A walk with Truth and evil - revisited

I trust Truth and I trust evil. How is that for a provocative start to a posting?

Let me explain. Evil, as explained by Mary Baker Eddy, is a lie and is obsolete.

Evil is nothing, no thing, mind, nor power. As manifested by mankind it stands for a lie, nothing claiming to be something, — for lust, dishonesty, selfishness, envy, hypocrisy, slander, hate, theft, adultery, murder, dementia, insanity, inanity, devil, hell, with all the etceteras that word includes. (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p.330)

I trust evil to do what it does best. Self destruct. Having no creative power of its own, it needs someone to give it life. It needs someone to believe that it is real, because it has no life giving intelligence of its own. You have to consent to fear before fear takes a hold of you.

Walk with me along this line of reasoning. Do you remember in the 1960's - a popular anti-war poster that said "What if there was a war and no one came?" Let's take that a bit further. What if there was a ghost and no one believed it? What if there was a theft, but no one lacked anything? What if there was a terrorist and no one was afraid? The war, the ghost, the theft, the terrorist - would be nothing, totally ineffective, self-destructive and thus, non-existent.

I trust Truth. Truth is life-affirming, it is the "seed within itself," and self-creative. In Christian Science, Truth is one of the seven synonyms for God.

Mary Baker Eddy describes Truth in Science and Health

Truth is God's remedy for error of every kind, and Truth destroys only what is untrue.

Truth is ever truthful, and can tolerate no error in premise or
conclusion.

Truth is not contaminated by error.

Truth is honesty, purity, law, accuracy, devotion, freedom, trust in good, innocence, light, precision, supreme, all-power.

The self-creative nature of Truth means that the expression of Truth ripples out, giving life and inspiration beyond its source.

OK, walk with me on this one. What if there was a lie and we corrected it? What if there was a mistake and we made it right? What if someone was fearful and were able to shed light on that darkness? What if we based the foundation of our lives on Truth? We would feel a sense of freedom and goodness, that would ripple out and bless others. We would find ourselves on a rock and feel the stability, surety and calmness that comes from Truth and trusting God.

I had an experience some years ago. I was working in a school when one day, the students broke out into a riot. I was instructed to stay with a classroom full of students with the doors closed. Although the electricity in the air was tangible, I refused to be drawn into the fear and was able to keep the class calm, until shortly thereafter the whole situation was diffused. What stays with me today is how much of a choice I had, and how powerfully calming it was to choose Truth and to not be drawn in by the chaos. I understand better the idea from Science and Health,

Truth is revealed. It needs only to be practised.

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evil is not power

Spiritual resource to share: clarity

"It looks like in the battle of good over evil, evil won again," said a friend deflated by the results of an emotionally charged community meeting to save a beloved project.

"No. I can't leave it at that," said I. "I don't think that is true at all." We talked some more and hopefully shared some comfort, but on my way home, I prayed to affirm what good is all about and what evil is all about.

My favorite author, Mary Baker Eddy, is also known as a reformer and pioneer and most notably as the discoverer and founder of Christian Science.

She has this to say about good and evil:

"Good is not helpless."
"Evil is a mockery of strength."
Evil is not a person, place or thing.*

So how did that help me understand what had just happened?

Good is not helpless. The good that has been done cannot be undone. Those things that have brought life, creativity and growth to others is the most impressionable and powerful force that is present in a person's life.

Evil is not a person. Understanding this gives one the power to speak to the humanity (and I would say the Christliness) in others. Impersonalizing evil defuses its imaginary power until we are no longer impressed with the idea that someone or something can take away our ability to determine our own thought, our own destiny or that someone or something can take away something good.

There are times when a project, a job, a school or a business has to shut down. But the ideas and inspiration that made that project so effective and inspirational lives on. It is the ideas that are good and enduring that keep moving forward.

Both my husband and I were involved at separate times and in different areas, in projects that were truly inspired. The vision of the projects' leaders and of our colleagues was clear and the effects were gratifying and immediate. Then both projects were shut down. What happened was that those who were involved in the project continued cherishing those ideals and spread those values to a wide range of other activities. Both of us experienced a deep sense of grief which was healed when we realized that, like Mary Baker Eddy said, good is not helpless. And we realized that what we accomplished were the seedlings of things that continue to grow and be a blessing.

When a person's motives are based on evil (a false sense of strength) those actions then become either regrettable or forgettable or both. But when a person' motives are based on unselfish goodness, those actions give life to innovation, progress and continuing good. This is what we remember. This is what gives our lives meaning. This becomes the very fabric of life itself.

It isn't in the nature of evil to win anything of substance. Good is the only active power available.





*See MBEddy's Miscellaneous Writings, p. 284.

