that we’re making something happen, or causing God to do something for us. But that’s not what prayer does. What prayer does is help us wake up to what’s already true, what’s already in place. It clears away the doubt and fear so we can see that everything God made is just as intact as it’s always been. When you see this clearly, it’s an “aha” moment—and an adjustment in your thoughts and life inevitably follows.

It reminds me of Jesus’ great Commandment. And the important guidance of that Commandment for the safety and progress of our life when we get it right, and for the healing of our world.

Jesus’ Great Commandment:

“Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

“ Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

“This is the first and great commandment.

“And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

“On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”*

….led me to two great Questions:

What is the God that man knows and loves?

And

What is the man that God knows and loves?

In your Morning Moment, you might ponder….

*Matt. 22:36-40

Peace 🌹

By Pamela DeBolt

What a perfect word. It even looks pretty on paper.
To feel peace brings a calm. To know that peace is the natural right and condition of man as God’s idea, Her expression, brings a serene confidence that here and now peace is available to you, and to each and every one.

Peace is held in consciousness as a quiet confidence that good is, and is immediately possible, and this recognition takes the place of anything that might disturb.

The most amazing thing is that peace is available to anyone at any time. Literally. Because it’s not a human condition, it’s a divine presence, a spiritual quality. The understanding of the divine power and presence brings, well, peace.

Peace understood as a God quality, so natural to us, can bring strength, and courage to a woman who might feel alone. Through reaching out to her sense of God as Love itself, she can feel not just strong, but deeply, safely, cared for and cared about.

Peace, understood as immediately available because forever imparted by divine Mind to its expression, man, can give the individual who needs it, intelligent activity, confident decision making, ethical, well- reasoned choices in business, or home, or relationships. Peace accepted brings practical wisdom.

Peace, the very quality more needed than any other, is yet more readily available, because it is not matter, but in thought, and all true thoughts are from God to His idea, man. And act as provision and protection.

Receptivity matters. Expect peace. Become calm. Feel loved. Cease mental turmoil. Embrace harmony as possible. Love more patiently. Listen more willingly.

Thoughts are subjective. There is no “out there out there!” As our individual thought is lifted, spiritualized, good happens. When we are receptive to good, it floods in like a light and brightens all that we think about, all that would concern us.

Write out the word. Look at it and let it reveal itself to you.

Build your confidence in it.

Love more with it and from it.

Relax. Let peace, God’s very quality, wrap you up, comfort you, and, yes, heal you.

Never leave peace. And it won’t leave you.