Struggles are okay.....

Spiritual resource to share: honest struggle

.....but not much fun. However, they are a perfectly acceptable way to grow spiritually!

Although there have been times that I have soared with inspiration and overcome challenges, many times I have struggled with my own human will and God's will, until I could let the human element go and feel at peace with God's plan. And I have felt the benefits of this struggle. MBEddy writes: "The struggle for Truth makes one strong instead of weak, resting instead of wearying one."

But often, on the heels of wrestling with something, I have felt a sense of shame or guilt. I'd like to delve into this a little deeper, so I can blast it.

Shame would come in and try to say, Well, you must not be a very good person if you are sick. Or Why do you have to call a Christian Science practitioner AGAIN? You must really be bad off.

Guilt comes in and tries to lay on us that we haven't studied enough, prayed enough, been a good person enough, and as a result, (of course) we are sick.

I have gotten better and better at recognizing this double whammy of shame and guilt. When I take steps to deal with a conflict and find myself struggling with it, I am reminded that it takes courage to face up to conflict, that this is how healings begin. It is a point of strength to deal with a perceived weakness. I am not ashamed if I have to pull back from my regular duties to take care of myself. This is a part of loving my neighbor as myself! To try to go to great lengths to hide a struggle can sometimes encourage dishonesty with oneself and others, so dealing with it honestly and if needed, openly, gains spiritual power.

Guilt is about lack - and the thought that lack can actually cause something. It is a little silly to think that because I didn't clock in enough hours to pray and study, that that would hinder eternal Mind/omnipotent Love from doing its work. It takes a moment to commune with God. MBEddy says plainly: "Become conscious for a single moment that Life and intelligence are purely spiritual, — neither in nor of matter, — and the body will then utter no complaints. "

When we are struggling or we see others struggling, we can feel and give compassionate, warm and comforting support to one another -- a healing comfort that points upward and leads toward healing.

To close, I'd like to give a few examples of the blessings that come from honest struggles:

• Jesus (read on from this starting point)
• Jacob (read on from this starting point)
• Mary Baker Eddy
• a student of Christian Science

Picture by Paul (Eugène-Henri-) Gauguin,
Vision After the Sermon, Jacob Wrestling with the Angel

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.

What goes up.....

Spiritual resource to share: playing with universal ideas

Here's a thought that I have been playing with these last couple of days: Once you recognize God’s truth (this includes yearning for God’s Truth and demonstrating truthfulness) you have opened your eyes to see a divine Principle in motion.

I enjoyed a perspective that gave an analogy by ball tossing. It pointed out that when you throw a ball in the air, the principle of gravity takes over and operates and pulls it back down.

This is a good analogy for prayer as well! Once you throw your hat into the arena (ask for help, have an AHA experience or even express love toward a person or situation), the Principle of Love takes over. Then the energy of Spirit carries through and omnipotent Truth/Justice finishes the play.

When MBEddy says

...look away from the body into Truth and Love, the Principle of all happiness, harmony and immortality. Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good and the true, and you will bring them into your experience proportionally to their occupancy of your thoughts.

...I think that to do this, it takes trust in the Principle of all happiness. This is the type of trust mentioned in Proverbs 3:4 to "trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding...." Enough trust, that when you look away from the body and earnestly seek to learn more of the enduring, the good and the true, that you trust the law of Love will take over and show it to you.

It is simple.
You throw the ball in the air and gravity brings it back down.
You throw your heart open to Truth and Love, and Truth and Love come showering right back down.

Your thoughts?







graphic is copyrighted © Michael Richmond. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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.

chasing down the meanies

Spiritual resource to share: seeing the good right in front of your face

One frequent visitor (L) ... and a special person to me .... wrote how she combats those downward pulling suggestions that come to us throughout the day. I loved what she had to share. Here 'tis:

I've noticed lately that I tend to feel down after a friend vents or complains of feeling down themselves. Well, that's not helping anyone. I wanted to share what I've been doing... any additions are always welcome!

When someone is down, it seems easy to end up "down" yourself. This is error's mischief. ... this brings to mind the subject on hypnotism and mesmerism. Isn't the "power of suggestion" simply mesmerism - therefore not God?

