a love song for the day

Spiritual resource to share: favorite love songs

Just wanted to share this gorgeous song with you all.  Click here to get there. Enjoy - and don't forget to share your favorite love song at the end!

K.d. Lang - "Simple" Lyrics  (K.D. Lang/David Pitch)


Flawless light in a darkening air
Alone...and shining there 

Love
will not elude you
Love is simple 

I worship this tenacity
And the
beautiful struggle we're in 

Love will not elude us
Love is simple 

Be
sure to know that
All in love
Is ours 

And love, as a philosophy
Is
simple 

I am calm in oblivion
Calm, as I ever have been
Love will not
elude me
Love is simple 

Be sure to know that
All in love
Is
ours...
Is ours...
That all in love
Is ours 

And love, as 
philosophy
Is simple...
And ours...

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.

There is a God - revisited

Spiritual resource to share: a response to atheism

Omnipresent by Sonja Maneri

This post was first written about a year and a half ago. The ideas and the articles included  still offer fresh thought today.  Enjoy!

I've read that there is a group who is now sponsoring bus ads in certain parts of the country that say “There is no God.” I obviously disagree. And this bit of news gave me pause to consider why I disagree.

I understand God to be, not a changeable benevolent uber person, but a force, a power. I understand that we are made in the image and likeness of God, not that God is made in the image and likeness of man. God is Love. God is Truth. God is intelligence. So to say that there is no God is like saying there is no Love. There is no Truth. There is no intelligence. Sorry. Can't go there.

I see mankind's yearning for Truth and Love every day. And I see individuals' responses to Truth and Love result in bodily systems improving, relationships mending and anxiety melting. A natural sense of balance, of harmony – expressed physically, mentally, socially and even financially! – is restored.

And the irony of it is that people who make these claims probably are intelligent loving individuals who feel a need to share some sense of their Truth, which in this case is that they feel that there is no God.

There is a fascinating article from The Times Online in which an atheist describes why he believes Africa needs God. (Read As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God by Matthew Parris.) As I was reading, I found myself agreeing with a number of points.

The article did a brilliant job of defining one’s own consciousness as a belief system, a philosophical/spiritual framework and a structure of thought. He explained the structure of the rural African thought and how the Christian thought powers through “the crushing passivity of the people’s mindset” a mind-numbing type of group–think. He recognized what I also recognize to be the effects of Christianity:

It brings spiritual transformation, it unifies us and makes us less selfish. Christianity feeds hope and enlivens and energizes our work. It gives us that holy curiosity that Albert Einstein cautioned us never to lose. It liberates the individual from hierarchy and group think by giving direct access to a source of unconditional Love, of Truth and intelligence.

Others may argue that the Christian thought is made up of fairy tales and satisfies those who are childish and simple. To me, I see that Christianity, as explained in Christian Science, brings out what is inherently natural to all of mankind. It explains the science of being. The very practice of Christianity operates out of a belief system that uncovers the most primitive and root forms of who we all are – the very image and likeness of Love. It is what keeps life going.

So is God only needed in Africa? I think that wherever there is a belief system that includes limitation, elitism, oppression, or fear - that God is needed there. And sometimes these systems exist in our very own churches, sometimes whole cultures are awash in these systems. These exist in the US as much as in Malawi.

The author writes: “When the philosophical tourist moves from one world view to another he finds - at the very moment of passing into the new - that he loses the language to describe the landscape to the old.” Sometimes I feel the same way when explaining my Christian Science perspective to one who feels that God doesn’t exist. We may not have a common language. But I believe we have a common spirit and a common need to make sense of the world we live in and a common need for Truth and Love and intelligence. This need goes deeper than language or affiliation with a group.

And the answer to this need is a felt presence of peace and joy. And no doubt the atheist, the African, the Christian, and all of mankind have felt this and recognize this presence at some time. To me, this presence is God.  It is the very life-force that nourishes and sustains us all.

nature's healing balm - revisited

Spiritual resource to share: stillness and awe


A friend and I were talking about a recent transition we had made. During that time, we both needed to find healing and a new direction. And we both took off to the outdoors to give ourselves a space to do so.

