My church

Spiritual resource to share: out of the box church

The group approach to worship and spiritual practice is timeless. My absolute favorite way of doing this is through church. But church to me is so much more than a building full of like-minded individuals. It really embraces Mary Baker Eddy's definition of church as an institution that is elevating the race, rousing the dormant thought, showing proof of its utility and demonstating healing.

Some time ago, I tried to bring in more of what I love about church into one group, I was disappointed. It did seem that the focus was - well - not my focus. I wrestled with this. Struggled some more. Then I came up with my answer.

First, it was to be grateful for this group and their building. Even if a church only opens its doors to serve themselves, it does at least one thing. It makes the presence of Christian Science known in that community. And for some churches that may be all they can do, are comfortable doing or are willing to do.

But secondly, I realized, it doesn't limit what I can do in demonstrating the larger expression of church. I loved to be with others who love life, serve others, are involved with healing, and are striving to become better at following the disciplines of their faith.

When I started seeing that there wasn't only one way to experience church (ie in a special building with the same group of people), I saw that my church was actually huge! I have come to see church as my church - my own demonstration of church that is as unlimited as my prayer can be. For me, the building and needs of one group can be a part of it. But where that group opts out, I can opt in. And as I have done so, I am surprised at how wide my concept of church has become!

I am involved in the Ministerial Association. We don't spend time trying to get others to believe "our way" or to look or behave a certain way. There is an understanding that there are differences in our spiritual practices and ways of worship. We move on to what we can agree to do together. And that is the centerpiece of our work: Respect for the diversity of the group and joy in working side by side for the betterment of our community.

I have found an innovative way to help, at least two kids, to have a Sunday School experience that they might not normally have because of distance. (Thanks to the out-of-the-box teacher!!) I know there are other kids who would love a Sunday School experience with others, but don't because of distance. So I may have more work to do there.

My healing work is my practice. This is my everyday walk with God and my daily interactions with others. I have shared - and continue to share - Science and Health, and have had opportunities to talk with educators, hospital chaplains, community members, prisoners, friends of my kids and their families, etc. about Christian Science. This site has introduced me to so many individuals from all over. It has made my practice not only local and regional, but national and international.

The internet has put me in touch with other healers actively working and responding to those spiritual seekers on the internet and in their chosen geographical areas. This virtual office of pioneering practitioners is such a support and inspiration! I have met others on the net, who, for many reasons, can't get to a church building, and so their church services are held on the internet.

The backbone of my church is Christian Science. But the groups I am involved with in expressing church -- are literally all over the map! Church to me continues to become a very satisfying and expansive idea. There is no limit to what can be accomplished!



So, how is church going for you?


For a fascinating read about the changing face of churches in the US, read Revolutions by George Barna (of Barna Research fame). Laura Matthews has a great review of this book you can read.







To share your thoughts on this or to explore this idea further, please feel free to be in contact with me, add your own comments below, email this article to a friend, or add to the healing finds and sites on the web to the right.

The scent of water

Spiritual resource to share: small steps

This was my ultimate challenge many years ago:
No job.
No car.
No place to live.
No money.
Plans to have a family dashed.
But the worst of it was I felt I had lost my connection to God.
So, added to my list was little hope.
I say little hope instead of no hope, because it was a little thing that helped me. That was the idea that in spite of everything, God loved me.

It has been several times now that I have told this story about my divorce and how I re-built my life. But today I am reminded that getting out of horrible, dead end situations sometimes takes just one step. And it can be a little step, and that’s okay.

I read this today from the book of Job (which was the catalyst for this posting)

There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.

Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground;

Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.

Life prevails over even the worst that can happen. Even a slight glimpse of this idea will start us in the right direction – a “scent” of this refreshing thought will get us up and flourishing once again.

I am praying for these small glimpses of peace, hope, progress for all those who are impacted by the tragedy at Virginia Tech, by the confusion of war, or one’s own sense of isolation. These small glimpses are like light in a dark place.