Ok enough theoretical.... Practical time. When feeling yourself falling down towards sadness, good ideas to stay upbeat and in God's joy are...

• remember a happy time (goofy kitty memories! - see above)
• feel loved (God loves you, family and friends love you)
• focus on the good going on around you (at work for example, harmonious relationships, laughter from coworkers, efficiency in getting the job done...)
• see God's glory (a bit more theoretical, but still practical - the sun shining, the rain giving life a drink, the wisdom in the structures of the buildings, the roads, the procedures that keep a business running)

It's good to remember that we are standing at the point of perfection. Suggestions that life is bad (or any of its derivatives) are like suggestions to close your eyes. It can be hypnotic if we're not alert.

I like L's wake up calls - silence the complaints and open your eyes and recognize the beauty, intelligence, joy, spontaneity and love all around. Acknowledgement and gratitude for this yields more gratitude and love. It just keeps getting better!

Mentally contradict every complaint ... and rise to the true consciousness of Life as Love, — as all that is pure, and bearing the fruits of Spirit. - Mary Baker Eddy

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.

How rich is that life on the edge!

Spiritual resource to share: breaking limitations

One of J's outdoor programs:

spLORE/outdoor adventures

for people with disabilities

I woke this morning to get an email from a recently reunited friend to say her husband died last week in an accident. This was a shock. We had just talked two weeks ago. I called her today which inspired me to share this posting.

This is part of her husband's obituary:

....John was an excellent athlete, a member of the Colorado All State high school soccer team and an active mountaineer. In 1971 he was injured in a skiing accident, losing the use of his legs. This did not deter him from the active life he loved. John devoted much of his life to sharing his passion for nature with others as a gifted K-12 classroom teacher and in such organizations as POINT (Paraplegics on independent nature trips) in Texas, numerous Outward Bound Schools, the Vinland Center in Minneapolis, MN, Adventure Etc. in San Francisco, CA, Telluride Adaptive Sports Program, and other programs.

John represented the United States as the first US Nordic skier in the 1988 Paralympics in Innsbruck, Austria. He loved to sail, play tennis and ski. He was an avid fly fisherman and loved anything to do with water and boats.....

Both my friend M and her husband J were masters at overcoming limitations: cultural barriers, physical barriers, political challenges and others. In some cases, they dutifully challenged the status quo in standing up for what they believed in, for themselves and for others. J 's testimony to the US House of Representatives on wilderness and sustainability issues is a good example of that, as was his involvement in programs mentioned above.

J lived a bit over the edge, as his wife attests. Certainly he lived it fully and left quite a legacy of inspiration complete with tons of river analogies about life.

So what lives on? Looking back at what he has done, it is obvious that everything he did for others will live on. He inspired so many to see beyond the material picture, to see beyond a comfortable life to a life that takes you a little over the edge.

I think that however simple and day to day our lives are, what makes life worth living is that we love one another - which motivates to do things for each other and to make sure that those experiences that have meant so much to us are available for the next generation. It is all about love.

In this way, it is easier for me to understand we are all spiritual. Loving is what we do. Challenging limitations is what we do. Breaking out of dead-end thinking to see more of God's love and God's loving provision is natural for us. Like J, we have a natural, holy curiosity to explore all of God's goodness and grandeur. We are all spiritual beings and understanding this helps to see that we can never really lose one another. All is well.

A couple friends have posted this poem. It is one that I recently read at another's memorial service last month. I love it.

Death is nothing at all
by Henry Scott Holland 1847-1918, cannon of St Paul’s Cathedral

Death is nothing at all.
It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
Nothing has happened.
Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you,
and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.

Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by the old familiar name.
Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.

Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without an effort,without the ghost of a shadow upon it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was.
There is absolute and unbroken continuity.

What is death but a negligible accident?
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you,
for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just round the corner.

All is well.







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.

What if we lived our lives tomorrow without fear?

Spiritual resource to share: Q&As to fearless living


........

Had a deeeee-lightful talk with a friend the other day! "Why do we have to deal with all this negative stuff if we really believe that God is good and good is all?" This reminded me of a quote from Science and Health:

It is unwise to doubt if reality is in perfect harmony with God, divine Principle, ... since you admit that God is omnipotent; for from this premise it follows that good and its sweet concords have all-power.

