Letting go and letting God

Spiritual resource to share: familiar, time tested life truths


There’s a lot to consider when trusting God – like what it means to let go. It’s talking about letting go of one’s own plans, speculations and opinions to make way for the grace and surprise of God.

There’s a discipline to this, I know. Letting go and letting God is not about letting yourself go, like letting things slide or ignoring things. To let go of self and ego and trust God is a discipline like many disciplines. For instance in dance: I studied dance for about ten years and can only truly say that I felt I was able to truly “let go” and dance only a handful of times. Let me explain and then draw some analogies to healing prayer.

For years, I danced up to five days a week. We always started out with stretches on the floor, stretches standing, then on to small phrases of movements then to movements across the floor. It was repetitive and in certain ways, contemplative. Then we would work on the larger performance piece.

After weeks, even months of class, we performed. This was where the discipline paid off. With the spontaneous connection of a live audience, the art of dance kicked in for me. Because of the discipline, I had more freedom, strength and confidence to move, to jump, to remember the intricacies of the steps, the stretches, the contact with the floor and with one another. The letting go was done because of my trust in all the things that I had learned. It was freeing, empowering and affirming! It all connected and made sense! The dance then was truly inspired.

Something in that perfect coincidence of balance, grace and energy being made manifest resonated deeply with the audience and that inspiration is what moved the audience to a full round of applause!

My approach to prayer is somewhat similar to my approach to dance. I can start with the study of things I know: the Weekly Bible Lesson, reading through Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy or her other writings, the Bible, other inspiring articles. I read these things in order to be stretched – to feel an expanding of ideas (otherwise it is just bland repetition like only reading the letter without the spirit).

I take a new idea and expand it to my life. I then move with this thought to my practice, my patients, to the world. I practice with this one idea throughout the day.

When I get a spontaneous call from a patient, it all comes together. The discipline of the daily work yields up to the inspiration of the moment. I let go of all speculation, human opinions and fears, and listen. I let God guide the conversation and later, let God reveal to me what I need to know. God becomes nearer and dearer to me, and it follows that whatever weight the limited and material arguments had, fall away.

If divine Love is becoming nearer, dearer, and more real to us, matter is then submitting to spirit.

Healing happens as a revealing of our perfect reflection of perfect God. There is something in that perfect coincidence of health, harmony and abundant love being made manifest that resonates deeply with me. And the whole reason for this is for the patient to experience this as well.

I grow in my trust of God’s supremacy. Every day, I can let go more easily and trust God more readily. It is an infinite lesson that I learn every day.





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.

Be still

Spiritual resource to share: quietness and peace

It's no mistake that when Mary Baker Eddy talks about prayer in her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, that she repeatedly urges us to vigorously shut out the clamor of daily life and concerns.

"To enter into the heart of prayer, the door of the erring senses must be closed."
"Lips must be mute and materialism silent."
"The closet (of prayer) ...shuts out sinful sense, but lets in Truth, Life and Love."
"....we must enter the closet and shut the door."
"We must close the lips and silence the material senses."

Maybe it speaks to the discipline needed to actually get to the point of stillness and openness in our thought where we can feel God's peace and warmth. This type of prayer affirms the fundamental, primitive nature of God's goodness, aligns consciousness with all that is pure and true and makes us aware of God's full approval and delight in His creation, that is, in us.

A well-loved poem reflects this expectant prayer:

Doves*
William B. Lynch

I want
the words to flutter
around you and land softly
on your shoulders in peace.
I want you to hear them
tell you of heaven.

Stand still
and they will gather.








*From the book Ideas on Wings - a collection of poems from the Christian Science periodicals, The Christian Science Publishing Society, Boston, MA 1978
photo © Igor Nikolayev - Fotolia.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.

Christmas presence

Spiritual resource to share: true giving

I received an email today. In it, the writer talked about his recent trip to the Middle East where he saw many of the Holy Land hot spots. What struck him was that above every spot where some sacred activity was reported to have happened, some type of institution was built. It was even harder for him to imagine the original event given the buildings and all their attempts to institutionalize those sacred moments. And he asked himself - how much institutionalization, traditions, and history have tried to bury the living Christ? How much have I let it be buried? These are probing and necessary questions, especially pertinent now during the Christmas season where commercialism and overscheduling are so prevalent.