I have always found it nourishing and reaffirming to be out in the open prairie, or under a pitch black sky looking at the startling clarity of stars and planets. These are the things that prompt my thought to consider the largeness and tenderness of God.


But I also know that wherever I am, I have my thought. And thought can be aligned with God in any situation, under any condition, and in any place.

I love this prayer and promise from the Bible: "For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee."

The fortitude of mountains, the yielding and playful spontaneity of rivers, and the permanence of the very air we breathe teach us lessons about God. And the biggest lesson is that strength, spontaneity and permanence is everywhere God is, everywhere we are.

Click here for an incredible display of life on earth.

What prompts you to feel God's presence?



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.

what does loving unconditionally mean to you? - revisited

Spiritual resource to share: unconditional love

Rabindra Singh, 'Raining in My Heart (Longing)', 2003
© The Singh Twins

Aside from roaming city streets and attending my annual meeting two weeks ago, I found my way into the National Gallery in London and spent time taking in the special exhibit on "Love." All kinds of works on all kinds of love were displayed which touched, flirted, saddened and agreed with my heart. It was delightful!

So now that I am back, I am roaming through my past blogs and came across this one about unconditional love written about a year and a half ago:

The question "what does loving unconditionally mean to you" came as an email from my aunt who sent it out to me and my extended family. It's a good question given that "The conclusion is always the same: love is the most powerful and still the most unknown energy in the world." -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

So here is my shot at it (after first laying down some definitions and salient points):

First – what Love is
There are many kinds of love: eros (sensual love); phileo (brotherly love) and agape (divine love), but I think that all forms of Love start from our highest concept of Love – that is of agape. In that way, Love is the purest, most elemental and radical life force. God is Love. Love’s synonyms are harmony, balance, attraction, fulfillment, contentment, adhesion, and so on.

Second – we are made of love stuff
Being made in the image and likeness of God, we are made in the image and likeness of Love. Love is the new/old normal. We are so embraced by love, we can easily take it all for granted. It is what we yearn for, recognize immediately, can't live without, take daily doses of - all because it is the stuff out of which we are made.

Third - that we are loved unconditionally
Seeing that we are made in Love’s image and likeness, we are constantly companioned with Love – with thoughts of love, with harmony and balance in our lives, hope; these attributes of Love wash over us continuously and we are loved by God without conditions.

Fourth – that we are lovable and loving
Being made of love, we are naturally lovable and loving.

Fifth – we can love unconditionally
We are at our best when we love; stress disappears, distrust dissolves, joy emerges and forgiveness flows. The body relaxes and the thoughts are free to explore what is genius, spontaneous and intimate. We love the same way birds fly. We can love unconditionally because we were made to do this. When we go against this natural response, we clog up, resulting in all sorts of uncomfortable feelings and dis-ease.

SO - what does loving unconditionally mean to me?

Loving unconditionally means to be able to see others and myself as God sees them -- as good, beautiful, harmonious and free; and then to rejoice - be deep down happy - that we are all the children of Love. It is loving from a pure basis and not fearing.

It is easy to wax poetic about love - I Corinthians 13 does it best ( this is from The Message - a Bible paraphrase)

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.

Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.


SO - what does loving unconditionally mean to you?





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 Plan - a poem

Spiritual resource to share: other spiritually oriented websites!

I've been hopping onto TMCYouth.com a lot recently. The site is mainly for discussion on all things Christian Science - from healing oneself to questions about church and sharing Christian Science to questions about the Bible.

On this site, I found this little nugget of a poem called God's plan submitted by Newunffolddment.

For those of you new to Christian Science, God is defined in part by seven synonyms: Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life, Truth and Love. Enjoy!

A God orchestrated plan is one in which
Principle upholds,
what Mind constantly unfolds.

And Spirit enfolds,
what Love, already beholds.

Soul blends its rhythmic crescendo,
With Truth's harmony,
While creating and maintaining Life's balance-
From overture, to its complete fruition,
In restful rejoicing and gentle satisfaction.

