Month: December 2018

Christmas Angels
by Jill Gooding
from the Christian Science Sentinel 12/17/07

The Christmas message is angels!
They come to each one who’s in need;
They bring the appropriate message
To comfort, companion, and lead.
They spoke to the traveling Wise Men,
Led them to stable secure,
They spoke to the wakeful shepherds,
Whose thinking was simple and pure.

They spoke to receptive Mary,
Announcing the birth of her babe.
They spoke to the patient Joseph,
As he quietly waited and prayed.
And today these angels still speak to us all,
Telling of God’s tender care,
Their song unpolluted, unfettered and free,
A chorus that’s heard everywhere.

They lead you to see the Christ-presence,
Companion you morning and night.
They tell you how much you are cherished,
Emblazon your dark skies with light.
So don’t feel alone and uncared for,
Unstabled, unloved, and adrift.
An ageless army of angels
Is your glorious Christmas-tide gift.

From Kathie Walter 🌺

Christmas Comes 🎄

If we have made our hearts a manger
to receive the Christ-idea,

stretching out our hands
to welcome healing in,

lifting up our thoughts
to know God knows,

then, where we are, the season’s glory
pours. And Christmas comes.

By Carol Chapin Lindsey
From the December 22, 1980, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel

God’s reflection…

• Observes God in action
• Considers His presence in our lives
• Contemplates the impact God has every day
• Moves through the day with dignity
• Treats others with good will, grace and respect
• Smiles or laughs with strangers (or friends)
• Acknowledges all the good daily
• Gives gratitude for God’s control
• Knows their worth to God
• Shares Love
• Expresses God, Love, Principle in the whole of their identity
• Sees the beauty in each individual expression of His
• Ever expands their understanding of GOD; Life, Truth, Love, Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit

WE ARE ALL GOD’S REFLECTIONS

From Duffy

“Stillness”
What does it mean?
Is it possible to be still?
Does being still have value to us today?
What is it? Where do we find it? How do we find it?

Throughout the Bible that we love, men and women understood and exemplified stillness, and spiritual knowing. (To be still means a quiet; hush; calm; peace, quietude, serenity, the ability to be receptive.)

 What effect did this spiritual demeanor have on their lives? What was the result on their family, their relationships, their purpose, their country? (Or, if they were not quiet of thought, what effect did this have?)

As I write this, late at night a storm blusters outside my window, wind and water mingling, producing noise and a disturbance of unusual force.

My prayer is that right here, right now, where the storm appears to be, right here in my thought is peace. My spiritual sense, quieted and trusting, assures me that all of God’s perfect creation, every detail, is safe, hid with Christ in God. The peace, the stillness I feel brings me a sense of calm and safety. The storm in me is replaced with quiet confidence in divine Mind’s ability to care for Its own. It has become quiet outside. I am grateful.

Did not Jesus still the storm by bringing his disciples into his peace? Can we do this? Absolutely.

How? Refuse to be agitated, blustery, inflamed, or afraid. Refuse to react. Choose peace.
Establish as your thought the very present presence of divine Mind.
Be still and hear . . .
Be still and listen . . .
Be still and see . . .
Be still and understand . . .

Be still and know that you are one with God.

 Divine mind is heard most clearly when the humble heart is ready to hear.

Join me in embodying peace, quietude, pure spiritual sense. Get still. Trust. Be deeply consecrated to your work as a Christian Scientist, with all that means to you, for the world. Bring to every circumstance your peace, your spiritual centeredness, your calm trust in the ever-present presence of God, good.

What enabled our Leader to find inspiration for Science And Health in that attic room with only a skylight? What allowed her to hear, to receive and write down the inspired word she was given? How quiet her thought must have been . . . how powerful her prayer.

Do realize, please, that if this stillness/quiet/peaceful prayer is lived and obeyed, it will immediately bring you a clearer spiritual sense; remove confusion; lead your thought to a more focused, dedicated life of prayer and inspiration.

This instruction, obeyed, will transform your view of the world. You will choose quiet prayer instead of fear, criticism, or gossip. You will put “tempting technology” in its proper place, and it will not compel you to it instead of to prayer and inspiration.

Be obedient to your inspiration. Don’t be afraid to “be still and know that I am God.” Don’t be afraid that stillness is not enough. Try it! You will feel much more in charge of your thought, your moments, and your days. Right ideas and opportunities come to those who listen and then wisely respond. Good is always the result of faithful prayer. This is what truly changes the world!

Live your quiet! Live your stillness. And live your inspired peace.
“Be still and know . . . “
. . . the very present presence of infinite, divine Mind.  🌹

If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, Doesn’t have a swelled head,

Doesn’t force itself on others, Isn’t always “me first,” Doesn’t fly off the handle, Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,

Doesn’t revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,

Puts up with anything,

Trusts God always,

Always looks for the best,

Never looks back, But keeps going to the end.

Love never dies.

Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit.

We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete.

But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly.
And the best of the three is love. ♥️

1 Corinthians 13
TheMessage Bible

By Henry van Dyke

Henry van Dyke was a member of the clergy. This story reads like a sermon for good reason. Its full title is A Short Christmas Sermon: Keeping Christmas. Van Dyke also composed lyrics to the popular hymn, “The Hymn of Joy” sung to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, “Ode to Joy”.

ROMANS, xiv, 6: He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord.

It is a good thing to observe Christmas day. The mere marking of times and seasons, when men agree to stop work and make merry together, is a wise and wholesome custom. It helps one to feel the supremacy of the common life over the individual life. It reminds a man to set his own little watch, now and then, by the great clock of humanity which runs on sun time.

But there is a better thing than the observance of Christmas day, and that is, keeping Christmas.

Are you willing to forget what you have done for other people, and to remember what other people have done for you; to ignore what the world owes you, and to think what you owe the world; to put your rights in the background, and your duties in the middle distance, and your chances to do a little more than your duty in the foreground; to see that your fellow-men are just as real as you are, and try to look behind their faces to their hearts, hungry for joy; to own that probably the only good reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life, but what you are going to give to life; to close your book of complaints against the management of the universe, and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness–are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas.

Are you willing to stoop down and consider the needs and the desires of little children; to remember the weakness and loneliness of people who are growing old; to stop asking how much your friends love you, and ask yourself whether you love them enough; to bear in mind the things that other people have to bear on their hearts; to try to understand what those who live in the same house with you really want, without waiting for them to tell you; to trim your lamp so that it will give more light and less smoke, and to carry it in front so that your shadow will fall behind you; to make a grave for your ugly thoughts, and a garden for your kindly feelings, with the gate open–are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas.

Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world–stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death–and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem nineteen hundred years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love? Then you can keep Christmas.

And if you keep it for a day, why not always?

But you can never keep it alone. 🌺