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my journey into the public practice of Christian Science

Spiritual resource to share: our stories

Recently, I wrote this post up to be included in a newsletter for a group of Christian Science healers with whom I regularly associate. I hope you will find it inspiring and perhaps even familiar.

Throughout my life, I have had many healings in Christian Science. Physical, financial and relationship problems have been healed such as the healing of abdominal pain and a knee injury, and in overcoming grief, finding gainful employment, and meeting a wonderful man who I married, followed by the births of two healthy boys. But underneath all of these happy things, was a growing fascination with Christian Science. I always wanted to know how Christian Science worked and how it could be a blessing to not only oneself, but to the world.

I was brought up in Christian Science. I had the benefit and blessing of a mom who always helped me through prayer whenever I had any difficulty. That tenderness and loving kindness is how I came to understand God.

After I finished my first job after college, I was ready to discover more about the practice. I set aside some hours, made up some business cards, and made some office space in my house. One of my first cases, in particular, taught me the whole reason behind getting into the practice: love. She told me, “Kim, you have been given much, and healing is the most loving thing you could ever do for others.” I realized that healing is the highest form of love.

I continued to take calls on a very part time basis, but throughout the next dozen or so years, I had a number of profound experiences that expanded my practice. First, I became a mother of two boys. Secondly, I accepted two jobs that broadened my whole idea of the practice. One job was as administrator in a nearby Christian Science nursing facility. After six happy years with that job and another few years staying at home with our two boys, I was hired to help support The Mother Church’s wider world-wide distribution of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. After five and a half amazing years, my job ended and my family felt it was time to go back to the Midwest.

Now, I was more than ready to start out my public practice full-time. I started a website for my practice (www.kimckorinek.com) and included this weekly inspirational blog. Soon, calls started coming in. Once we were settled in our new home, I advertised locally, and set up my office. More calls came in. In a year, I became listed in the Christian Science Journal.

In my journey to the full time public practice of Christian Science, I could see how God was guiding me to new experiences, each experience giving me a higher view of Christian Science.

• First, I felt the love of God through my own understanding and my mom’s example.
• In my college years, I saw how Christian Science applies to every situation from global affairs, to business management to personal issues.
• In my early years at the public practice, I saw that love is the basis of the practice.
• Raising children was and is still an invaluable lesson on understanding God as Father-Mother.
• When working with Christian Science nurses, I saw the practical wisdom and gentle care of
  Christian Science at work.
• And with my work at The Mother Church, I saw first hand how universal Christian Science truly is.

Throughout this journey, my fascination with Christian Science has never waned. As this age continues to reach out for the spiritual nature of things*, and we recognize throughout the world and in our neighborhoods that there is a spiritual renewal and transformation going on, we see more of the ideas in Christian Science being readily accepted and discussed without the burden of prejudice or stereotype.

Today is big with blessings, and being in the Christian Science practice is for me the most loving thing I can do for myself, my family and the world.
















*See Miscellaneous Writings, p. 232:6







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.

celebrating Black History Month --- a story

Spiritual resource to share: spiritual identity

At the heart of an article about the heart of celebrating Black History Month, there is a story within a story in which two African-American men meet and talk that I wanted to share with you all. It is from spirituality.com. Enjoy!

While snacking on a boat ramp one day, we met someone I’ll call Mr. Wilson, a black man and grandfather from Texas. He was fishing and suggested I buy Ayoka (my daughter) a fishing rod because she looked so comfortable near the water. We struck up a conversation....

Mr. Wilson opened up about an experience when he was given a ticket by a white police officer who accused him of speeding during a heavy snow storm. He explained to me how difficult it would have been for anyone to speed in those weather conditions. When Mr. Wilson told the officer he didn’t have any money to pay for the ticket, he was put in jail.

I thought about how Mr. Wilson’s modest example echoed the plight of enslaved Africans and the subsequent institutionalization of racism in the US. Mr. Wilson had exemplified many wonderful spiritual qualities. We continued to talk for a while.

As we shook hands and parted, Mr. Wilson got in his truck and waved goodbye. He gave Ayoka and me a really big smile. As I waved goodbye to him, I was so moved by our conversation and how he’d expressed the promise he saw in my relationship with Ayoka. “Now that’s black history,” I thought.

And that’s when something clicked for me.

Mr. Wilson had exemplified many wonderful spiritual qualities resplendent in a child of God. He was warm, gracious, strong, wise, loving, eloquent, and persistent. These spiritual qualities shone forth stronger than the pain and humiliation of his speeding ticket incident.

It occurred to me that those same spiritual qualities Mr. Wilson expressed had been the very catalyst that had ended slavery and furthered a dialogue on civil rights that continues to heal and better our society.

“And that’s what we celebrate about black history,” I thought to myself— resilience, courage, poise, and progress despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

To read the article in its entirety, click here. Please feel free to share how you celebrate this month in the comments section!


