No longer on the outside looking in

Spiritual resource to share: tmcyouth blogs!

This was posted earlier this month on tmcyouth.com as part of their "Growing Up Strange" blog series.  Each blog post tells a little bit of what it is like to grow up as a Christian Scientist.  These are fun and insightful!:

Growing up, I never felt that my friends rejected me because of Christian Science, but they did think of it as an out of the box religion—and weird in an interesting, loving kind of way.

One time I went with a friend to her regular medical check up. “My friend doesn’t go to doctors,” she boasted to her elderly physician, “She’s a Christian Scientist.” The doctor glared at me and said, “You’re going to die before the rest of us.” ......

(To read more, click here.)

an insistent peace

Spiritual resource to share:  paz = peace

photo by Domingos Peixoto for Brazilian newspaper O Globo/Rio

Recently, my friend Amy posted on facebook the story of the drug wars going on in Rio and this picture. It brought me back to my short stay in Rio, where I was working with a team of others to distribute Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures more broadly in that area. One special late afternoon, a colleague and I walked Rio’s beaches, with the twinkliing lights of the favelas on one end and the luxury hotels on the other.  We were wrapped up talking about healing and peace in the Middle East. Now I find all those ideas for peace and healing equally relevant for Rio now.

Newspapers were all over this story. It was humbling and frightening to read of it. I felt small.  What can I possibly say to such a massive display of aggression, violence, danger and conflict?  How can I pray?

Then, quite simply, I was reminded and humbled that God is greater than all these things. 

People have responded to this chaotic mayhem with a simple word: Peace. The photo above reminded me of the childlike purity and permance of peace.

Peace is what will prevail. It always has and always will.
Life is insistent and will prevail.
Love is the cornerstone of all spiritual building and will prevail.
And in the midst of the deepest disorder, order will stand its ground and spread.

I am so grateful to Amy for bringing this to my attention, for those journalists letting the world know, for those whose vision for justice and peace emboldened and trumped parasitic greed and fear.  And I am grateful for all of us prayer warriors, who get to work affirming what is permanent, good and true in the glaring face of chaos. Effective prayer has as its foundation the law of God --the law of the Creator as defined in Science and Health:

CREATOR. Spirit; Mind; intelligence; the animating divine Principle of all that is real and good; self-existent Life, Truth, and Love; that which is perfect and eternal; the opposite of matter and evil, which have no Principle; God, who made all that was made and could not create an atom or an element the opposite of Himself.

Although there is great relief that this recent – and some say the worst  - battle has been won ( click here for today's news) the mission to break the grip of the drug gangs continues. So does our prayer.

"everything is rhythm"

Spiritual resource to share: beauty all around us

      "We are, all of us, unique, each a unique pattern of creativity,and if it is not fulfilled it is lost for all ... "   Martha Graham, American choreographer

On the heels of receiving the Random Acts of Culture clip from a friend (see my last posting), another friend posted this clip on her facebook.   All of which goes to show that I have such brilliant friends - and that the attraction of beautiful rhythmic ideas is truly universal, with infinite expression, and full and overflowing with joy!

It is just another proof of the original spiritual nature of each of us.  "To discern the rhythm of Spirit apprehended and to be holy, thought must be purely spiritual."  writes Mary Baker Eddy in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, written just pages after she states "Man is not material, he is spiritual."

random acts of culture

Spiritual resource to share:  connections through all time

This came to my email today and I knew I had to share it!   It brings the beauty and brilliance of Handel right between the makeup and accessories aisles of Macy's, connecting all ages to what is timeless.  Enjoy!



For another inspiration involving the Hallelujah Chorus and parenting, click here.

the surprise of God - revisited

Spiritual resource to share: spontaneity and a capacity for surprise

"Don't outline good, because you can't outline good enough!" This advice came to me from a dear and wise healer many years ago. And certainly, if we accept God as infinite and as the one Principle or law that governs all things, our own limited views and opinions might not open us up to the horizon-opening things that can and do happen when we trust God.

For instance, when my job ended years ago, the whole family felt very good about moving back to the Midwest. Although I loved my job that entailed travel and working with teams all over the world, I thought that that aspect of my work would never show up in the place where we moved - a rural area of Wisconsin known for its natural beauty and tourism.

But we trusted God "with all our hearts" and didn't limit any possibilities. This was a vigorous trusting, mind you. It involved

• a larger understanding of God governing every detail of our lives
• an experienced trust that God always takes us to a place that will expand and deepen our understanding of Him
• dismissing doubt, recognizing and eliminating impatience, and yielding my solutions
• rooting out and dropping old stereotyped expectations
• listening, listening, listening and being open, open, open to new ideas
• loving God like I love family, adventure, beauty, and gentleness

And things did open up in ways I couldn't have planned. I've been tallying up our blessings and realized that we now, as a family, have more international involvement than we ever had when we were living in one of the largest cities in the country. We are involved in international youth exchanges and a high school with lots of international students and I continue to grow my practice that includes patients and colleagues from all over the world.

This is amazing to me. And God continues to amaze me. Life is full of horizon-opening things when we trust God with all our hearts.













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.