I keep a running list of "whatsoever groups." These are groups that are doing some life-transforming things, and I like to increase their exposure on my site - even as modest as it is!

The "whatsoever group" idea came from a quote from the Bible which actually came from a letter written by Paul to a small but growing church: "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."

Today I got another post on my facebook about a group that works to provide clean water worldwide. It is put in a context that has a life-transforming message for us all. It is my gift to you: an opportunity to "think on these things" and to share your thoughts about the presence of Christmas in your life.




For more info, check out http://www.adventconspiracy.org/


This Christmas season, may you give generously, live deeply and have many moments of peace, stillness and satisfaction! Merry Christmas!


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.

Lessons from the Dogslayer

Spiritual resource to share: eternal life

In thinking about life and death, I go back to a pretty simple explanation I gave my sons a number of years ago. This was written a while ago........

(Micah with his first hamster, Cinnamon)
Dogslayer was our last hamster, having been named for the curious effect he had from our Rottweiler - Mocha. At their first introduction, the hamster stretched forward to smell Mocha's nose, which sent Mocha cowering back. No amount of coaxing could get Mocha to at least touch the hamster. Hence the name, Dogslayer.

Both sons are teenagers now, so when when Dogslayer died, it was not a very big deal. We put his body in a nice padded gift box and lovingly placed it in the garbage. That was it.

The first time the boys experienced the death of their first hamster was when they were about 6 and 9. It was a big deal. My younger son cried, which made my older son upset because it was his pet, and both of them didn't understand why the pet died.

In praying about how to explain immortality, death, life, I came up with something that I think helped them both. We talked about what a loving home we gave to the hamster and this home probably made the hamster feel very loved and cared for. But the clincher was to understand that life goes on and all the spiritual qualities of this hamster - being adorable, satisfied, friendly, funny - go on as well.

Then, I asked my sons to think of a number. One gave me the number 8. I wrote "8" on our chalkboard. We could all see that written number. Then I erased the number "8" on the chalkboard. "Where did the 8 go?" I asked. "Is there no longer the number 8 because we can't see it anymore?" Well, of course, the answer is that the eight always exists because it is an idea.

From here, it was an easy analogy to help us see that the wonderful qualities of the hamster are still with us even if we can't see the hamster anymore. I think they got it. Enough so, that soon after, we got ourselves another hamster.

Mary Baker Eddy often refers to death as a transition or a phase:

In the illusion of death, mortals wake to the knowledge of two facts: (1) that they are not dead; (2) that they have but passed the portals of a new belief.

Death is but another phase of the dream that existence can be material. Nothing can interfere with the harmony of being nor end the existence of man in Science. ... God, Life, Truth, and Love make man undying..

I have often looked back at that lesson with my sons, illustrating that life is eternal. When we understand who we are spiritually - as an idea or child of God - we can never lose one another. God, Life, Truth and Love make us undying, continuing on to grow, learn, progress. And understanding this, we can find peace in our own eternal and infinite nature.







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.

wide awake at three in the morning

Spiritual resource to share: your prayer

Both my dog and I have not been able to sleep all night. I recognize this cue and go to my desk to listen and pray. A poem from one of my favorite poets comes to thought and I'd like to share it with you:

Someone needs my prayers
by Pam Chance

When I wake in the night
and I don’t know why
and I cannot settle,
but stare into darkness—
someone needs my prayers.

When another day begins with
feelings of disquiet,
unrest, despair for no reason—
I can be sure that somewhere
someone needs my prayers.

And on the brightest of days
when everything sparkles
and my joy suddenly
has an undertone of sadness—
someone needs my prayers.

I say I pray already and I do, for the big picture,
for the unbearable, intolerable,
the unjust, unfair, unsupportable—and still,
someone needs my prayers.

I may think of myself
as of a different race or creed,
as being more than, or less than,
or too far away to get involved—and yet,
someone needs my prayers.

Living and moving in divine consciousness—
a child of spiritual oneness
held in Love’s ceaseless heartbeat,
why am I surprised that I can sense when
someone needs my prayers?

