Lift up your voice!

Spiritual resource to share: YOU

Have you ever felt you wanted to express yourself, but it was hard being heard? Or have you ever been asked to give a talk and felt at a loss?

I did a deep dive today considering what it means to have a voice.

Having a voice is about you being expressed and heard.
Having a voice enables you to be a part of a larger idea.
Having a voice is having a way to communicate ideas.

In short having a voice is about identity, communication and unity.

Identity

My identity, your identity is a result of being a reflection of God (as it points out in the Bible in Genesis that we are made in the image and likeness of God). God’s attributes are Soul, Mind, intelligence, Spirit, Life, Principle, Truth, Love. We are defined by Soul, animated by Spirit, sustained by Life, guided by Mind, intelligence, and maintained by God’s law or Principle. An idea without an expression is absurd. Each one of us is individual, unique, permanent and necessary. Each one of us has a voice that is individual, unique, permanent and necessary.

Communication

Break that word apart and you have common + unity.
“The inter-communication is always from God to His idea, man.”
Ideas are constantly flowing – connecting one another with a common understanding.
Lifting communication up to Spirit, we can trust that the spiritual substance of an idea is communicated properly. The spiritual substance of ears is that they are “not organs of the so-called corporeal senses, but spiritual understanding.”
God, Truth, is the impulse that brings ideas forward. Love provides the receptivity for those to hear. Intelligence weighs in the ideas and sorts, deletes, enhances and brings out what would best glorify God. And we are all governed by Truth, Life and Love.

Unity

"Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?"
We are all related to Life, and to Love and to Truth. We can all understand this relationship to God – when Life fills our days with purpose, when Love satisfies and soothes us, when Truth brings us startling new ideas and solutions. As we sometimes clamber up that mountain of high hopes, we are patient and forgiving of one another, but firm and focused on our goal: to learn more about God.





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you can try this at home

Spiritual resource to share: your light

It was a long day for both of us. Staying in for dinner wasn't an option. My husband's day was packed as was mine, and we both had projects that involved lots of detail and setbacks.

It was so tempting to be irritated. We needed to talk over a home improvement project and our discussion started out with frustration as we sat down at a restaurant and ordered dinner.

As he was talking, I had this little twinge of a thought. What if, in the midst of a sense of tiredness and iritation, I said something really loving and easy and kind? What if I made it totally unselfish and sincere? What if, right here, with all the justifications for a crabby time talking about yet another detailed project, I smiled and agreed?

It was a little thing perhaps, but one comment, sincerely told, lifted the whole burden of irritation. A little light added to the darkness was all that was needed. A little Christly touch to lift us up. And, as a result, we came up with some pretty good ideas for our home and had a pleasant dinner together.

It struck me how easy this was. Something I'll try at home again and again.

I am come a light into the world,

that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.

sayings of Christ Jesus as written in John 12: 46




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"There is no strength like His"

Spiritual resource to share: song

Sitting in my office, enjoying a cool breeze and a sunny day, I came across this song to share with you today. I hope it inspires you in strength, wisdom and compassion. Enjoy!



For more background on this song and the singer, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Wangari Maathai, and on the program that produced this Speaking of Faith, click here.




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 definitive aspect of winning

Spiritual resource to share: persistence

When the laws of the land do not help honest and good causes and enable monopolies and greed, what is one to think? When law is used to obstruct good, block progress or dilute authority, how is one to move forward? I hoped to answer this progressively in stages, suggesting ways to deal with this issue.

Understanding the difference between societal law and divine law
The difference between the two are great. Societal law is changeable based on a society’s highest (or growing) sense of right. Divine law is changeless. Like the law of gravity needs no group to legislate it into action, the divine laws of God are natural and simply define the spiritually scientific nature of being – of how life works. Divine Love harmonizes, corrects, and promotes progress for the health and well being of all mankind. Divine Truth purifies, elevates and empowers right activity.

Dealing with discouragement/depression
This is usually the first stop when one finds themselves encountering a false sense of law. Depressed thought comes from accepting that there are powers that can overwhelm what is good. Don’t be fooled. Winning - based on manipulation, dishonesty, material acquisition that takes from others and ignorance or omission of facts - is not satisfying and does not feed the hunger for deeper meaning and relevance in our lives. There is something more powerful, more sustaining and more satisfying. Don’t stop here. See the next paragraph…..

Understanding higher law
Coming from a materialistic culture where money and material goods would try to define our own self-worth, what a refreshing, releasing break we get by following a higher law! Jesus' two commandments – to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves - is the higher law. And to love is the fulfilling of the law.

