Connections | Sharing Spiritual Ideas that heal

Hear Josh Groban sing it on youtube❤️.

“Somedays, we forget to look around us,
Somedays, we can’t see the joy that surrounds us,
So caught up inside ourselves,
We take when we should give,
So for tonight we pray for,
What we know can be,
And on this day we hope for,
What we still can’t see,
It’s up to us, to be the change,
And even though we all can still do more,
There’s so much to be thankful for,
Look beyond ourselves,
There’s so much sorrow,
It’s way to late to say, I’ll cry tomorrow
Each of us must find our truth,
It’s so long overdue,
So for tonight we pray for,

What we know can be,
And everyday, we hope for,
What we still can’t see,
It’s up to us, to be the change,
And even though we all can still do more,
There’s so much to be thankful for,
Even with our differences,
There is a place we’re all connected,
Each of us can find each others light,
So for tonight, we pray for
What we know can be,
And on this day, we hope for,
What we still can’t see,
It’s up to us, to be the change,
And even though this world needs so much more
There’s so much to be thankful for.”

❤️ https://youtu.be/SSKIVf0hSn0

Songwriters
DAVID W FOSTER, RICHARD JAMES PAGE, CAROLE BAYER SAGER

 

 

Often as we think about Christmas memories, we realize that Christmas is not always an easy time for folks. False expectations run high. Relationships aren’t always smooth, or present. Merriment and shopping attempt to offer to fill unmet needs. Today I am stirred by the reminder that this very special holiday is not about the things.

I am so very humbly grateful that dear Mary, ultimately the Discoverer of this blessed Science of the Christ, was once a girl so attuned with love for Christ Jesus that, through her ever-increasing spiritual understanding, she ultimately released thousands upon thousands from the possible disappointment of a Christmas story sans the Christ. Mary Baker Eddy loved true Christmas. She wrote in 1900,  “Again loved Christmas is here, full of divine benedictions and crowned with the dearest memories in human history — the earthly advent and nativity of our Lord and Master. At this happy season the veil of time springs aside at the touch of Love.” (First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany, p. 256:17-21)

Each year, as we each deepen our love for God and His gift of the Christ- child to the world, we endeavor to live lives of ever more selfless love for others. Love lived, – it’s better than a million presents under an enormous tree.

Sometimes stopping to find the glints of past light, a past kindness, or grace, or gentleness, reminds us to acknowledge the good that we find, never losing sight of the love that was and is still real to us, guiding us to continue that love in our lives today.

Hoping this will spark some of your memories of Christly love and care, a few mementos burn brightly for me as this season rolls around. Stoke the embers of thought and send some stories where you felt Love’s presence in your Christmas.

Let’s make this a living Christmas card, sparkling with gratitude!

Memories that fill my thought today-

The Christ was in evidence each year for our families, as both of our dads had come home from the war. This was always, though mostly unspoken, a Christmas of, perhaps, gratitude taken for granted.

I think now of the love and the presence of my completely beloved “Gramp,” who quietly endured our gift-giving; yet whom I know was so grateful that, after many years alone, he had family to be with. I recall the love that impelled the sweater and a savings bond he gave my sister and me each Christmas. He would sometimes say in jest, that if he ever went into a church, it would fall down. Yet his was a love that was so deep and present, you felt it. I know the Christ was there, because I feel it today when I think of his integrity and faithfulness.

I loved seeing the evidence of good, the Christ, lived as our growing family, gathered together over dinner,- my mom, dad, our kids, my sis, her family, with kindness and sweet joy, each one feeling “familied,” cared for. As lives changed and people moved on, the tangible feeling of the tender care remains today.

Mom loved us deeply, and prayed so faithfully for us wherever we were. We lived locally, but my sister lived in Hawaii, and Mom really missed her. One Christmas, we surprised my parents by flying my sister home on Christmas eve. I don’t think I ever saw my mom and dad so surprised and so happy!

