Mother-wisdom

Spiritual resource to share: mother-love

After I wrote my first blog about my dad, my mom commented, a little wryly, that I had never written one about her! Well, I checked and realized little bits of mom's wisdom were scattered all over my posts.

This being our first Mother's Day without her, I realized just how much her life's experiences and values are woven into mine. One of the many things we share in common is a love of Christian Science. Its founder, Mary Baker Eddy, wrote something that rings so true and gives me great comfort:

The beautiful in character is also the good, welding indissolubly the links of affection. A mother's affection cannot be weaned from her child, because the mother-love includes purity and constancy, both of which are immortal. Therefore maternal affection lives on under whatever difficulties.

Here are some of my favorite bits of Mother-wisdom I wrote about in my past blogs. Enjoy!

When I left home for college, my mother and I still maintained a very close relationship. When she would call me on the phone, I knew it was her before I answered. And many times when I would call her, she would answer the phone with "Hello Kim!" ( and this was well before caller ID!)

I also noticed that when I was away from home and in trouble, my mom would later tell me that she felt I was in trouble of some kind and would either start praying or try to get in touch with me. This phenomenon became quite natural and it just was the way we operated.

I came to see how much of this was a direct reflection of our infinite Father-Mother God - God who is always knowing our needs, always there to comfort, guard and guide us. God is constantly talking to each one of us. God is constantly sharing with us ideas that help protect us, provide for us and comfort us.

Two of my favorite citizens of the world are my mother and a former colleague. What they have in common was that they love people deeply and unconditionally. My mother has not yet traveled outside of her country, but every friend I have ever introduced to my parents, from Ethiopia, Iceland, Germany, Cameroon, Colombia, Brazil, Colorado, next door – it almost doesn’t matter where they are from – she just loves them.

Likewise, a former colleague: She speaks nine languages and moves from one culture to the next with hardly a blip. They both know what it takes to be a global citizen.

The best "global citizens" I know are those who love most unconditionally. They love beyond cultures and borders. They love knowing that we are all God’s children and we are all welcomed and at home in the world.


I grew up with the idea that "there is no spot where God is not." My mother always assured me that God is love and is everywhere. This comforting thought helped ease me through many new situations, and it comforts me now. There is no hollow area where God's presence, comfort and love cannot be felt.

Heaven - all that is good - is right here, right now. "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. She got the heaven thing right on.


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. Her tenderness and loving kindness is how I came to understand God. 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. It started with being able to feel the love of God through my own understanding and my mom’s example.

I went to pick up my mother for an evening event. She had been waiting half the day to tell me about her latest "Aha!" Finally, we had a moment and she shared an inspiring moment of understanding more about God. This opened up for her a whole new and helpful way of seeing things. "Enlightening, isn't it?" she winked.

Mary Baker Eddy explains this in Science and Health:
When understanding changes the standpoints of life and intelligence from a material to a spiritual basis, we shall gain the reality of Life, the control of Soul over sense, and we shall perceive Christianity, or Truth, in its divine Principle.

The real story, the primary story, is that we gain a better understanding of how God really operates. We get it. We understand more of the principles behind Christianity, behind Truth itself. And that is when life gets bigger, broader and more inclusive. And that illuminates our whole world.




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 light that keeps shining

Spiritual resource to share: comfort

Days after the thrill of a surprising victory at a recent competition my son was in, we heard the tragic news. One of his schoolmates passed on after a short illness. This had us all running for comfort, trying to find ways to make sense of this.

Comfort is a gift. And, like a gift, it has to be accepted. This may be hard after shocking news, but after the anger and questions calm down, we can reach out for and receive comfort.

There is a song about comfort:

Like as a mother, God comforteth Her children,

comfort is calm, that bids all tumult cease.

Comfort is hope and courage for endeavor,

comfort is love, whose home abides in peace.*

Comfort as calm, as hope, as courage, as love. This is a gift for each of us. This is a gift that helps to clear our head so we can see what is true and lasting about life.

Some say that time will heal the hard headache of grief. But perhaps that is only the time it takes

• to let go of the disorientation and welcome a new re-orientation to life.
• to stop looking at the lost opportunities and find the opportunities that exist right now to love each other, to help each other, to enjoy each other.
• to replace the shame of past unkindnesses with the affirmation of the life (the love, the goodness, the joy) that was shared
• to replace the guilt of forgetting with the balm of forgiveness. It is not too late.
• and finally, to exchange the fear of loss and change with an understanding of what is changeless.

Sooner or later, we recognize the integral part each friend, each family member and even each acquaintance has in the fabric of our lives. We weave into one another's lives like the threads that weave over and under and cross each other in a taut fabric ..... and there is no unraveling.

Love is spiritual and good - like light. We can no more lose what is good than we can lose light. Consider that the absence of a loved one brings their gifts into sharp focus and demands recognition!

My son and his classmates are celebrating their friend's life. They are preparing a memorial service with his pictures, his stories and all that he brought to this startlingly connected school community. This action - shared by the whole school - was quickly becoming an affirmation of life and the continuity of community. His friend's life's connections showed them what their life connections were.