Why doubt, indeed! I started to see the logic in the question of my friend. This set me thinking out different types of answers:

What if we lived like Love is omnipotent?
Then maybe we would feel freer to compliment a neighbor (no fear of stirring up anger).
We would tell our spouse, our children or our best friend that we love them (no misunderstanding there).
We could tell someone we forgive them (no fear of losing anything).

What if we lived as if Truth were all-powerful?
We could tell the truth and not fear any repercussions.
We could feel spiritually powerful by being honest.

What if we lived as if Life were eternal?
We may have more courage to do the thing we have been avoiding.
We would stop forcing the issue (whatever the issue was - because we are more patient).
We would feel we had more time.

What if we lived by loving our neighbor as ourselves?
We would love more freely because we wouldn't be afraid of rejection.
We would be kind to people we didn't know and we wouldn't be afraid of distrust.

What if we lived knowing that there is one God?
We would be less afraid of everyone, because we all have the same Parent.

What if we lived knowing that we all reflect the infinite source of intelligence, one Mind?
We would feel less stressful, knowing that there are solutions to every sort of problem and complaint.
We would be more open and expectant to see new possibilities for any obstacle.



So how would you answer any of the above questions???





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.

strength in unity

Spiritual resource to share: standing together

The Spirituality and Practice website is one of my favorite websites to explore on a rainy day. In one section, they give regular teaching stories. This is one that highlights unity:

An old man is dying, and calls his people to his side. He gives a short, sturdy stick to each of his many offspring, wives, and relatives. "Break the stick," he instructs them. With some effort, they all snap their sticks in half.

"This is how it is when a soul is alone without anyone. They can be easily broken."

The old man next gives each of his kin another stick, and says, "This is how I would like you to live after I pass. Put your sticks together in bundles of twos and threes. Now, break these bundles in half."

No one can break the sticks when there are two or more in a bundle. The old man smiles. "We are strong when we stand with another soul. When we are with another, we cannot be broken."

— Clarissa Pinkola Estes in Women Who Run With the Wolves

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.

Repent!

Spiritual resource to share: practical repentance

Okay. You have made it past the title of this post. Tell me. Was your first thought: Wow! This is just the topic I need to know better! OR Ugh! Why have I come this far to read about what it means to repent??

I was probably somewhere close to the second response. I have not spent too much time trying to understand repentance. I have felt repentant a number of times. But I think there is some baggage with the word repent that has kept it at arm's length. I somehow felt that the baseline of repentance was that you are born a miserable sinner, and that just isn't how I understand life to be.

What got me thinking anew about repentance was fellow blogger Evan's post on "Nothing stuck in Mind" and from a recent meeting I had with my prayer team at the local hospital where we talked about prayer including confession and contrition.

Here are my recent thoughts on repentance:

Repenting is a good thing. You may have heard that re-pent is another term for re-think or re-thinking. Actually, I have found its root to mean to feel regret or to be sorry. Its simple definition is to turn from sin. So, repenting for me is a way to turn away from a less-than-lovely perception of myself or others and be willing and ready for something new.

To repent is to flush out the subtle vagaries that suggest that we are not good enough, or that God is not intelligent, loving or powerful enough.

When I repent of sin (see next paragraph), it is almost as if I am testing on myself the way sin can be extracted from thought. This makes it easier for me to trust that sin can be extracted from anyone's thought.

Sin literally means missing the mark. To repent of sin is a way to say that you are tired of missing the mark, and ready to accept (to re-think) God's "mark" or guidance.

To repent means I am feeling regret. In that sense I have already made the distinction between what is good and what isn’t, and repenting is a sign of willingness for change and reform. Practical repentance reforms the heart.

Repentance is a cleansing act. I found it takes courage to do this. Why? I sometimes find that cherished little nuggets of pride or someother form of ego that I have built my reputation on, need to be confronted and brought down. Sometimes it is a struggle to admit these things and have them revealed. But as my repentant little heart moves right through this struggle, I know that the cleansing and release from suffering, and a new spiritual view of things are well worth it.

Which brings me to another surprising find: To repent is to open thought up to a whole new way of seeing a situation.