This is so practical, so do-able. A little step, a short prayer acknowledges this light. It puts a wedge into discouragement and lets the light glide right in.

This leaves me with a feeling of authority and growing dominion. We have what we need to overcome discouragement and disappointment. God loves us. And with this nugget of Truth, we can grow to understand that this love is a rock on which we can firmly stand.

Would love to hear what small steps you have taken that have yielded more insight and strength!

To share your thoughts on this or to explore this idea further, please feel free to be in contact with me, add your own comments below, email this article to a friend, or add to the healing finds and sites on the web to the right.

traveling down a forest road

Spiritual resource to share: the fullness of life wherever we are

It was inky dark when I returned home from dropping my son off at school a few days ago. I decided to take the forested roads home, even though it was more isolated. I could only see what was directly in front of me and above me. The stars were brilliant against such a black sky.

At one point, I stopped the car and rolled down the windows to hear a full chorus of tree frogs and crickets. However dark and isolated the roads were that night, there was that full force of life going on all around.

The poem "O Gentle Presence" by Mary Baker Eddy came to thought. It was so appropriate. I hope you enjoy its quietness, restfulness and assurance:

O gentle presence, peace and joy and power;
O Life divine, that owns each waiting hour,
Thou Love that guards the nestling's faltering flight!
Keep Thou my child on upward wing tonight.

Love is our refuge; only with mine eye
Can I behold the snare, the pit, the fall:
His habitation high is here, and nigh,
His arm encircles me, and mine, and all.

O make me glad for every scalding tear,
For hope deferred, ingratitude, disdain!
Wait, and love more for every hate, and fear
No ill, — since God is good, and loss is gain.

Beneath the shadow of His mighty wing;
In that sweet secret of the narrow way,
Seeking and finding, with the angels sing:
"Lo, I am with you alway," — watch and pray.

No snare, no fowler, pestilence or pain;
No night drops down upon the troubled breast,
When heaven's aftersmile earth's tear-drops gain,
And mother finds her home and heav'nly rest.





To share your thoughts on this or to explore this idea further, please feel free to be in contact with me, add your own comments below, email this article to a friend, or add to the healing finds and sites on the web to the right.

Green pastures are before me.....

Spiritual resource to share: newness

Is it just because it is spring in the northern hemisphere that I feel a transition coming? I love that feeling of growth and new possibilities. I have always understood transitions to happen on two levels: (1) the foundation level is changeless and (2) the action level is what moves us into seeing what is changeless more and more clearly.

There is a hymn/poem from that brings this out pretty well. It begins:

In heavenly love abiding, no change my heart shall fear; and safe is such confiding, for nothing changes here.

So there is a feeling of being rock solid. Whatever happens, we will not lose this heavenly love, and this heavenly love is the same wherever you are, whatever we do. The poem goes on to say that storms can go ahead without us, because "God is round about [us]..." God is not just taking us by the hand, or guiding our steps. God takes the hands, the feet, the head, in fact, the whole of us - God is round about us! In this loving bubble of God, we move on to see more of what God has in store for us. The poem continues:

Green pastures are before me, which yet I have not seen; Bright skies will soon be o'er me, where darkest clouds have been.

This is progress! This sings to me that old things are dropping away and that we are understanding more and more the goodness of God! The next verses get bright:

My hope I cannot measure, my path in life is free; my Father has my treasure, and He will walk with me.

For all that we have been through, we are still walking with God. This walk takes us out of grief, to understanding the ever-presence of Life; it takes us out of a place where we feel stuck to a place where we are grateful for God's infinite love and possibilities. This walk with God never ends, and takes us to new levels of grace, humility and progress.

Here is the whole poem:

In heavenly Love abiding,
No change my heart shall fear;
And safe is such confiding,
For nothing changes here.
The storm may roar without me,
My heart may low be laid;
But God is round about me,
And can I be dismayed?

Wherever He may guide me,
No want shall turn me back;
My Shepherd is beside me,
And nothing can I lack.
His wisdom ever waketh,
His sight is never dim;
He knows the way He taketh,
And I will walk with Him.