"Mom, I want to stay here with my friends" my son explained to me when I asked if he wanted to come home for a while, "you can feel the healing going on."

It becomes more obvious than ever before that we are all important to one another. The light that we bring to others keeps shining. And the light of this friend goes on in all the lives of all the people he touched.

* Christian Science Hymnal Hymn #174


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.

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the mistake about mistakes

Spiritual resource to share: corrections

I was thinking about mistakes today and realized that there are a few mistakes about mistakes that need clearing up.

1. The first misconception to reverse is that mistakes define us.

Have you ever thought that something you did caused enough harm to define you for life? An article was written by an individual who was freed from the idea that her life was forever marred by the past mistakes made when she realized that God created her life -- it was ever new. Mistakes don't define us. God does. God is the one who maintains and sustains us. Our "willingness to become as a little child" and to honor God's constant creation helps us really get what is new! Our decision to live aright can begin now and this claim of our God given authority over sin, disease and death defines us.

2. The second misconception is that mistakes confine us.

Have you ever felt that some mistake that you or another has made severeely limited your experience? A couple years ago, I made a major mistake with my son’s airline ticket and it looked as if his longed for trip overseas would have to be cancelled. But when I was able to see that all things are possible to God and to forgive myself for making such an error, I was able to move on and listen for ideas that helped restore the trip. And in three days, he was able to go on that trip overseas.

God governs our lives. God is the source of all activity, harmony and bliss! The only activity that comes from a mistake is the adjustment or correction that is needed.A mistake is by definition an absence of something good. Let’s shorten that. A mistake is an absence – a nothingness. So there is really nothing that can confine us.

3. The last misconception to tackle is that mistakes refine us.

Sometimes there is a notion that God sends us obstacles to strengthen us. This seems incongruous with a loving God. It isn't the mistake or the obstacle that causes us to grow. It is the yearning for more of our freedom that causes us to grow.

The only activity required of a mistake is its correction! If we are trying to find a cause for some mistake we will either tire of this line of reasoning, or realize that the correct answer (or correct view of man) is the only answer and the only way out of the most perplexing questions. Our patience, persistence and grace refine us.


Mistakes can be corrected. Forgiveness helps to wipe away whatever influence we have given to these mistakes and clears our path to see God working on our behalf to restore justice, well-being and health.


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.

we are called - revisited

Spiritual resource to share: affirmation of our worth

When I originally wrote this post a couple of years ago, it was actually called: Pausing to feel the love of God. I came across this while looking for another post I did about peace. I thought you all would find it helpful, so here it is:


It seemed a bit odd to take a break and go to this retreat. But the prayer team that I have recently joined at our local hospital was putting it on, and I was drawn to it.

I have recently committed myself to learning one new thing about God every day, and this retreat was a good beginning point.

Central to the retreat was a study of the Exodus in the Old Testament. As we got to know one another, and settled in comfortable chairs, the retreat started. A nun with dark eyes and a wide smile, started talking about the Exodus story, slowly weaving into it current stories of her life and encouraging others to share stories from their lives and how it paralleled the Exodus story.

It was quite lovely --- sun streaming in and all.

To make the connection with Moses' life and ours, was to see that we are all called. We are called, invited, protected and nurtured by an infinite God , whom we know relatively little about and will spend most of our lives working to understand. This is big stuff.

In trust we move forward.
Sometimes reluctantly, like Moses, who apparently couldn't speak worth a darn. Or sometimes, with an ego that says, "It's about time I was called! I have QUALIFICATIONS!!" But it is the meekness that God seems to favor. The meek are those who KNOW they have to lean on God in order to get the job done.

To talk to God, Moses took off his shoes.
Taking off one's shoes, you feel the ground. It is a recognition of entering a sacred space. Isn't it encouraging to think that you can put yourself in the presence of God, just by recognizing that now - this time, right here, is a sacred space. When we are together, when I am with a patient, we are in a sacred space. "If I am present with the song" my friends can feel this.

God calls you.
Or as I saw it, God calls me. He calls me by my name. He knows me. God confirms me.
The idea that we each have a divine imprint is an idea that many spiritual thinkers have embraced. Even now, the idea of each person "being wired for spirituality", or having a divine imprint is being embraced in many forms of health care, as well as in organized religion and with independent spiritual seekers.

But regardless of the growing popular thought, the idea that God knows me hits home. I know that this is true. God treats each one of His ideas, His children as a world within itself. I also know, inexplicably so, that the key to understanding this is the key to understanding peace among individuals, and among nations.

Moses was called from something to something.
So we are called from something to something. I was recently laid off from a job from which I still feel a sense of awe. I also felt that when the job was done, it was done. If I was called from that one wonderful thing, I can see that I am now being called toward something. I gained a huge chunk of peace just knowing -- and affirming -- that God never stops calling us from one wonderful thing to another.

God loves us. Really, really loves us. The Sister's face was never more animated as when she explained how much God loves us. Meister Echkart, 12th Century Christian mystic, was quoted as saying that God is 1000 times more eager to give what we are much less eager to receive.

And on this note, we closed, each one pausing, then stating just how much God loves each one of us. It was affirming, it was nourishing. Then we all put our proverbial shoes back on and went out.








