Connections | Sharing Spiritual Ideas that heal

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

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

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.