I was so happy to experience this recently. I had been praying about a certain condition a family member had. In my prayer, I started to ask forgiveness for ever seeing that this condition could exist or that a child of God could ever be burdened by this condition. Prayer led me to see that I had been praying for the release of this condition for a person whom I loved, but had been accepting this condition for the whole community. In addition, I was fearful that this family member was in the wrong environment, susceptible to this condition. Well, that helped me re-think and take in the whole community in my prayer! Such relief!

After thinking this all through, I have found that repentance is a irreplaceable part of our spiritual progress where we drop off the old material view of life and embrace a spiritual view. There is so much more to this aspect of prayer. Now I can honestly say, Wow! This is just the topic I need to know more about!

Through repentance, spiritual baptism, and regeneration, mortals put off their material beliefs and false individuality. - Mary Baker Eddy

living from the inside out

Spiritual resource to share: a quiet and passionate happiness

Finally! I had been trying to reach an old friend from WAY back ever since my family and I moved back from the East Coast to the Midwest. And... after two years and many phone calls later, I found her!

We shared a love of getting out into the world and doing stuff - whether it was traveling, being an activist for some cause, or having outdoor adventures, we loved it! M's take on it always included the world and she did some mighty admirable things... she worked in Sudan with the American Refugee Committee, presented papers in China re: advances in physical therapy and skiied across Iceland (or was it Greenland?) on some environmental project. She was active helping others in the community and always mindful of having enough time for herself, a book, some company and a cup of tea.

Her wedding to a remarkable guy was most memorable. Each of the communities in which she and her husband were involved were so easy to distinguish: there were many from the Hmong community, the Catholic community with nuns in their habits, a number of folks in wheelchairs, the outdoor enthusiasts with their oddly lined summer tans, and other races and all ages. What a hoot!

(After finding myself taking notes on our conversation, I realized I need to get M into blogging. She's got so much good stuff to share!!)

Even after all these years, and all the changes that years give us, she was the same wise, humble, and fun person I have always known her to be.

So what have we learned from these many years? We realized that for both of us, it was the external things that helped define who we were. Our passions and commitments were played out in big ways. We both sought these experiences out and thrived in challenging situations.

It was M's thought that now she finds she is learning to live from the inside out. I had to agree. There are no major trips or pressing projects demanding me to challenge complacency, doubt or inability. That is something that is requiring inner strength to meet those kinds of challenges.

We are both parents of teen-age kids ready to claim more and more of their independence, which adds a demand for a whole new level of inner strength! Our current role with our kids is to be there for them, but also to learn to get out of the way. They are learning to make more choices, all the while we are still in the safety boat as they start off on their own journeys.

I know a lot of you reading this have had intensely challenging and spiritually rewarding demands placed on you by others, or other institutions. So now, when these external demands are gone, we are left with defining ourselves from our most still and quiet moments. Our happiness comes from a source within us, our inspiration comes from quiet moments with God. It was there all along when those external events demanded it. It is even here now.

I like this idea of living from the inside out. It feels more like being the fountain than playing in the fountain. And, for me, this is my time to understand more the spiritual fountainhead of all the passions and loves that have played out in the first part of my life.

For all of you adventuresome friends reading this - whether you are rising to the challenge put to you, or cultivating your own inner strength, it is wonderful to know that the adventure of spiritual living just keeps going.

God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis. - Mary Baker Eddy

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 spiritual ingredient of organizations

Spiritual resource to share:
your own spiritual specialty baked into your work

In our fourth community meeting, reps from dozens of community organizations, individuals and parents continued to work together on a community wide plan. This is ambitious. This plan will help support our youth while at the same time build community and flush out racism and drug use. Tall, tall order.

To begin the meeting this time around, all were welcome to come into the kitchen and help make Native American fried bread.

Afterwards, we met in a group and the leader noticed that in making the bread, we were missing something. People guessed various ingredients, but no one had the answer. The leader commented that we were missing the blessing. Then he gave an Anishinaabe blessing.

This is a large, sometimes unwieldy group. But their general understanding on the spiritual elements necessary to make this group's work effective are so heartening! I'm sticking with this group until we're done!

Organizations have always been one of my favorite art forms. Whether as an observer or as the organizational architect, the spiritual element has the key roles of being the fuel, the direction and the glue.

MBEddy has some great points about organizations.

