A couple of decades later this anger surfaced in a very subtle way. I found myself becoming dismissive to anyone who even slightly resembled this type of distracted and reluctant thought. This grew to feeling contempt towards others. Every time I recognized these thoughts, however, I would replace them, and gain some ground on the front of loving my neighbors as myself.
As I continued to grow in my healing practice, I realized that I needed to root out these feelings of contempt, once and for all. There is simply no room for anything in a healing thought, but love.
A good friend once defined sin as a boulder. One voluntarily picks up the boulder, carries it around for however long they want and then decides when they want to lay it down. The sin is never a part of them.
I also realized that if I was seeing others as misguided (or in any way sinful), that I have planted in my thought the possibility that others could be misguided. I too could be misguided. So, in essence, if I am seeing another as sinful, I have picked up my own boulder! No wonder I feel burdened!
In my prayer, I realized that God knows nothing about the human drama. It is so irrelevant to life, that God does not even acknowledge it. Whereas I don't ignore what others are saying or doing, I realized that the human drama of apathy, resentment, distraction only has the power we give it -- it simply has no reality or power of its own. God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.
When we pray, we let in the light. We accept that there is another way to see things. We follow the Christ, who multiplies our efforts to see and to do good things. Thought totally shifts from a material basis to a spiritual.
Then, if God doesn't know it, why should I? Why should I experience any type of discord?
And why did Christ Jesus say that we could cast all our cares on him? He said that "my yoke is easy, my burden in light." What did he know? Perhaps he knew that the only real thing going on is God's activity.
Christ Jesus could take on our burdens because he knew their weight - nothing. And he knew the allness, the thoroughness of God's pure and perfect control of each of Her ideas.
Each idea of God (this includes each person, each activity, each group) is coordinate, harmonious, self-less and helpful. I realized that I cannot lose anything good. And if this is true for me, it is true for others. No one can lose anything good.
I can lay my burdens down. The battle is not mine, but God's and Truth is always the victor. With this, I felt God’s power and love. I felt power in my ability to replace apathy and contempt with compassion for others, who may be feeling that they are fighting an uphill battle. I felt power in my ability to reflect God's love. And I felt more freedom and joy in my days.
1 comment:
Thanks, Kim. Great points about letting go of the burdens that seem to so easily beset us.
Philip Doddridge authored a poem, found on page 124 of the Christian Science Hymnal, that beautifully addresses this need.
“How gentle God's commands,
How kind His precepts are;
Come, cast your burdens on the Lord,
And trust His constant care.
“Beneath His watchful eye
His saints securely dwell;
That hand which bears creation up
Shall guard His children well.
“His goodness stands approved,
Unchanged from day to day:
I drop my burden at His feet,
And bear a song away.”
In 1895 Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer and founder of Christian Science, made an address before the alumni of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College. She is quoted from this address in her book, Miscellaneous Writings on page 112, providing this warning, “The ages are burdened with material modes. Hypnotism, microbes, X-rays, and ex-common sense, occupy time and thought; and error, given new opportunities, will improve them. The most just man can neither defend the innocent nor detect the guilty, unless he knows how to be just; and this knowledge demands our time and attention.” Here are the burdens we seem to bear. But she also provides us with the way to drop these burdens. Again in Miscellaneous Writings on page 133, Mrs. Eddy writes in a letter to an individual at the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, dated March 21, 1885, “Love makes all burdens light, it giveth a peace that passeth understanding, and with ‘signs following.’" Love (God), in all His glory, helps us drop the burdens of materialism.
Also in Miscellaneous Writings is a wonderful article entitled AN ALLEGORY. The portion related to this discussion is found on pages 236-328. The ending reads, “…give up thy earth-weights; and observe the apostle's admonition, ‘Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those which are before.’ Then, loving God supremely and thy neighbor as thyself, thou wilt safely bear thy cross up to the throne of everlasting glory.” So, let’s begin today, dropping our “earth-weights” and actively expressing Christ’s love in every action we undertake.
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