Green pastures are before me,
Which yet I have not seen;
Bright skies will soon be o'er me,
Where darkest clouds have been.
My hope I cannot measure,
My path in life is free;
My Father has my treasure,
And He will walk with me.

To share your thoughts on this or to explore this idea further, please feel free to be in contact with me, add your own comments below, email this article to a friend, or add to the healing finds and sites on the web to the right.

Who are we really? (continuing prayer for Virginia Tech)

Spiritual resource to share: spiritual identity

To donate to Virginia Tech's

Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund, click on ribbon

One post from The Wall (a Blacksburg community's response to the Virginia Tech tragedy), drew my attention to a growing concern about cultural stereotyping. Here is an excerpt:

Tuesday night, at an Emory candlelight vigil, a South Korean student stood up and said he was afraid. He was afraid that the shooter at Virginia Tech was going to ruin things for all South Korean students studying in America. Perhaps he was thinking about the backlash towards Muslim students after Sept. 11.

But Virginia Tech does not need to become an example of a culture clash. As educated people, we are taught to see the foolishness of generalization and false-attribution. I pray that nobody on this campus feels afraid because of what they look like, or because of the hometown they left to come study at Emory. We must find the courage to unite against the unfounded stereotyping used by some in the aftermath of Sept. 11. - D.H.

In a couple of days, we welcome into our family a very well-loved international student who has been here for over seven months. Not only is he fun and active in sports, he is well liked by his fellow students, teachers and community members. He is from South Korea, so I have been attentive to the climate of thought here. Although I don't think there will be an issue in this community, the issue of negative cultural sterotyping still needs to be addressed prayerfully.

South Koreans students represent one of the largest international student populations in the US, according to my son's admissions counselor at his school. And since racial stereotypes have flamed into ignorant acts in the past, I feel that prayer - focussed on all of us as God's children - is going to help dissolve the negative suggestions of ethnic stereotyping.

The identity of one does not determine the ethnic character of all. To me, each individual has a unique relationship to the divine. Each individual has their own spiritual journey, which reveals his or her own spiritual qualities.

But classifying ( stereotyping) others can be a subtle force, making us feel that we know others when we don't and isolating others on the basis of physical characteristics or behavioral patterns. I felt this when I lived abroad for a short period of time and I had the opportunity to see that I was more than my cultural sterotype. As a child of God, I had unique talents and insights. I could see that God determined who I really was.

So it makes sense to me to continue that prayer and line of thought that recognizes each individual in his or her own true light, as a child of God. We're not absorbed into a clump of humanity, but we are all children of one God who is spiritual -- good and loving.

I can also support the intelligent care of our community to see beyond cultural stereotyping to the spiritual qualities in each of our community's students.

This intelligence runs throughout every community. The spiritual insight, to recognize the good in each individual member, has a healing impact. Being alert to everyone's spiritual identity helps to bring people in to community, as opposed to seeing only their physical attributes which tends to isolate others who are different than us.

Man is not absorbed in Deity, and man cannot lose his individuality, for he reflects eternal Life; nor is he an isolated, solitary idea, for he represents infinite Mind, the sum of all substance. - Mary Baker Eddy

(For more articles and resources on this topic, see Virginia Tech prayers.)

To share your thoughts on this or to explore this idea further, please feel free to be in contact with me, add your own comments below, email this article to a friend, or add to the healing finds and sites on the web to the right.

Virginia Tech prayers - compiled articles and resources

Spiritual resource to share: courage to love one another


A basketball arena was turned into a place of prayer and healing for the Virginia Tech community Tuesday afternoon.


I am adding up the posts and comments and sites dedicated to bringing comfort and meaning to the tragedy at Virginia Tech.

There are many. To me, this is the tangible presence of love - expressed in a myriad of ways. It is calling out the best in human nature, and the best is flooding out in waves.

Out of necessity, out of what seems normal, I just feel that call to be emboldened to love one another - having the courage to go out of the way to do something kind. I want to live up to that call.