• In her autobiography, Retrospection and Introspection, she advises Christian Science teachers to form associations, churches and "any other organic operative method" that is useful and beneficial to mankind. Organization as an organic operative method. Interesting, yes?
• In another article in (from Miscellaneous Writings, p358) MBEddy talks about leaving organizations and its material forms after "a higher spiritual unity is won." She recognizes the value and also the peril of organizations. Referring to organization as a material form of cohesion and fellowship, she recognizes that once it has done its job, it can retard spiritual growth and should be laid off.

What strikes me about her take on material organizations is that they are fluid - an "organic, operative method." And that while they are important in the beginning of an enterprise, one shouldn't overdo it, once its purpose of spiritual unity and fellowship is accomplished.

I can see this -- I have left organizations when I knew it was my time to move on because I felt "done." In other cases, I have known organizations to change to meet their objectives, or an organization simply was not needed -- things just got accomplished organically (I'm thinking about all the times our extended families of 25+ people come together to make holiday meals).

As this community group moves forward, its newly developed goals are lofty, but noble. We are at those first stages of building the organizational structure. It requires of everyone a measure of fluidity, humility, patience and commitment. But first and foremost, we are starting to see the blessing of this work together: spiritual unity in the community. I'm in.







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.

showing your work is showing your love

Spiritual resource to share: integrity

"If you don't live it, it won't come out your horn." -Charlie Parker

I came across this quote while browsing Ode magazine's website (it's a great new find: a magazine for intelligent optimists). It's a quote along the same lines as walk your talk/live with integrity/living the letter/imbibing the spirit/do it, etc.

For anyone who has ever performed, in theatre, sports or even in your own shower, you know that there is lots of study, dedication and inspiration that goes into those moments of performance. The performance shines when it is born out of a deep passion, an honesty and awesome love for their subject. Have you ever seen a performance of gospel music? I swear that their love for God comes straight out of their singing mouths - no obstructions, no ego, just pure love!

To me, everything relates to the practice of Christian Science (surprise)! And so in performance, as in healing, there is a huge storehouse of understanding and demonstration that comes out of this love, study and dedication.

But none of this study and dedication is any good unless you see the action - unless you are doing the thing you are spending so much time talking about!


I love Christian Science in that it focusses on the doing of the Word. Testimonies of healing are part of every Wednesday church service, healing stories are a part of all of their magazines published, and healers are considered the most important role of all.


MBEddy shares how to walk your talk in Christian Science:

Question. — How can I progress most rapidly in the understanding of Christian Science?
Answer. — Study thoroughly the letter and imbibe the spirit. Adhere to the divine Principle of Christian Science and follow the behests of God, abiding steadfastly in wisdom, Truth, and Love. .... Hold perpetually this thought, — that it is the spiritual idea, the Holy Ghost and Christ, which enables you to demonstrate, with scientific certainty, the rule of healing, based upon its divine Principle, Love, underlying, overlying, and encompassing all true being.

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 burst of wonderful

Spiritual resource to share: reading with rigorous vigor!

(Note to those new to these posts and Christian Science: a regular part of my healing practice, as well as the duties of a Christian Science nurse and the regular part of a Christian Science church service is to read from the Bible and Mary Baker Eddy's writings with sincerity, honesty and understanding. So reading to others is a big deal. Now ....on to my post.)

I love Pop. A born salesman and natural healer, he has been healing through Christian Science prayer way before I was born. He just shines on everyone he meets. He loves everyone - with a little laughter, good natured joking and a wiser-beyond-years knowing that we are all children of God. You feel good just being in his presence.

I had occassion to be with him and his new wife of two years, and, as a gift to them and to chip away at an indebtedness to Pop for helping me get my footing in Christian Science decades ago, I drove him and his new wife through three states, as they went visiting friends and family.

Most delightful was when Pop would read from the Bible and Science and Health during our long drives from one stop to another. He would read with such passion, such commitment, that at times, he would get teary, and I would get teary, as he hurrahed at what Zechariah had accomplished, or how MBEddy would develop her reasoning on God's omnipotence, or how it was explained that the whole reason for living was for God's glory. Ahhh!! This is the type of reading that heals.

To live in such a way that how you read, how you greet people, and how you tell stories exudes a roar of wonderful! Over the top, maybe. But how alive!