Today, we continue to celebrate the effects of others’ lives on us, those who were dedicated to Christly living and loving, – whether they called it that or not. This makes us all the more grateful for each smile, or care, or tender thought or word. What comprises family is the outreach that encircles each one wherever they are, whoever they are, – how broad and wide is our circle of love. It’s comforting that in our active love for one another, we’ll also feel its blessings.

Our Christmases are wrapped up, treasured through many decades when we identify with the love that saved us, or impelled us, or sheltered us or provided for us, or sacrificed for us. It’s the forever love of the Christ, born with Jesus and continuing through the centuries, Isn’t this what we celebrate? Is this the beginning of lives lived in Love? Isn’t this the Christ?

Find the Christ everywhere this Christmas. Identify it. You are included. There is no outside to Love. It is there, for every heart to find, to recognize, and to bring with it the gentle presence of our all-good, everywhere present, for all time, God.

Hymn 170 in the Christian Science Hymnal adapted from a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier says so much perfectly.

“The outward symbols disappear From him whose inward sight is clear, And small must be the choice of days To him who fills them all with praise. Keep while ye need it, brothers mine, With honest zeal your Christmas sign, But judge not him who every morn Feels in his heart the Lord Christ born.”

Happiest of this season to each one.
Feel its blessings.

With so much love, Pam

It’s time, guys. It’s purifying time. It’s time to take a mental sponge bath, and get all the dirt off and out.

Want to make a real difference in the world? Look around. What is needed?

Here are a few thoughts: less noise, lots and lots of less noise. Noise drowns out thinking. Noise deadens reason. Noise interferes with spiritual discernment in a big way. Try less noise: less tv, radio, cell. internet, Facebook, heated political discussions, unedited opinions just swished out right and left, – sometimes just the noise in the head, no peace, no quiet time, just mental noise. (Have you noticed,- it’s not even a pretty- looking word?)

Suggestion: A mental cleansing bar will just scrub off all that sticky stuff that interferes with pure good, with kindness, with awareness of another’s needs, a helping hand, a tender word,- a discerning response, all that comes from your spiritual soul, ready to bless and help and heal.

Love has such an awesome gentle way of helping clean us up from hate or anger or fear. Love lifts, purifies, rejuvenates, regenerates. Love purifies us as we help to purify others.

Love has a quieting sense, a comforting feeling, bringing confidence and a sense of safety that offers to wrap us in a thirsty towel fragrant with Love’s beauty and calm, gently loving us so much that we can, now cleansed of all icky influences, go forth to help others think and act and care and share. Our thoughts of clarity and calm bring an assurance that each one is loved and cherished,- and these purifying thoughts, straight from God, go out to bless and properly benefit the world we love and live in.

Oh, how you are needed. Oh, how you can love!

Mary Baker Eddy tells us, “Every step of progress is a step more spiritual.” * That’s instructive. Progress that really moves our lives forward will always include some experiences that alert us to clean up our thoughts and acts; become more pure, more kind, compassionate, christly; forgive, make amends, apologize, so gaining the mental and spiritual freedom for is to move onward and upward in our lives.

Mrs. Eddy’s statement correlates with instruction from the Bible which, although not easy, is a worthy goal for progress and for gaining those steps more spiritual, which give us lives more in tune with complete harmony, health, abundant good.

Bible guidance is very specific. “….fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ.” II Corinthians 10:6  The Message Bible

One grateful experience comes to mind as I recalled a “hot button” moment, where I had an emotionally charged response to an individual at a church where we belonged.  Looking back now it seems so silly, but at the time a meeting got out of kind control and a bit of strong willfulness took charge of several of us. I felt an anger well up in m that I didn’t recognize as me. I reacted way too vehemently, and some of us left the meeting. Absolutely immediately I was, to say the least, chagrinned. Embarrassed, yes, but that wasn’t at all the point. It simply wasn’t me. Or how I should have responded. But now what to do.

