in praise of books

Spiritual resource to share: inspiring books

"I had always imagined Paradise as a kind of library."
Jorge Luis Borges, Argentinian writer

Books change lives. We all know that. My all time favorite book is Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. I spent over five years of my life overseeing the distribution of this book Science and Health internationally. I have a little framed copy in my office of some of my favorite quotes from those who have read Science and Health for the first time. This little picture continually reminds me of Science and Health's transforming impact every time I see it.

"This book is the light at the end of a very dark tunnel." - a librarian of the Women and AIDS Support Network in Africa

"Every time I open the book, it reaches into my heart." - a Jamaican book author explaining his first reading of Science and Heatlh

"This book could help unify nations in turmoil." - a man after reading Science and Health and visiting a Science and Health booth at a conference in London

"I am healed and I'm happy. Really happy." - a new reader of Science and Health from the United States

For those of you who have read Science and Health: what would you say about it??



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Church chat

Spiritual resource to share: growing church

I've been giving lots of thought to church in these last three years. Organized efforts toward noble ends are always worthwhile.

I came across a letter I wrote to a friend, one who was giving church lots of thought and prayer like me. I thought you might enjoy it.

Hello!
....

I was re-reading our class notes (from our class on Christian Science healing) and found something very relevant to the issue you brought up about small churches. Our teacher said, If we are not seeing mankind fill our churches, we must fill mankind with church!

So what about dwindling numbers in churches? Well, it is dwindling in some churches, not all. But I think it is a call for renewal in our churches, for us to fully embrace our responsibility to our community and to mankind.

When I worked (at headquarters) with churches worldwide, it was evident that those churches who were “filling mankind with church” ( ie loving and actively caring for one another and for their community) were the churches that were thriving. (Sometimes these were churches with three members, sometimes hundreds of members!) Those who weren’t focused on serving, for whatever reason, were the ones dwindling and closing.

I have asked myself, what is the mark of a successful church? Is it in the number of seats that are filled every Sunday and Wednesday? Certainly that could be heartening to see. But large churches aren’t always a sign of healthy churches.

I think the measure of a successful church is one where there is much healing going on IN the church, with the members. Are there more members looking to go into the healing practice? Are there members looking for ways to increase their study? Are we hearing fresh new testimonies of healing at every testimony meeting?

A successful church is one who has a commitment to actively serve the community resulting in activity IN the community. We might look to see the role our Reading Rooms have. Are they set up to serve the members, or the community?

Or we could look to the community as a whole. Our measure of success might be: are our schools teaching a more spiritual concept of man? Are our local hospitals ushering in a higher, more spiritual form of care? Is the media celebrating good solutions and what is working well in the community? Is there less crime, disease and discord in the community as a result of the healing work of our church?

Could it also be that the face of church is changing? Just like methods of communications have changed from scrolls, to tablets, to books, to the internet, so may the form of our churches be changing. Hmmmm……

Well, thank you for letting me go on and on about this. Much love and I hope to hear from you soon!

Love,

Kim

Your thoughts??





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.

Gooooooooooooood movie!!

Spiritual resource to share: insights



What does a timid, gentle but delusional man, an insightful psychologist, a persistent sister – in – law, and a compassionate church family and an accepting community all add up to? A great movie about well, lots of things.

"Lars and the Real Girl" has a quirky story line that has been made into a believable moral story akin to Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life.” I first read a review of it on a Christian movie website (that I can no longer find!) and thought it was odd, but intriguing.

I'm a sucker for quirky story lines with a moral, so I watched it. And I loved it! The lesson I drew from it was the amazing way people can come together to not only allow a person to choose their own healing route, but to help them work through their own healing in their own way. It is compassion with kindness and humor.

It provides a good role model for individuals, churches and communities in how far we can go to love one another enough to trust that healing will happen, and having respect enough for another’s individual and even slightly eccentric paths toward freedom from whatever would ail us.

If you watch this, let me know. I’d love to have a conference call to chat about this movie with others.







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.

define your life in six words

Spiritual resource to share: defining ourselves spiritually

Today's blog is brought to you thanks to wandering bloggers from Belgium and Spain ! Basically I was intrigued and inspired by one of the bloggers who was inspired by another who was inspired reading about a book which collected six-word memoirs, entitled Not quite what I was planning. It is a fun collection of six word memoirs of famous and not so famous people. One wandering blogger writes:

"The one I liked best was "Me see world! Me write stories!" (Elizabeth Gilbert, who seems to me to have been on much the same track already with the title of her book "Eat, Pray, Love", about stays in Italy, India and Bali). I also liked "Am I lost or just wandering?"