A visit from Pop has filled me up, made me smile (and all its derivatives - giggle, guffaw, laugh, chuckle, etc) and given me some good inspiration for the next time I am asked to read.

And speaking of wonderful reading........... here is a post that I know Pop would approve. Read this post out loud to a friend! It's Evan's post on "Installing love."

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 is a Christian Scientist?

Spiritual resource to share: our God-love

Yesterday was National Prayer Day. Did any of you catch that? I spent it in part with the prayer team at the local hospital. There were three of us who gathered together. Each of us is at home with three different disciplines: an evangelical Baptist, a Catholic, and me, the Christian Scientist. (Of course, we all call each other Brian, Halcy and Kim.)

I always (really, I always) feel such a tenderness when getting together with this group. We are all doing what we can to help alleviate suffering through our highest sense of prayer. We looked at The Lord's Prayer and broke it down to four main elements (adoration/affirmation, confession/contrition, thanksgiving, and supplication/petition) and together shared our free-form prayers in each of those areas. As we shared, I noticed that we each were strong in a different element -- adding another dimension to one another's prayer. I love this kind of stuff.

Mary Baker Eddy has said some amazing things about our work with people of other denominations. It has been something I have thought about often. I am copying it down in total here, so I hope you'll read it and comment afterwards.

It is from Pulpit and Press ( p. 21)

Our unity with churches of other denominations must rest on the spirit of Christ calling us together. It cannot come from any other source. Popularity, self-aggrandizement, aught that can darken in any degree our spirituality, must be set aside. Only what feeds and fills the sentiment with unworldliness, can give peace and good will towards men.

All Christian churches have one bond of unity, one nucleus or point of convergence, one prayer, — the Lord's Prayer. It is matter for rejoicing that we unite in love, and in this sacred petition with every praying assembly on earth, — "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven."

If the lives of Christian Scientists attest their fidelity to Truth, I predict that in the twentieth century every Christian church in our land, and a few in far-off lands, will approximate the understanding of Christian Science sufficiently to heal the sick in his name. Christ will give to Christianity his new name, and Christendom will be classified as Christian Scientists.

When the doctrinal barriers between the churches are broken, and the bonds of peace are cemented by spiritual understanding and Love, there will be unity of spirit, and the healing power of Christ will prevail.

I am so happy to see - in a degree - doctrinal barriers be lifted and to learn of others who are practicing healing through prayer. I am happy to participate and grow here.

But the excerpt above has made me ask, who is a Christian Scientist?

In Science and Health, MBEddy refers "to those natural Christian Scientists, the ancient worthies, and to Christ Jesus, [to whom] God certainly revealed the spirit of Christian Science, if not the absolute letter." I certainly feel I have met a number of natural Christian Scientists who, in the discipline of their worship and dear love for God, humankind and all that is sacred, have inspired me to deepen my commitment to prayer and healing.

So now I have to ask you, who is a Christian Scientist?


(photos by Gabe Korinek)

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.

we are spiritually defined

Spiritual resource to share: knowing each other spiritually

If you know someone spiritually, you will never lose them.

I picked up this bit of wisdom somewhere along my spiritual journey. Not sure where. But I sure was thinking a lot about this idea the last couple of weeks after a person I loved passed on.

A couple of days ago, we had a very inspiring memorial service for him. At the end of the service, I joined two of the young grandsons and others to do a balloon launch. We had balloons on which we had put lots of qualities of this loved grandpa: "Gentle", "peace-maker", "kind", and so on. One grandson wanted to put "smart." The other younger grandson wanted to say "very smart" and both suggested to write: "we love you " on the balloon.

As we cut each balloon free of its ribbon and watched them soar up and away, the oldest grandson said, "I know what we are doing, we are sending up all of what my grandpa is so God will recognize him."

He understood quite well that spiritual qualities make up who we are. That's how we recognize each other. That's how God recognizes us. And I have found, time and time again that we never can lose that which is spiritual. Mary Baker Eddy explains this so well:

The material body and mind are temporal, but the real man is spiritual and eternal. The identity of the real man is not lost, but found through this explanation; for the conscious infinitude of existence and of all identity is thereby discerned and remains unchanged. It is impossible that man should lose aught that is real, when God is all and eternally his.

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.