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 amplitude, grandeur, vastness, enormity and fullness of God's love

Spiritual resource to share: immensity

(So I had a little fun with the thesaurus....) Okay - a little thought-spill* here: If you were to add up all the evil in the world, the injustice, disease, sin, stagnation, apathy, the threats, depression, intellectual self-justification and futility - would that overwhelm God? The textbook answer is no, but to answer that with our hearts, we would have to understand the largeness of God.

How to understand the largeness - the infinitude of God? It's a lifetime assignment. But for me and some friends, nature helps. "All nature teaches God's love for man" writes MBEddy and there is no better way than to look up to the stars, gaze across an ocean or hike up a mountain peak to get a glimpse of God's great love for us.

• A friend was healed of being overburdened when she felt a great clarity of God's love - as if God's love was the overarching sky and her human love only a pinprick in that large expanse.
• Another friend felt waves of God's comfort and warmth sitting in a field of acres of wheatgrass being gently blown by the wind, healing her of the stress of her circumstances.
• And I felt cleansed from an obsessive argument I had been having over an incident with a friend when I sat and prayed at lakeside. The depth of the lake and the consistent waves taught me about patience and trust in God's control of this situation.

Feeling the largeness of God's love makes everything else look small and inconsequential. All of the past hurts, complaints, injuries and injustices weigh "not one jot" in the kingdom of heaven. Their only purpose is to be overcome.

So we overcome them, drop them and turn to where it is really happening - to the truth of being. This is where the real story is. This is where hope blooms into help and creativity finds solutions for all kinds of problems. This is where we join God's divine adventure.

This quote from MBEddy's book Miscellaneous Writings (p. 42) helped:

Only as we understand God, and learn that good, not evil, lives and is immortal, that immortality exists only in spiritual perfection, shall we drop our false sense of Life in sin or sense material, and recognize a better state of existence.

Enjoy today - and don't forget to look up at the sky and remember how infinitely loved you are!



*thought-spill=an elevated form of brainstorm

photo by Gabe Korinek - copyright2007

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a God at hand

Spiritual resource to share: God's ever-presence

Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off?
Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord.

Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord. - Jeremiah

I have been thinking about this blog ever since I read about Mother Teresa's "crisis in faith" that chronicles her most intimate fear and despair, feeling that God did not show Himself to her once she took up the work with the poor. Now there is much to be said about this, and many questions I have about the ethics of publishing some of what Mother Teresa had to say. But the idea that has continued to egg me on to write this blog is the one that suggests that it is possible for anyone or everyone to feel a great gulf between God -the source of all good - and oneself.

I can't think of any single experience more difficult to deal with than this thought of separation. After a drawn out and difficult situation I was in, I felt this disconnect and it took me a long time to crawl out of it to the place where I am now - understanding that we can never be separated from God.

I'll share a couple of things I learned from this experience:

• I am worthy of love.
• God is always present; that means that a connection with God is always present.
• It is only fear or pride that would try to tempt us that we have lost our connection to God.

God cannot be outlined; when I pray, it is helpful for me not to outline how I want God to speak to me! Instead, I listen. God's presence can be felt in a memory that comes to me, a friend's communication, time spent outdoors appreciating nature, a thought that comes while I'm walking the dog, writing, driving, etc.

God can speak to each of us audibly as well. At different times in my life, I have heard, in answer to my prayer, the words, "Go this way" (when I was lost and alone in Central America); "Shutup!" (in answer to a rather self-centered and whiny prayer) and "You are dearly loved" (in response to a prayer where I was struggling with overload and anxiety and needing direction). For me, this audible response doesn't always happen, and I have learned to not limit God's voice to only one way.

There are times when I feel I am not getting any response. In those moments, I have found it helpful to know that those desires have been posted and trust the all-knowing Mind to already be operating on my behalf. Right now (because God is always loving and caring for His creation) progress is continuing, divine Love is supplying and Principle's laws are in operation. With this, I can take whatever steps I feel are a result of my highest sense of right and trust any necessary adjustments to God.

We are never alone. Jesus' promise "The kingdom of God is within you" is not a pantheistic claim, but a present fact that God is as close to us as our breath. Because God is, we are and because we are, God is. To Mother Teresa, whose work inspired a world to be more selfless and to love and serve one another, I hope that she will feel that love and closeness to God is still there.