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.

a modern day tares and wheat story

Spiritual resource to share: seeing the wheat, being patient with the tares

I went to a conference last weekend. I was pretty excited to be there, but I knew it would be hosted by a person with whom I have had a hard time appreciating. In addition to a big voice, he seemed to have a big ego, and oftentimes would start his talks with negative stories about some of the kids and parents he worked with, and throughout his talks would highlight these negative stories.

This would be my second conference, and I was determined to see this individual in a more loving light. As the conference progressed, so did the negative stories and disrespectful portrayals of those who made "mistakes." I cringed. I exchanged unkind remarks about this speaker with the person I was sitting near. That's when I realized I was doing a lousy job of seeing this person anywhere near how God must be seeing him -- as made in His image and likeness. I realized I had let myself get caught up in the tares and not the wheat.

So I sat back and really listened at what was happening at this conference. It truly was amazing. The conference had incredibly high ideals. So many people and families had benefitted from the programs that this conference was promoting. All those involved in the conference were volunteers and spent thousands of hours every year to help these programs forward. And now my family was one of the many families who were going to be the beneficiaries of all their hard work. The good that was done was almost overwhelming. The preparation to participate in these programs was thorough, thoughtful and heartwarming.

So, a little course correction was in order. Now, whenever I thought of this person, I would think of his dedication, his big heart (he loved his work) and his generosity with his time and money. Toward the end of the conference, a group of participants got together to write a poem of gratitude to this man. It lovingly joked about his ego and tact (or lack thereof) and poured on the gratitude for the hundreds of lives he touched and for the good that had been acomplished because of his dedicated work. He cried. I teared up and was one of the first to stand up for a standing ovation. And I meant it.

It was a good lesson in being patient with one another for any flaws we may be carrying around, and a reminder that it is the good that we do that is lasting and has meaning - not only for ourselves but for others. The tares and the wheat may be growing side by side in our character, but it is the wheat that wins out.







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.

delete - permanent trash - spam guard

Spiritual resource to share: removing obstacles and affirming what is true






A couple of quotes from my favorite author, MBEddy:

"But the pursuit of modern material inventions?"
"Oh, we cannot oppose them. They all tend to newer, finer, more etherealized ways of living. They seek the finer essences. ..... We use them, we make them our figures of speech. They are preparing the way for us." (from Miscellany, p. 35)

AND juxtaposing that with this one:

"Stand porter at the door of thought. Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily results, you will control yourself harmoniously."

So now, we have a new way of looking at ways we can "stand porter."



When a thought comes, tempting us to doubt, be dishonest, think less than well of others, etc. we can choose to thoroughly eradicate it by

• deleting it: no need to go into the details of how it has been programmed, how long or short it has been, where it has originated -- just press "delete"
• permanent trash: confirm file delete - go after it and confirm that it has been deleted; empty out all the trash permanently. Trust that this is the end of that thought.
• Spam Guard: be alert to other similar thoughts that try to sneak into consciousness. Trust the protection that God has given us to "rise in the strength of spirit to overome all that is unlike God."
  

Now the fun and wonderful part - admitting only those thoughts that are good, enduring, spontaneous and brilliant. Nothing can stand in the way of a thought filled with these truths!

(yes, I know. The picture is so clichẻ.)



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.

No!

Spiritual resource to share: affirmations of Truth




With all my sons and adopted sons gone on special trips today, my thought went back to some of the special trips I have done over the years and what I learned from them. One summer I hiked up a 14,000 foot mountain - to the top -- and I did this several times throughout the summer.

On what was probably my first peak climb, I was struggling. Oow! Midway to the peak, I was tired, my boots were still getting their newness walked out of them (my feet and shoes had not yet come to an agreement), and every time I thought I was at the top or much nearer the peak - I would come to a rise, only to realize I still had a long, long way to go. So, pain, discouragement, still feeling like the rookie in the group all ganged up on me and I felt miserable. I did, however, know how to pray. So I had a go at it.

No! was actually the essence of a prayer that helped me climb my first 14,ooo foot peak. I needed a prayer loud and clear that could cut through my own mountain of discouragement. No! did it all. So the last half of that climb I yelled No! (I did this inside of my head - I was a rookie, but I didn't want to seem like a weirdo rookie.) I yelled No! to every discouraging thought and No! to every thought of pain. I also took the practical steps of evenning out my pace and not looking up all the time and asking myself 'how much farther?'

After my brilliant and exhilarating first ascent (!), I found this in Science and Health:

Denial of the claims of matter is a great step towards the joys of Spirit, towards human freedom and the final triumph over the body.

I could see that just by saying No! to the emotional and physical discomfort, I was also clearing the path - literally and figuratively - to see what was already there: God's beauty, myself made in His image and likeness, the comfort and support of those making the climb with me. The denial of the claims of matter opened my eyes to what already existed: me as reflecting God's grace, energy, and love.

It's a lesson that has stayed with me and a lesson I draw on whenever I find myself in situations that seem particularly stubborn. By saying No! to pain and discouragement, I am saying Yes! to God's omnipotent power and goodness.





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.