Was I right in reacting? Technically yes. The others had been incorrect. But I knew I was more than incorrect, I was ashamed.

Now what? As the meeting dispersed, I made the difficult decision to immediately track down those to whom I had reacted and apologize. Nothing was worth the possible animosity that might follow the event. But again, most importantly, nothing could hang out in front of me to cause me to act or react in such an unchristian, unkind manner.

More clear strong guidance from our Leader: “None but the pure in heart shall see God, shall be able to discern fully and demonstrate fairly the divine Principle of Christian Science.” **

I knew the deep desire in my day was to grow spiritually, to feel God’s presence and to keep my thought as uncorrupted as I could from opinions, judgments, self- righteousness. I wanted less personal “me” present and more individual good expressed.

I wanted to feel what Jesus had felt: “I can of myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is righteous, because I do not seek my own will but the will of the Father who sent me.” John. 5:30.  I knew that as Jesus had his life purpose, we have ours as well, and I wanrrted to let Love remove the stones of personal stuff that would get in the way. Where divine Love was, there wasn’t any place for reacting like that.

This was a milestone for me, because I realized I had some humble praying to do to be all that God, divine Mind, knew me to be, to recognize that the grace and power of divine Mind, divine Love, was and always is, governing its ideas, and to know myself as one with that Mind.

Recognizing that individual man is spiritual, the very expression of God, good, protects us from believing we can slip and slide around in mortality and get lost there. We will never be less than the man God knows. And our love for God, good, provides us with all we are, to be all we need to be.

*People’s Idea of God, p 2                                                                                                       **Miscellaneous Writings, p. 184

 

 

From Duffy

The holiday season is upon us. I have been thinking a lot about connection, acceptance, the desire for love, and the want/need to fit in. We humans want to feel as though we matter to someone and have people in our lives to care for.

Recently, I have been dealing with some feelings of loneliness, somehow feeling that God left me out of His plan for meaningful relationships. So I thought – let’s be clear — Where does my fulfillment come from? People? Relationships? NO! My fulfillment comes from God, divine Love. I need to know, with conviction; loneliness is a lie about me, and my relationship to God.

“Pure humanity, friendship, home, the interchange of love, bring to earth a foretaste of heaven. They unite terrestrial and celestial joys, and crown them with blessings infinite.” Miscellaneous Writings. 100:22

Delving deeper into my relationship with God and feeling divine Love’s presence with me, each minute, brings healing. When feeling down or like I am missing out, gratitude is where my thought goes. Sitting quietly, thinking of everything I have to be grateful for in my life is invigorating.

My gratitude list is endless – a home, my kids, heat, running water, a washer/dryer, the ability to move freely, friends, my relationship (ever expanding) to God, employment, transportation, music, art, comedy, theater… I could go on and on.

There are so many things to be grateful for each day…laughter or smiling with a stranger, people holding the door for you, being kind to one another, or having the person in front of you in the Starbucks line pay for your coffee.

As I think of all this, loneliness is proven to be nothing and absolutely cannot take away from my joy or make me feel as if I am missing out. I see God expressed all around me. This expression cannot be denied and yes, I am included in that expression. We all are.

Thank you Father Mother God for the presence of divine Love wrapping Her arms around me each moment.

It’s never too late to get it right, to love as God loves. When we care deeply for others, there are so many views of what love should look like.

If you are a parent, or one involved in a role of parenting, almost automatically comes the thought that you are completely responsible for the child, now and forever! When a child appears on the scene, most often it is quickly seen as “my child.” The parent will naturally feel great love for the child, but that might also include heavy responsibility or fear. Perhaps as a parent, we might even be tempted to feel helpless in how our human relationships develop.

Bringing a spiritual vantage point will free us to see relationships through fresh views.  Our deep love for one another identifies each individual with God, who is man’s life. God is, and always has been, the only Creator of the universe, inclusive of man. Individual man, not being mortal or material, but wholly spiritual, has always, only, had that real, true, right relationship which governs all other relationships. Christian Science establishes our understanding of man forever one with his Father-Mother God.