See also Laura's blog about this same issue.







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.

ideas on Love

Spiritual resource to share: self-examination




How deep is your understanding of Love? I think that more than any of the seven synonyms of God related in the Christian Science textbook Science and Health (Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love), Love is the most intriguing to me. Love is such a common word. But in my study of Christian Science, I keep coming across more interesting and surprising concepts of Love that are as healing as they are inspiring.


Here is one instance where Jesus sums up what is most important in all things:

... Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

The Interpreter's Bible describes this kind of love mentioned above (mentioned in the intro to the Weekly Bible Lesson on Love)

• Love is active goodwill
• it is boundless and aggressive
• it is extended to those who have no person charm for us
• it may be beyond the boundaries of family, tribe or nation.

It moves me that in this work of healing, compassion and love are a prerequisite. If we cannot find a way to love and serve mankind, we cannot effectively love and serve God. "....if the unselfish affections be lacking, and common sense and common humanity are disregarded, what mental quality remains, with which to evoke healing from the outstretched arm of righteousness?"


For me to understand Love, is to undergo a self-examination of my own thought -- to challenge myself to get rid of ego and humbly ask for more understanding. This is not always easy. But I always feel freer for this exercise!


Another study guide for the Weekly Bible Lesson gives some good self-examination questions born out of a study of Love. It is so good, I have copied it here:

(Jesus') washing the disciple's feet provided an example of the humility and selflessness that would be necessary to further his cause. Rivalry and ambition would have no place in true Christianity. Jesus did more than serve at the table - a task not unusual for a host. He chose to perform an act usually done by slaves - washing feet. (Dummelow) He acknowledged that he was their master, and he reminded them that God was his.

Do you ever balk at doing menial tasks for others? Or do you sometimes feel that a particular job ... is beneath you? True Christian Love is not concerned with a return, status, or acknowledgement. It just gives unconditionally.

Mrs. Eddy eloquently points out that Jesus' humane deeds and unselfish approach were the evidence of his oneness with God. His life demonstrated and defined Truth, Life and Love. She asks, "Who is ready to follow his teaching and example?" Are you ready? How do we respond to the needs of the world? Do we neglect the poor? Sometimes (we may) have the mistaken notion that providing practical assistance to mankind is (beneath us).

Jesus met the human need practically, as well as metaphysically. Mrs. Eddy herself gave to many charities and at one time provided needy children of the town with shoes. She rightfully counsels us to examine ourselves to see where we really stand in our Christian practice. Bluntly, she states that pride is useless. "Meekness and charity have divine authority." Yet one more time, we are reminded that our power is proportionate to our goodness. If we want to be Christians, we have to follow Jesus' example. There is no other 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.

prayer at the airport

Spiritual resource to share: love and connection


It's been an airport kind of week. We saw our very fun and much loved Korean "son" off on his flight back home to South Korea. I dropped another son off on his way to see his best friend and then went on to pick up my other son who was coming back from Germany.

I have to say that one of my favorite places to be and to pray is right in the middle of the bustle of the international arrivals part of the airport. It is such a hopeful place.

For all of the variety of races, languages, dress and greetings - there is the undercurrent of energy that fuels the reason for all of this activity. And it is happiness. "Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish; therefore it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to share it."

I get to the arrivals section a little early. I like to do this when possible. I watch people as they wait for others, then see their faces light up when they find who they are looking for.

We (those who are waiting) are supposed to stay in a designated area behind a rope, so that when they (the passengers) arrive, they have an unblocked walkway. This all makes sense. Except when some people have been waiting so long for the people that they love so much, that no barrier is going to effectively hold them back one second longer from hugging the ones they have been waiting for as soon as their faces clear the doors of the entry.

So, I watch and wait and feel a little of what MBEddy talks about in Science and Health: "Hence the eternal wonder, — that infinite space is peopled with God's ideas, reflecting Him in countless spiritual forms."