Here is a small sampling of the posts and comments that are pouring out that healing prayer.

• Teach me how to listen by Laura Matthews
• A healing of grief and Impenetrable innocence by Chris Raymond
• What can I do? by Travis Thomas
• Adding my prayers for those at Virginia Tech by Elizabeth Richards
• (podcast) Digging deeper by Shirley Paulson
• Virginia Tech aftermath by Evan Mehlenbacher
• Virginia Tech and the man who understood love by Sandi Justad
• Responding to the Tragedy at Virginia Tech by Colin Treworgy
• "So when day grows dark and cold...." by Kate Robertson
• "A light in the darkness" by Emily

And from various sites:

• spirituality.com: God's mothering love, even in the midst of tragedy by Jeremy Carper and a whole incredibly thorough lineup of articles, e-cards and podcasts on comfort, safety, spiritual aid, and issues needing to be addressed soberly and earnestly
• The Christian Science Monitor: After the Rampage and Facing up to Violence in America
• Beliefnet. com The spiritual parent: The Awful Truth about Letting Go by Mimi Doe
• TMCYouth.com: Praying for Virginia Tech -- add your own insight and prayer
  

From Planet Blacksburg - community news at a college level - is a student-run new media organization striving to provide content to the New River Valley and beyond.

• Read articles from the community. (Excerpt) “We can’t let one person destroy what goes on here every day, the caring, the thoughtfulness. We can’t let one person destroy that. Now we’re in this together,” he said, throwing his arms wide in one of his trademark gestures
• Share your own comments and prayer on "The Wall - a community in grief"

Both photos taken from http://www.planetblacksburg.com/

To share your thoughts on this or to explore this idea further, please feel free to be in contact with me, add your own comments below, email this article to a friend, or add to the healing finds and sites on the web to the right.

listening for an answer

Spiritual resource to share: persistence



Yesterday morning, I woke up feeling agitated. After having made plane reservations for my son to go overseas the night before, I went to look for his passport. It was not in the normal place. I looked everywhere. Nothing. The angst flooded in when I realized that the plane fare was non-refundable and having to replace the passport would take more time than we had.

This same morning, I had a list of things requiring my prayerful attention. Looking at the list, I realized that it was all about things being lost! Lost passport topped the list, but there were also issues like the loss of health, the loss of confidence, financial losses, lost opportunities, and loss of peace. Hmmmmm..... interesting.

I first tackled the lost passport. I knew that the passport represented identity, adventure and global awareness. None of those things could be lost. Looking at Mary Baker Eddy's writings, she wrote "The true concept is never lost." Even though the context in which she wrote this was different, this main idea was a help.

I earnestly prayed. This means I listened while affirming that no good thing could ever be lost. The thought came, "There is an answer" right before the idea came to look again in my purse. I had looked there and even cleaned out the purse the night before. But I did look again and, sure enough, hiding behind a loose flap of an inner pocket was the passport.

I was, of course, happy to find the passport. But I was even happier to directly experience God's guidance, to hear God's voice and to know that God always has the right answer for us.

I realized that this related to all issues of being lost. And like a series of dominoes falling, each of the issues where loss was a factor, could fall based on this idea that "the true concept is never lost."

Persisting in prayer, we can see that no opportunities are lost. How can God's will for us which is good ever be lost? How can the majesty and omnipotence of God's plan for us ever be lost?

We can reverse financial losses knowing that God governs all. That "...the reign and rule of harmony (in all we do) ...cannot be lost nor remain forever unseen."

Man's identity is never lost. "The loss of man's identity through the understanding which Science confers is impossible...." "Is man lost spiritually? He can only lose a sense material."

I really cherish the fact that we are never lost or separated from God. If there is the thought of loss, we can persist by claiming our oneness with God and expect to hear God's directing us, giving us the ideas, the answers we need. Is that wonderful or what?