Our guidance comes with Christ Jesus, who gave us the model for his own prayer, “Our Father which art in heaven.” And the spiritual interpretation of the prayer, in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mrs. Eddy, further defines the one Parent, “Our Father-Mother God, all-harmonious.” P . 16.

This establishes each one as one with his true Parent, forever, always, now. It’s never too late to see each relationship already in its proper place, each individual already one with his true Father-Mother. Being one with God, Spirit, eliminates all other options. Fear and false responsibility yield to trust in God’s omnipotent, ever-present care, provision and protection.

Our understanding of God’s love for His children, His precious ideas, never fails to be effective in our healing work, for others as well as for ourselves. Our understanding that each one whom we love, or for whom we seem responsible, is already, right now, and permanently unvaryingly inseparable from his Creator, his true Parent.

This oneness is permanent, actually eternal. Therefore, each one that you and I love so dearly, but for whom we may feel concern, in our prayer and thought with confidence give him or her, or them! to God. The oneness of God, Spirit, and man, spiritual, is the best news for everyone! This being already true, it is a simple, prayerful acknowledgment of spiritual fact.

Can we see how working from this wonderful vantage point trusts these dear children, and ourselves, and all children, to Love’s care! No one left out. This trusts their care to God, our care to God. Each and every one beautifully complete.

And as the present is God-governed, then that which we call the future, for each and every one, is God-governed as well.  Let’s know that for those we know and love, and those we may not know, yet still love, as God’s beloved children.

Start and stay here with God!  The safe place now and then.

Yesterday, talking with a friend about her many travels in the US and in Europe, I commented that she mist see so much beauty. Her answer was lovely.

She said, “Before I look for beauty around me, I must say, first I see God.” And she smiled with an understanding of what that means. It has made me ask, what does it mean to see God. How do I see God? Because when that is the first thing we see in our day,- what a glorious day it will then be.

And the first thought is that one who sees God sees through completely pure sight. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” The pure in heart see Spirit through spiritual understanding. His thoughts are pure. His views unobstructed by material sense, limitation, worry, opinion, or fear. His love for God and his desire to “see God” is the most important focus, not just of his day, but of his life.

We will never see God by viewing matter or material sense, or by being more interested in material analysis of world conditions than we are in the truth of Life and Love.

We will never see God by focusing on matter and being afraid of its so-called intelligence. For good or bad, matter is always, and forever will be, lifeless, mindless. No matter how tempting it is to check our technology, this will never allow us to love God more, or more deeply understand the profoundly beautiful nature of the universe, created as it is by the all-loving omnipotent Principle, Love, which holds all perfectly, divinely, within its own creation. And knows each detail as one with order and beauty, with Life in and of Spirit.

Mrs. Eddy, like St John, saw the universe in its perfect depict because she saw only God. The revelation of divine Science came to her because of her deep love for, and dedication to, seeing God, and knowing God to be All, here and now, seen purely through true spiritual vision.

She writes of this in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “This kingdom of God “is within you,” — is within reach of man’s consciousness here, and the spiritual idea reveals it. In divine Science, man possesses this recognition of harmony consciously in proportion to his understanding of God.” P. 575.

As we see God, we see all beauty and life and love as sourced in, and forever one with, God, divine Love, divine Principle. Through the deep study of God as we learn in Christian Science, we are given the means to life lived with God’s all-good government present and available to men, to man, to you and I, today right here, each day, right now. The choice is ours as to what and how we choose to see, Spirit or matter, the real or the unreal. The Bible is clear: “Choose ye this day whom ye will serve” (Joshua 24:15). One view is real and heals, the other isn’t and doesn’t.

Do you see God? Of course you do. “The purification of sense and self is a proof of progress. “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God!” P.323.

Remember, too, that God, so pure, sees only His perfect pure, beautiful creation, you!