I feel, more than hear,
the echoes of a struggler’s pain—
the reverb of the broken,
the oscillation of despair—whenever
someone needs my prayers.

And in my own struggling times,
when inner tumult renders me
incoherent and each moment
builds to incapacitating misery—someone knows
I need their prayers.

No prayer hangs in space unanswered.
No cry is lost—and as I pray,
I becomes we in the encircling
fusion of Love that heals all hurt when
someone needs our prayers.

To read more of Pam Chance's work, click here.



Photo of Copenhagen by OlliK
All rights reserved
Anyone can see this photo



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.

Arise! Shine!

Spiritual resource to share: the nature of light

It is all about light this month! As we enter into the season of light, I wanted to dive into the very nature of light and see if its physical nature can open our thought to more about the spiritual nature of light.

A quick browse through some websites about the physical nature of light and a favorite article gives me this:

• Light can travel through a vaccuum.
• All light can be in touch with all other light instantaneously*.
• Light is energy.
• Our human eyes can only see a fraction of the full spectrum of light.
  

Contrast that with Jesus' remarkable cry "I am come a light into the world, that whoseover abideth in me should not abide in darkness."

Or with the version from The Message: "Jesus summed it all up when he cried out, "Whoever believes in me, believes not just in me but in the One who sent me. Whoever looks at me is looking, in fact, at the One who sent me. I am Light that has come into the world so that all who believe in me won't have to stay any longer in the dark."

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on the Bible sheds some light on this passage:

Our Lord publicly proclaimed, that every one who believed on him, as his true
disciple, did not believe on him only, but on the Father who sent him....By daily looking to Him, who came a Light into the world, we are more and more freed from the darkness of ignorance, error, sin, and misery....

Christ is the Light. And this Light shows us the way, it illumines, enlightens, is not heavy, chases away the darkness and reveals what is true. So let's mix this up and see what more we can learn about the spiritual nature of light.

Light can travel through a vaccuum. God's light and love are everywhere. There is no seeming vaccum.

S&H 266:6 Would existence without personal friends be to you a blank? Then the time will come when you will be solitary, left without sympathy; but this seeming vacuum is already filled with divine Love.

All light can be in touch with all other light instantaneously*.God's love is universal. One Mind governs all God's children. We can pray for others across the globe and they can still experience healing.

S&H 411:3 If Spirit or the power of divine Love bear witness to the truth, this is the ultimatum, the scientific way, and the healing is instantaneous.

S&H 559:1 The "still, small voice" of scientific thought reaches over continent and ocean to the globe's remotest bound.

Light is energy. The energy coming from light brings warmth, renewal and movement.

S&H 510:27 Light is a symbol of Mind, of Life, Truth, and Love, and not a vitalizing property of matter.

S&H 249:5 Let us feel the divine energy of Spirit, bringing us into newness of life and recognizing no mortal nor material power as able to destroy.

Our human eyes can only see a fraction of the full spectrum of light. We are constantly growing spirituallly. The more we understand of our spiritual nature, the less materialism we have to deal with.

I Cor 13:12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

*For more reading about light from an astro physicist's view (who is also a Christian Scientist) read on..... "Physicists today are finding some interesting properties of the light they study.... For example, at one level, all light particles seem to be in touch with all others; the quantum physics term for this phenomonom is called entanglement. ... Essentially, according to the equations, instantaneously means they are really already in touch with one another....So the underlying idea seems to be emerging that from light's perspective, it doesn't take time to go from point A to point B in the universe. If all "entangled " light "knows" that and fills the universe, then it is possible for all light to be in touch with all other light instantaneously." (from article "More Understanding, Less Matter" by Laurance Doyle, July 11, 2005 Christian Science Sentinel)

an advanced era

Spiritual resource to share: enlightened thought


It fascinates me to see how a church service is seen through the eyes of one newly introduced to Christian Science.

Most recently, I made a new friend who has been practicing Christian Science for a number of years. She is also an astrobiologist. She shared her first experience at a church service and her impression. "I felt like I had landed on another planet and was in an advanced civilization."

I just laughed! But I felt it was true! Mary Baker Eddy recognized Christian Science as being in advance of this age. But in order to make this understanding practical, she saw that "a great sacrifice of material things must precede this advanced spiritual understanding."