More faces, some tired, happy, searching the sea of faces. I think: we are all so connected. We are all children of God, who is Truth and Love. One Truth. One Love. One family. I feel such hope. So, I ask myself: Can I reflect in some degree the infinite depths of God's love to embrace all of humanity? Can I echo Jacob's humbled response to his brother "I have seen thy face, as though I had seen the face of God." I am so engaged in this life lesson of love and connection. I know I'll be spending my life finding ways to answer yes over and over again.

My questions are interrupted as I see a tall young man who is looking over the crowd gathered behind the rope at the arrivals gate. It is my son. He seems taller, more confident. I wave, we hug and so begins the long ride home and hearing of adventures, new perspectives and the plans for bringing this all back home.











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 spirituality of sex

Spiritual resource to share: insight



Walking along Milwaukee's stretch of Lake Michigan, an old friend and I met and walked and talked and walked and talked for hours. We covered our lives, our children’s lives, the scope of our healing practices and our global responsibilities for prayer. It was great. Every now and then we would punctuate our conversations with “Wow!” and have to take notes on what the other just said.

One of my “Wow!” notes was when we talked about sex. Here are some of the ideas from that discussion:

I always thought that Gandhi had the healthiest view on sex – that it is sacred and based on commitment, responsibility, celebration and joy. My friend, however, commented that she found the best definition of good sex from Science and Health, from the chapter on Marriage.

Matrimony should never be entered into without a full recognition of its enduring obligations on both sides. There should be the most tender solicitude for each other's happiness, and mutual attention and approbation should wait on all the years of married life.

I paid particular attention to tender solicitude, mutual attention, and approbation. Tender solicitude is extreme care or concern for the well-being of another. Mutual attention is self explanatory - but it is interesting she says mutual attention and not mutual afffection. Approbation means official approval. Approbation and approval have the same general meaning, assenting to or declaring as good; and also means sanction, commendation; but approbation is stronger and more positive.

I found that these ideas: tender solicitude, mutual attention, approval/praise/wholehearted acceptance, offer the highest ingredients to the act of sex. Any expression of love has a spiritual foundation. And the unselfishness and acceptance that can accompany sex can make it a true act of love.

But I have found that anything done without a right sense of its spiritual nature loses meaning. This definitely applies to sex. Without a spiritual basis for sex, it can be used as a way to manipulate which leads to humiliation. If it is used as a way to compensate a perceived lack, it can also lead to co-dependence and further dissatisfaction.

When questioning the rightness of sex, it is helpful - even important - to examine the heart and see how much you are being motivated by unselfishness, tender solicitude, mutual attention and approbation. This can be a protection as well as a way to provide guidance.

Ask yourself, Am I doing this to be accepted, to be acknowledged as loved? Is this coming from mutual attraction, mutual respect, mutual and whole-hearted acceptance/approval?

Lust is about getting or taking. Love is about giving. Is this act about getting, or about giving? Is it being treated with the sacredness and tenderness for the most intimate expression of physical love, an act that can produce offspring? Am I treating this carelessly, casually or with a sense of solicitous care and protection? Does the person I am thinking of feel the same way or is there a sense of imbalance in the relationship? Does either of us feel the other is lacking - thus is not complete? Or is there joy in the sweet confidence you have in each other?

For the couple who have been married many years, these ideas can help renew the affections. You can ask yourself: Am I treating the act of sex as an obligation or as a celebration? Am I being careless or thoughtless about sex or am I feeling the tender solicitude and care toward my spouse? Am I just trying to get a sense of relief for myself, or am I trying to give of myself unselfishly?

Fulfillment, celebration, acceptance are not limited to the expression of sex, and a couple cannot lack any spiritual quality that will deepen and solidify their affections.

Any decisions regarding sex can lead to a fulfilling conclusion when it is based on spirituality. MBEddy writes "Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need." And this includes the need for belonging, loving, giving and even sex. When Love guides our actions, we are satisfied.





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.

Who is a Christian Scientist?

Spiritual resource to share: our God-love

Yesterday was National Prayer Day. Did any of you catch that? I spent it in part with the prayer team at the local hospital. There were three of us who gathered together. Each of us is at home with three different disciplines: an evangelical Baptist, a Catholic, and me, the Christian Scientist. (Of course, we all call each other Brian, Halcy and Kim.)