To share your thoughts on this or to explore this idea further, please feel free to be in contact with me, add your own comments below, email this article to a friend, or add to the healing finds and sites on the web to the right.

love and prayers to those at Virginia Tech

Spiritual resource to share: compassion

"Love is especially near in times of hate....." writes Mary Baker Eddy, and this is the centerpiece of friend Chris' post about "Sending prayers to Virginia Tech" on her blog Practical Spirituality. Please have a look! and feel free to share your prayers here.

for the love of good, hard work

Spiritual resource to share: diligence

My years of studying dance instilled in me a love of hard work. The hard work of dance starts small. Attention to detail is realized in the working, stretching and toning every muscle. Then the next step is to bring it into the discipline of the choreagrapher's creative phrases of movement. And finally, blending that together with the movements of other dancers and music, and voila! you end up with a performance!

So this cold and sunny morning, looking out my window at the melting snow and barely visible buds on my trees, I am reminded that in my morning prayer, I start small with a humble heart. Prayer (that open, receptive connection to all that is Good) leads me upward and onward through the day. Throughout the day I am weighing my thoughts, discarding what is not progressive, taking in what is good. My whole day is an active expression of forward movement, revealing more about God and myself each step. I am mindful to do God's will, follow Her choreagraphy, blend it with others. Soon the day is full of opportunities.

Here are some morning thoughts:

In the figurative transmission from the divine thought to the human, diligence, promptness, and perseverance are likened to "the cattle upon a thousand hills." They carry the baggage of stern resolve, and keep pace with highest purpose.

...prayer, coupled with a fervent habitual desire to know and do the will of God, will bring us into all Truth.

Be of good cheer; the warfare with one's self is grand; it gives one plenty of employment, and the divine Principle worketh with you, — and obedience crowns persistent effort with everlasting victory. -Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy 118:24

...but to begin aright and to continue the strife of demonstrating the great problem of being, is doing much.

Have a good week!


To share your thoughts on this or to explore this idea further, please feel free to be in contact with me, add your own comments below, email this article to a friend, or add to the healing finds and sites on the web to the right.

A new way of seeing

Spiritual resource to share: new ways of seeing

Annie Dillard writes in her chapter on "Seeing" in her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek about a little girl who visits a garden for the first time since regaining her sight. "She is greatly astonished, and can scarcely be persuaded to answer, stands speechless in front of the tree, which she only names on taking hold of it, and then as 'the tree with the lights in it.'"

Changing her standpoint from being blind to being able to see, she experiences things in a fresh new way. All of a sudden, life gets bigger, broader, more beautiful. I see a parallel here! I think that this is what happens when we pray.

For instance, I went to pick up my mother for an evening event. She had been waiting half the day to tell me about her latest "Aha!" Finally, we had a moment and she shared an inspiring moment of understanding more about God. This opened up for her a whole new and helpful way of seeing things. "Enlightening, isn't it?" she winked.

Mary Baker Eddy explains this in Science and Health:

When understanding changes the standpoints of life and intelligence from a material to a spiritual basis, we shall gain the reality of Life, the control of Soul over sense, and we shall perceive Christianity, or Truth, in its divine Principle. SH 322:4

For me, each healing I have had and each healing I work through with a patient, involves some type of shift in thought, "from the material to a spiritual basis." Each healing involves dropping a limited view of things for a clearer sense of what is real, substantial and lasting. The things that were limiting drop away, which is always a relief and expected, but this is really secondary.




The real story, the primary story, is that we get a better understanding of how God really operates. We get it. We understand more of the principles behind Christianity, behind Truth itself. And that is when life gets bigger, broader and more inclusive. And that illuminates our whole world.












To share your thoughts on this or to explore this idea further, please feel free to be in contact with me, add your own comments below, email this article to a friend, or add to the healing finds and sites on the web to the right.