She goes on to say, "No impossible thing do I ask when urging the claims of Christian Science; but because this teaching is in advance of the age, we should not deny our need of its spiritual unfoldment. Mankind will improve through Science and Christianity. "

Reading Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy and the Bible are the best teachers in learning how to practice Christian healing. Science and Health is full of encouragement along the way assuring us that "spiritual ideas unfold as we advance" and that "evidences of progress and of spiritualization greet us on every hand."


In my own practice of Christian Science, I find that I am constantly learning new things. Even though my list of situations and conditions healed grows, I am in awe of the depth of God's love and the detailed intelligence that governs all things - from the timing of a meeting to the balance of the stars.

MBEddy writes "Advancing spiritual steps in the teeming universe of Mind lead on to spiritual spheres and exalted beings. To material sense, this divine universe is dim and distant, gray in the sombre hues of twilight; but anon the veil is lifted, and the scene shifts into light."

As I shed more of my material beliefs - and to me this means anything that limits, divides or deteriorates - I also see more of how omnipotent God operates. And the more I understand about God's ever-present Love, omnipotent Truth and intelligence, the more things unGodlike ( or material) fall away. The scene is shifting into light.






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.

God's love for you

Spiritual resource to share: accepting God's love

I just finished another conference call testimony meeting today. This includes selected readings from the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker. Today's readings were based on the theme "God's love for you." I loved putting this together -- searching Scriptures to see just how God's love was articulated and how Science and Health expanded on Love to uncover its healing principle.

In the Bible, I John writes about love that I will liberally paraphrase. He must have been thrilled to have had this idea about God. He must have felt a sense of relief in that recognition of what he always knew to be true. Everything he learned took on new and more profound meaning with this acknowledgement of God's love: the big "AHA" moment that transformed how he thought about God and how he thought about himself and others. I can see him talking to a group of people:

"Listen to this! Try to even imagine the love that God has given to us. Let's plumb the depths of the deepest love we can fathom. Yes! God is even now calling us His children.....We are precious, we are the beloved. Yes! Right at this very moment, we are the children of God....Will we take the time to really get what this means? Are we going to believe this? Think of it. God is Love. And the very fact that we are aware of love means that we are aware of God. We live in Love and Love in us. And that cements our relationship to Love. And because of our closeness to God, we don't ever have to be afraid." (taken from parts of 1 John chapters 3: verses 1 to 3 and 4; verses 16, 18, 19)

John is cool - in the way that calmness is cool. He knows, he loves, he is gentle and kind, visionary and confident. King David also wrote songs and poetry about God's love for him. This King was known for his adventurous spirit and spiritual curiosity. He knew remorse and repentence, joy and peace. He made big mistakes, but he did glorious things. I love this song about his most intimate and loving relationship to God. This is from the Contemporary English Version of the Bible:

Psalm 139
You have looked deep into my heart, LORD, and you know all about me. You know when I am resting or when I am working, and from heaven you discover my thoughts. You notice everything I do and everywhere I go. Before I even speak a word, you know what I will say, and with your powerful arm you protect me from every side.

Where could I go to escape from your Spirit or from your sight? If I were to climb up to the highest heavens, you would be there. If I were to dig down to the world of the dead you would also be there. Suppose I had wings like the dawning day and flew across the ocean. Even then your powerful arm would guide and protect me.

Your thoughts are far beyond my understanding, much more than I could ever imagine. I try to count your thoughts, but they outnumber the grains of sand on the beach. And when I awake, I will find you nearby.

God's assurance and love fills up the Bible in its messages and letters to God's children -- and that means all of us.

Different versions of the Bible from Jeremiah 31: 3 bring the point home:

"I have loved you with an everlasting love;
I have drawn you with loving-kindness.
"I've never quit loving you and never will.
"Expect love, love, and more love!
With love age-during I have loved thee, Therefore I have drawn thee [with] kindness.
"I love you people with a love that will last forever.
“ Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love;
Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.

God's love for us is infinite. All we need to do is accept 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.

Parenting: giving our kids our best

Spiritual resource to share: our spiritual inheritance

Last Christmas, I heard the Hallelujah Chorus of Handel's Messiah being played over the radio. My older son crossed the room and I found myself tearing up when he asked "What's wrong?"