Moral courage
We can claim moral courage as our own way of working. MBEddy writes: "Moral courage is 'the lion of the tribe of Juda,' the king of the mental realm. Free and fearless it roams in the forest. Undisturbed it lies in the open field, or rests in 'green pastures, . . . beside the still waters.' In the figurative transmission from the divine thought to the human, diligence, promptness, and perseverance are likened to "the cattle upon a thousand hills." They carry the baggage of stern resolve, and keep pace with highest purpose."

To not be afraid
Perfect love casts out fear: the fear of being irrelevant; the fear that you have made a mistake; the fear of lack; the fear that others will think poorly of you; the fear that good is helpless. All those fears can be dissolved. Perfect love is powerful, harmonizing, gentle and unyielding. Love is an alterative, transforming thought from fear to confidence and grace.

Practice honesty
Two quotes from MBEddy:
"Honesty is spiritual power. Dishonesty is human weakness, which forfeits divine help. You uncover sin, not in order to injure, but in order to bless the corporeal man; and a right motive has its reward."
"Christian Science commands man to master the propensities,--to hold hatred in abeyance with kindness, to conquer lust with chastity, revenge with charity, and to overcome deceit with honesty. Choke these errors in their early stages, if you would not cherish an army of conspirators against health, happiness, and success."

And finally, from the Bible:
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths.
and MBEddy:
"The wrong done another reacts most heavily against one's self. Right adjusts the balance sooner or later. Think it "easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle," than for you to benefit yourself by injuring others."

Trust needs to be shifted from a temporal basis to what is spiritual and permanent. “In all your ways acknowledge Him”….Ways to acknowledge God? By expressing intelligence, acuteness, insight, unselfishness, persistence. By yielding to a greater good. By expecting good, being good, and doing good.

What is it that we win? We know that if we love - and obey the most important law of loving God and our neighbor as ourselves - we are fulfilling the law. And "self-denial, sincerity, Christianity, and persistence alone win the prize, as they usually do in every department of life." That is what it takes to be a winner. And what we win is a deeper love, a broader blessing for all and a more permanent sense of peace.

Would love to hear comments from others on this important topic!





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.

on the loose

Spiritual resource to share: freedom

Micah and friends on the loose somewhere in Europe

"This is the best time of life" my mother would say whenever I would ask her what her favorite time of life was. No matter what decade it was, I always got the same answer.

Looking at my two sons and what they are experiencing, I'll bet they would say that now - this is the best time of life for them. With so much ahead and so much to experience right now - I am thrilled with their reminder that the world is large and full of opportunities.

One son is in Germany sometimes traveling, sometimes staying in one place, always learning, always growing. The other son has just come home from school, and in between camping, hiking and mountain bike trips and family reunions, he is helping us here home with some construction jobs.

The graduation speakers at this last son's school were provocative and moving. I'd like to share a song one teacher sung which sums up just where our boys are at right now in their lives - and others their age. Its simplicity and childlike joy and wonder hit just the right chord.

On The Loose*

Chorus: On the Loose to climb a mountain,
on the loose where I am free,
on the loose to live my life,
the way I think my life should be;
for I’ve only got a moment and the whole world left to see.
I’ll be searching for tomorrow on the loose...

Have you ever seen a sunrise turn the sky completely red?
Have you slept beneath the moon and stars with a pine bough for your bed?
Can you sit and talk with friends although a word is never said...
then you’re just like me and you’ve been on the loose...

Chorus: On the Loose to climb a mountain,
on the loose where I am free,
on the loose to live my life,
the way I think my life should be;
for I’ve only got a moment and the whole world left to see.
I’ll be searching for tomorrow on the loose...

There’s a trail that I’ve been hiking just to see where it might go...
many places left to visit, many people yet to know.
But in following my dream, I will live and I will grow...
on the trail that’s waiting out there on the loose...

Chorus: On the Loose to climb a mountain,
on the loose where I am free,
on the loose to live my life,
the way I think my life should be;
for I’ve only got a moment and the whole world left to see.
I’ll be searching for tomorrow on the loose...

So in search of love and laughter I’ll be traveling ‘cross this land.
Never sure of where I am going for I haven’t any plan.
But in time when you are ready come and join me take my hand...
and together we’ll explore life on the loose...

Chorus: On the Loose to climb a mountain,
on the loose where I am free,
on the loose to live my life,
the way I think my life should be;
for I’ve only got a moment and the whole world left to see.
I’ll be searching for tomorrow on the loose...


*written by Steve Schuch (thx Kate!)







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.