I realized that this was kind of what I have had my Sunday School students do! - to be able to explain themselves, but on spiritual terms. I've blogged a bit about learning how to identify oneself spiritually in other posts.

In each case, we start out by looking at MBEddy's definition of God. Now, she was able to define God in seven words: Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life, Truth and Love. Taking synonyms of the synonyms, we come up with a list of dozens, even a couple of hundred words describing the qualities of God.

From that list, we ask ourselves, if we are made in the image and likeness of God, than how must God see me? From those qualities listed, each student takes a cluster of qualities the best define him or her.

Try it! What cluster of spiritual qualities or best six words define you as a child of God?




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Pangea Day ripples

Spiritual resource to share: your experience




"Our purpose now is to build a global community - to learn to view things from an international point of view." "We need peace without conditions."

Such were just some of the provocative ideas shared on Pangea Day last May 10th. For those of you who saw any or part of Pangea Day, you'll know what I am talking about. For those of you new to this idea, click here. This initiative is well-intentioned, intentions I really support and hope to grow.

My son and I caught the last hours of the four hour event at our nearest university. We saw clip after clip of films focussing on all that we have in common with the human condition: what is good as well as what is not.

As we were soaking this up, it reminded me of how Mary Baker Eddy defined the moral qualities of humanity, honesty, affection, compassion, hope, faith, meekness, temperance. She categorizes all of these qualities under the heading of transitional qualities. And all of these qualities showed up one way or the other in the films.

So what would the expression of these qualities be transitioning to? Mary Baker Eddy explains the next level as spiritual/as reality. The understanding of this includes wisdom, purity, spiritual understanding, spiritual power, love, health, holiness.

There was a lot to think about after the four hour film fest ended. It was quite hopeful. Peace and understanding take a lot of work, a lot of unselfishness, a lot of getting rid of ego toward a greater good. It was inspiring to hear people's stories and know that it can be done.

Pangea Day provided a stage for proactive peace-making diplomacy and understanding. It did much by bringing together our common hope for humanity: peace, progress, understanding. My hope is that efforts like this continue and grow, to transition into even more widespread actions for peace and progress.




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To Asia with love and comfort

Spiritual resource to share: timeless truths

Reviewing some of my posts, I came across this one, written in response to the earthquake in Java, Indonesia two years ago. The timeless truths apply today to Myanmar, to China.

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

The comfort of God with us, with those in Indonesia, and with those everywhere

When I left home for college, my mother and I still maintained a very close relationship. When she would call me on the phone, I knew it was her before I answered. And many times when I would call her, she would answer the phone with "Hello Kim!"

I also noticed that when I was in trouble, my mom would later tell me that she felt I was in trouble of some kind and would either start praying or try to get in touch with me. This phenomenon became quite natural and it just was the way we operated.

I came to see how much of this was a direct reflection of our infinite Father-Mother God - God who is always knowing our needs, always there to comfort, guard and guide us.

God is constantly talking to each one of us. God is constantly sharing with us ideas that help protect us, provide for us and comfort us.

The recent earthquake in Indonesia threatened to tear open a wound just newly healing from the effects of the tsunami of 2004. In response, I was quick to counter that with a prayer that lifted me out of a feeling a sense of hopelessness and futility: God is omnipotent. That means that there is no power greater than God, and no power that can obscure God's tender ministrations to His/Her children.

God is not in the earthquake. His omnipresence can lift us out of any storm, any strife, into feeling peace. God's ideas nourish us, bless us, strengthen us and allow us to take care of one another. We can listen for His voice and respond in ways that are effective, practical and efficient.

Every single person has a direct connection with God. God is ever active and is constantly talking to each one of us. We all have this connection - before birth, during our lives here and after death, God is right here, comforting and providing for us.

There is great reason for hope. What I learned at an early age, with my mom, is that when there is love, there is always communication. This is a spiritual law. And there is always love.

The larger demonstration of this rests on our acknowledgement that God loves us. Tenderly, intimately, right-there-with-us kind of love. This love communicates to each of us all that we need to know and what we need to do.

For more articles about this, click here.