I remember being in a choir while in High School and singing this with hundreds of others in choir and orchestra. It was such a thrill. We were so jazzed and inspired, we were singing at the tops of our lungs. I lost interest in whether or not the notes were right on. This loud noise that came from all of us, at once, sounding relatively in tune was an amazing experience!

Part of my role as a parent is to make opportunities for my kids to experience life - its joys and thrills and then to be there when things seem to fall apart. How many times have I wanted to "give" an experience to my kids that I have had. At that moment, hearing Handel's Messiah, I realized that I can't give them all of what is wonderful and mysterious. They need to find and take that on themselves.

It was a bittersweet moment. All I could say to my son is that life is an incredible trip. Go far, drink deeply. My dad once said that I should go out, explore the world. I could always come back, lick my wounds, but then go out again. Wise words from an old adventurer himself.

What we give our kids - aside from the basic food and shelter, millions of words of advice and counsel and our example - is to share what we have inherited from our brilliant, spinning world and to give them permission to explore it at their own time and in their own way.









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.

breathless

Spiritual resource to share: moments that take your breath away

"All nature teaches of God's love to man...." Yes. This I know to be true. To take in the awe of a mountaintop, the stillness of a lake and the tenderness of a hummingbird, and then to realize that the same Creator of these intimate and infinitely lovely creations is the same Creator who has created us - and has created us in His/Her own image and likeness. Wow (but said in a hushed and curiously, quizzically, wondrous way)

w o w.

I have been cataloguing in my mind the many times when the natural world reminds me of God's love and when nature blows me away with its power, beauty and grace. There was the time:

While driving to pick up my son from school, I turned a corner on a lonely highway and startled two bald eagles. They flew up and continued flying - one on each side about five feet from my car. We kept moving together for a surprisingly long time, until they realized they couldn't gain on me and flew off.

When we lived on a small lake, our neighbors across the way raised white homing pigeons and trained them. On clear and warm days, I could watch these white birds flying together in circles above our lake.

In this same area, there was another couple who raised caribou and lived beyond the forest preserves from us. On cold and crisp nights in the dead of winter, I could hear caribou bellow out their soulful calls to one another.

In the spring, I walked my sons down our gravel road through the woods to their bus stop. Whenever the weather was warm enough for another bloom of mosquitoes to hatch, we could count on an army of dragonflies to swoop in and help us decrease the mosquito population. The dragonflies were so numerous, that we could stretch out our arms and the dragonflies would tickle as they landed on them. The sun glinted off their wings. We giggled all the way to the bus stop.

Our current home is fringed by a creek that joins two larger lakes. In the warmer months, a loon couple flies over from one lake to another in the morning and evening, giving their haunting calls which start and end our days.

Glittering snowfalls, booming ice on a lake, the crystal clarity of a star lit night, it just doesn't end! What have been some of your moments?



All photos by Gabe Korinek and copyrighted

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.

those things that never change

Spiritual resource to share: constancy





I have just read a thoughtful article “Oldest Holocaust survivor tells a story of faith and courage that's out of the ordinary.” It’s about Leopold Engleitner, considered the oldest Holocaust survivor today. His recent appearance at the Frankfurt International Book Fair brought further attention to the life of an ordinary man made extraordinary under extreme conditions.

The one constant throughout his life, whether it was making skiis, being a farmer, or living in a concentration camp, was his love for God and his love for honesty and goodness.

“Darkness cannot put out the Light. It can only make God brighter” wrote an unknown author. And this was the case for Leopold. Many of us will never experience the extreme conditions that he did. But his experience showed me how important it is to nurture those elements of love that he did throughout his life: to love one’s work, to care for the details, to stand up for honesty, to have integrity, to do good things.

Each of life’s experiences will draw out from us our reservoir of spiritual qualities whose source is God. Those spiritual qualities make up who we are. They are changeless. And whether we have a high profile life whose actions will impact many or have a quiet life with more modest aims, we can always base our actions on this reservoir of spiritual qualities. And it is our practice of these spiritual qualities that makes us ready and able to meet any of life’s challenges, however big or small.







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.