A New Day

Spiritual resource to share: the promise of new beginnings

So it is Monday, thoughts of Easter are still lingering, and I'm savoring the idea that resurrection is a daily occurrence. Here are some eye openers to start with:
From the Bible:

• Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

From Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy:

• The purpose and motive to live aright can be gained now. This point won, you have started as you should. You have begun at the numeration-table of Christian Science, and nothing but wrong intention can hinder your advancement. Working and praying with true motives, your Father will open the way. "Who did hinder you, that ye should not obey the truth?"
• To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, today is big with blessings.

In a 19th century seminar class I took, it was pointed out that the word big in the mid-1800's ( when Science and Health was written) was actually used in reference to being pregnant, as in being "big" with child. So having a day "big" with blessings is like saying we have a day pregnant with possibilities!

Think of it. This morning, we have the opportunity to lay down every thing that may limit us, and start out fresh with a clean slate. This is not wishful thinking. This is as possible as it is for the sun to shine in on a new morning. It is natural, even divinely natural, to think of God as an open door of possibilities, God as the source of infinite inspiration and to think of ourselves as receptive, expectant, and firmly grounded on the solid foundation of Truth and Love.

We need everything this day will give us and this day has everything we need.



Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise) by Claude Monet -- used with permission

To share your thoughts on this or to explore this idea further, please feel free to be in contact with me, add your own comments below, email this article to a friend, or add to the healing finds and sites on the web to the right.

Hello, He is risen!

Spiritual resource to share: Easter greetings

There was a woman I knew who, when I called her on the phone, would answer, "Hello! He is risen!" I knew this was her unique way of expressing her beliefs as a born-again Christian and sharing that with people right away. Later, I learned it was the greeting early Christians shared with one another. Some churches will use it in church services, greeting one another with "Christ is risen!" and responding with "He is risen!"

Today this greeting may mean a lot of things. It can serve as a reminder that we can rise above our difficulties or that we can take a stand for those things that are good and right in the world. "He is risen" can let us know that we are not alone in our struggles to find meaning, health and well-being. Because the Christ has already found a way, we can find our way, too.

The early Christians were model workers of a passionate radical movement that dared to challenge the mainstream beliefs saying love was weak and death was the final say. They knew that God's love is supreme and that death "was swallowed up" in the victory of everlasting life. Their humble greetings to one another kept that reminder front and center. It must have encouraged and emboldened them.

And you know, when put in that way, I feel that all of us are like those early workers, joined together via the internet. We are commenting and questioning each other, responding and encouraging one other. And we have our own "He is risen" greeting to one other in cyberspace.

Happy Easter, everyone! "He is risen!"






To share your thoughts on this or to explore this idea further, please feel free to be in contact with me, add your own comments below, email this article to a friend, or add to the healing finds and sites on the web to the right.

The OPPE of praise

Spiritual resource to share: gratitude

Every Sunday School class of mine goes through a praise phase. There is so much in the Bible about praise, it is worth at least a major focus!

Consider many of the Psalms and the beginnings to many of the Paul's letters in the New Testament which start with praise and gratitude:

I will praise thee, O Lord, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works.
I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people: I will sing unto thee among the nations.
We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you.
We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers.

So why all this about praise? My Sunday School kids helped me break it down:

• Praise opens our thought to more and more of God's goodness.
• Praise purifies. Nothing can enter into a heart full of praise.
• Praise protects. Constantly affirming the reality of God as good automatically denies evil a place for activity.
• Praise establishes us. Acknowledging God, we are actually acknowledging who we are as children of God. Our inseparable relationship to God remains intact.

To remember this, we referred to this as the OPPE of praise to which they added more attributes of praise: it helps us acknowledge God, remember good, love others, etc. Whether this is done in the stillness of the morning, the quiet of the night or in the middle of an active day, praise is as nourishing and uplifting as the air we breathe!

For more on gratitude and love click on here and here and here for other fellow healers' comments. And for a rousing, inspiring blast of praise, click on the picture above or below of the Soweto Gospel Choir. Wonderful.

To share your thoughts on this or to explore this idea further, please feel free to be in contact with me, add your own comments below, email this article to a friend, or add to the healing finds and sites on the web to the right.