Photo by J.Falls
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Some musings on the entering the "closet of prayer"

Spiritual resource to share: the clarity of words

If all of nature teaches of God's love to man, then it has taken all of nature to get me to the point of understanding the practical dimension of prayer, with a nod of thanks to my teachers: the pines, lakes and broad sky.

What I’ve most noticed about living here in the northwoods is that there is a lot of space between words. Let me explain. I can think – and there are few other distractions squeezing into my thought space. I can walk in large and open frozen lake fields and among tightly grown harvesting pines and not be ruffled by opinions or glamour.

Unlike the city, invigorating as it is, where I go outside and my words are layered onto a cacophony of billboards, traffic, and other conversations; here I say one thing and it goes zinging into the open air. Each word has its own stage, and is given its own weight.

I don’t need to shout. There is no din. My thoughts do not compete with distracting elements and do not conform to editorial agendas.

It gives me a new sense of what is purposeful and prayerful.

My thoughts and words turn to prayer. In prayer, I am not trying to make a point or to defend or convince others. Stripped of ambition, competition and cleverness, my thoughts and words are naked. They form in their own atmosphere of intelligence and clarity. They rise up like a bubble from the depths of some lake and pop on top to the perfect word. They are delivered for the joy of seeing thought articulated.

My prayer is full of words with integrity because prayer is affirming what God has always known. My prayer words blend with God's word, and I know more of God than I did before.

"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." My prayer transforms me and the words are made flesh.





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.

Let there be light

Spiritual resource to share: light as metaphor




As we here in the northernmost parts of the United States brave the cold and boast of its tenacity and our ability to weather it, we also notice that every day is getting a little longer, and moves us nearer to a more warm and sunlit days.

I love this clip of the old television series Northern Exposure and their little presentation on light. Since moving up to this rural area, I find I can relate to Cicely, Alaska on all sorts of levels.

So, I'd like to share this with you all. Please view it and take in the cold and the startling warmth of light!

"Arise, shine for thy light is come!"

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.

you are not the building....

Spiritual resource to share: your spiritual completeness

In an endearing episode of SuperNanny (my new fav watch-when-I-can tv show), the nanny (who is enlisted by troubled families to fix them) works with a newly widowed mother who was forced to foreclose on her house, move to a much smaller home and pick up the pieces with her six kids.

What the nanny asked the mother to do was significant and moving. She drove the reluctant mother to her old house and asked her to share the special memories she had in that house. As the mother talked, it was easy to see that all that she loved would always be hers. She loved the joy, creativity, surprise and spontaneity of her family and all the activities that happened there. She would never lose those qualities and never lose those memories. She understood it. The mother audibly said good-bye to the house, which by now had become a building. Her life and her meaning didn't come from the building, it came from within. Then she was ready to go to her new home and amd move on with her new life.

It is easy to identify ourselves with a place. And it is easy to identify ourselves with other things as well: a person, a community of people, a project, a heritage, a movement. But when relationships change, jobs end, a movement changes course, there is this gaping question - now who am I?

Years ago, when a very loved job ended, I was faced with this question. The workplace had been cutting back on staff slowly over the course of a number of months.

During those months, many staff had to deal with the awkwardness of staying on while close friends and colleagues were asked to leave, and other staff had the task of finding new work while still providing for families. We were all asking the deeper questions - now who are we?

During the time that I was staying on while others were being cut, I had to go beneath the awkward surface and dig down to find my spiritual purpose and find what was unchanging.

The questions of 'why them and not me?" was answered with a growing trust in God. For my friends, I could trust that God is directing each person's path; that God, good, is the substance of their being; that the same attraction to good that brought them to this work will also lead them to their next step. No one is left out.

I reasoned that each individual is complete and whole, reflecting God in glorious and infinite number of ways. The substance of each person's work - like the memories of the widowed mother mentioned above - is spiritual. The divine purpose of each of our lives is spiritual.

So when my job ended, I continued praying along those lines: I reasoned that the substance of who I am and what I love does not change but continues to grow and attract those very activities for which I am uniquely suited! God would not make me in His image and likeness and not give the channels within which to express them. Ability and opportunity are coordinate ideas, both supplied by our Father-Mother God.

I am not a building nor am I made up of the things that happen to me. I am not vulnerable but I am the child of an infinite God, and am complete, whole and mature. And my purpose goes on uninterrupted. I can claim this for myself and for my friends - for those who have left a job and for those who stay.

Then all of us can understand the response to the question who am I and what is my purpose? and respond with "the scientific response: I am able to impart truth, health, and happiness, and this is my rock of salvation and my reason for existing."*








* THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST AND MISCELLANY, p. 165

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.