I always (really, I always) feel such a tenderness when getting together with this group. We are all doing what we can to help alleviate suffering through our highest sense of prayer. We looked at The Lord's Prayer and broke it down to four main elements (adoration/affirmation, confession/contrition, thanksgiving, and supplication/petition) and together shared our free-form prayers in each of those areas. As we shared, I noticed that we each were strong in a different element -- adding another dimension to one another's prayer. I love this kind of stuff.

Mary Baker Eddy has said some amazing things about our work with people of other denominations. It has been something I have thought about often. I am copying it down in total here, so I hope you'll read it and comment afterwards.

It is from Pulpit and Press ( p. 21)

Our unity with churches of other denominations must rest on the spirit of Christ calling us together. It cannot come from any other source. Popularity, self-aggrandizement, aught that can darken in any degree our spirituality, must be set aside. Only what feeds and fills the sentiment with unworldliness, can give peace and good will towards men.

All Christian churches have one bond of unity, one nucleus or point of convergence, one prayer, — the Lord's Prayer. It is matter for rejoicing that we unite in love, and in this sacred petition with every praying assembly on earth, — "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven."

If the lives of Christian Scientists attest their fidelity to Truth, I predict that in the twentieth century every Christian church in our land, and a few in far-off lands, will approximate the understanding of Christian Science sufficiently to heal the sick in his name. Christ will give to Christianity his new name, and Christendom will be classified as Christian Scientists.

When the doctrinal barriers between the churches are broken, and the bonds of peace are cemented by spiritual understanding and Love, there will be unity of spirit, and the healing power of Christ will prevail.

I am so happy to see - in a degree - doctrinal barriers be lifted and to learn of others who are practicing healing through prayer. I am happy to participate and grow here.

But the excerpt above has made me ask, who is a Christian Scientist?

In Science and Health, MBEddy refers "to those natural Christian Scientists, the ancient worthies, and to Christ Jesus, [to whom] God certainly revealed the spirit of Christian Science, if not the absolute letter." I certainly feel I have met a number of natural Christian Scientists who, in the discipline of their worship and dear love for God, humankind and all that is sacred, have inspired me to deepen my commitment to prayer and healing.

So now I have to ask you, who is a Christian Scientist?


(photos by Gabe Korinek)

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Spirituality Matrix: An Infinite Game

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, (page 258), Mary Baker Eddy writes, “God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis.” And further on down the page “We know no more of man as the true divine image and likeness, than we know of God.”

So if we are to understand ourselves and our friends and families spiritually, as God sees us, how can we understand God better?

Let's take the synonyms for God: Mind, Spirit, Soul, Life, Truth, Love and Principle (See Science and Health, page 465). Then, get out your dictionary, thesaurus, turn on your computer, or call up your crossword puzzle-loving uncle and come up with more synonyms for these synonyms, and then fill in your own matrix listing a row of synonyms on the top and a row of synonyms in a column on the left. And then ask: What is the Principle of Love? What is the Soul of Mind? What is the Spirit of Truth? You can come up with even more qualities that help explain the full spectrum of God’s qualities, and discover for example, just how creative God’s goodness is, how intelligent His beauty is and how powerful Her tenderness is – all these qualities are about God.

Knowing more about God, we know more about ourselves. As a child of our Father-Mother God, we reflect all His qualities, all of Her attributes. When we see ourselves as God sees us, and understand ourselves as spiritual, it is easier to see others spiritually as well. Then, we can see our own creative goodness, our friend's intelligent beauty and a family member’s powerful tenderness.

There is no end to this infinite exercise that helps us to understand the infinite qualities of God, qualities that each of us express in unique and individual ways.



Kim

The Book of Roberta

This could have been titled, The Book of Bill, or The Book of Linda, or the Book of You. Every individual is worthy of their own book to be written about them. Every individual has a poetry about them. Every person has a story, has someone who has brought them into this world, has experienced different degrees of love, has been fed, clothed, slept and awakened; and every person has given a bit of wisdom to this world.