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being strong and beautiful

Spiritual resource to share: new views of strength and beauty

Taew performing traditional Thai dance at international youth conference

As one of the host parents to our newest daughter, Taew from Thailand, I have been amazed and inspired at how much our new daughter has taken on. The more I talk with her, the more I realize the vast differences in cultures that she has bridged, and just how courageous she is!

I've been inspired while seeing how wonderful it is to blend our lives with those whose cultures have previously been unfamiliar to us. The bottom line of what is learned may seem trite, but it is true. We are one universal family - incredibly diverse, but each one of us expressing qualities that are universally beautiful and strong.

Just today, we had a wonderful example of this! Taew ran in her first track meet ever. Prior to the meet we talked about the beauty of women also being expressed in strength.

Taew wasn't very familiar with girls in sports. She claimed that she was not an athlete (which her track coach readily confirmed), and she spent most of track season on the sidelines, not wanting to get too involved for fear that she wasn't good enough. When she told her mother that she was doing this, her mother was concerned because it might mean that she would become more muscular and turn darker in the sun. (Paleness is preferable to the sun kissed faces here.)

Perhaps it is the whole ideal of beauty here that is different than in Thailand, or the whole expectation of what girls can or should do that was so different. She told us how she almost cried when the coach said that she was going to do the 400 meter run. But, she said emphatically, "My coach told me 'Yes, you can do this!'" And so she did. She went on to say that she got second in two races and last on the 400. And although her overall showed her more at the bottom than at the top, she just beamed and laughed when telling me this.

This was a huge step for Taew. She just soaked up the confidence her track coach had in her, the camaraderie of other girls cheering her on, and her own personal victory in doing something she never thought she would ever do!

Taew was able to experience a little more of her strength and her power. She was so happy, exhilarated even, that she proved she can do things WAY out of her comfort zone, and proved to herself that strength can be a very beautiful thing!

The inspiration is obvious. We can go beyond our accepted definitions of beauty and strength that we are comfortable with, and push to new heights: a more spiritual and lasting idea of what it means to be the infinite expression of an infinite Mind*. Taew rocks.

*Immortal man was and is God's image or idea, even the infinite expression of infinite Mind, and immortal man is coexistent and coeternal with that Mind.







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Praying for Myanmar

Spiritual resource to share: prayer for the world

Thu May 8 at 1:00pm CDT

Sarah Hyatt, C.S.B.

PRAYER FOR RELIEF EFFORTS IN MYANMAR

Please join me and many others in this global initiative of prayer. Thanks! Kim




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What does one need to be healed? What does one need to grow spiritually?

Spiritual resource to share: willingness

These two questions are inseparable. Being healed spiritually is a whole transformation of thought that results in a more spiritualized thought and that may result in physical cure, balanced relationships and conditions, and improved character.

I was thinking about how Jesus healed. In so many of his healings, he required or asked something of the one seeking healing. Like the following:

And Jesus answered and said unto him, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? Mark 10: 51
When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? John 5: 6
Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. John 5: 8

This made me ask, what was being asked of those seeking healing? What type of thought did they have that enabled them to grow spiritually and to be healed?

The first thought was that it was willingness. This actually covers a lot of ground. MBEddy says it succinctly:

Willingness to become as a little child and to leave the old for the new,
renders thought receptive of the advanced idea. SH 323

In other words, willingness to become new! To drop ego, and discard hidden or unhidden agendas, bad habits, anything that would limit, dependence on things or processes (like – “I have to have my morning coffee!”), rehearsing arguments in your head, rigidly outlining outcomes and so on.

Now this is easy when we are sick. Who wouldn’t want to be free of some sickness! But it is a little harder when dealing with sin.

What other qualities were expressed by those who were healed? With my own healings, and looking at those stories in which Jesus healed, there are some similar qualities of thought:

• An openness and receptivity to take in new ideas
• An expectation of good – expecting that there will be an insight, an improvement and satisfaction; expecting to be surprised with new insights and solutions
• Humility – that is that willingness to lay aside ego
• Giving our consent – similar to expectation, but consent gives permission or agreement to the healing and transformation expected
• Gratitude – seeing what is good and true in every situation; even the recognition of good in the smallest of circumstances can get you started in the right direction.
• Stating what is true – like gratitude, even stating what you already know to be true (that God is Love, that we are all created by God, Love, and so on…) can grow into a fuller understanding and acceptance of your wholeness and completeness.

As I look over my life and the healings I've had, of physical, relationship and financial problems, I see that they have all benefitted me personally, but most important of all, they have benefitted me spiritually, and I am so much better for it!




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