Some of my favorite books would be about:

• My dad – who loves the northwoods and the harshness of winter and the stamina of the human spirit
• My cousin - artist of clay, lint, glass, etc., who has an uncommon elegance and can transform any material object into that elegance
• My friend from work - intelligent and searching, she brings her microscopic inquisitiveness to the issues of every day
• The gentle and steady nature of a new friend - although struggling through a difficult time, maintains a hope and a grace.

When I was a kid, whenever we needed to pick someone up at the airport, my cousins and I would dress up and go early, so we could watch people. We would sit quietly and just wonder at them, wonder where they were going, who they were going to see, what they were going to do. The arrivals area was always hopping. (See the opening part of the movie "Love, Actually.")

It was in this attentive watchfulness that I learned there is no difference between the young, old, rich, poor, badly dressed and exquisitely dressed. To me, people were always swirling around love, connectedness and beauty.

But there seemed to be a universal need to understand more of who we are and where we come from. We need to know this, because we are wired to know this -- it comes from the primitive nature of who we are – spiritual beings born of Love and Truth. Indeed, Love and Truth are our guiding forces, our guiding light, leading us home to where we always thought we should be. [Did you get that? I am having a hard time explaining this. Let me try again: It is a progressively ascending circuitous path. (1)We feel we should be loved, connected and beautiful, so (2)we seek out those things, only to find that (3)they have been a part of us all along, but only in a much higher way. ... Is that better?]

I'll leave you with three inspiring messages that confirm our beauty and connectedness, and our worthiness for a book to be written about each of us.

• "Wings of Desire" , a film by German director Wim Wenders whose images of angels with us reminds me that we are never alone.
• Mother Theresa, who sees the Christ in every one she helps. "I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper's wounds, I feel I am nursing the Lord himself. Is it not a beautiful experience?" -- 1974 interview
• And a confirmation from the Bible that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made." Psalms 139:14)

From the Book of Kim,

Kim

please feel free to add your own book or comments or visit my website, wwwkimckorinek.com.

Snippets and healing

There are small overlooked phrases from the Bible that have stuck with me for years. Concise little greetings and comments, that - when I have paid attention to them, have rewarded me with comforting gems and healing power. This one is from the King James version of the Bible, and it sounds so intimate and sweet. In few words it captures the feeling of God as a gentle father and wise mother:

“Oh Lord, my God, mine holy One.”

Another one: John, one of the disciples, often started his letters with a humble, loving greeting to those he had come to meet:

“My little children….”

And yet another desire of pitiful patience and encouragement:

“O man, greatly beloved, peace be unto thee. Be strong, yea be strong.”

And another one about people earnestly waiting for Jesus to come into town:

"And the people gladly received him, for they were all waiting for him.”

These snippets color the Bible with a familiarity of God that has lasted over thousands of years.

One morning, I had a Bible snippet come to thought. It was prior to a response Jesus gave to a man who had asked him a question:

“And Jesus, beholding him, loved him.”

I like the word behold. It is one of those full round embracing words. I could just imagine the compassionate look on his face, answering this rather cocky, but earnest man.

Well, one morning, my younger son woke up for school and said in a very thick voice, “I kennud talk. Muh voiy ih gun and muh thro huhrts.” (I cannot talk. My voice is gone and my throat hurts.) And then the phrase,

“and Jesus, beholding him, loved him”

popped into my thought. I love my son. So I beheld him. It then occurred to me that he might have to stay home, then I would have to get his homework for the day and then he would spend the next two days catching up. This was not helpful.

So instead, I prayed. It was a simple thought: A germ does not determine what Gabe does, God determines Gabe’s day. This day belongs to God. Period. Together Gabe and I talked about his identity as a spiritual idea and prayed with the "Scientific Statement of Being" from Science and Health (p 468). We finished. He finished breakfast. Got dressed. Said in a clear voice, “I’m off!” and took off for school, completely free of the sore throat.

Another snippet came to thought:

“Heal me and I shall be healed… for thou art my praise.”

(Bible quotes in order: Habakkuk 1:12; 1 John 3:18; Daniel 10:11; Luke 8:40; Jeremiah 17:14)

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