cool old guys - revisited

Spiritual resource to share: ageless living

When I grow up, I want to be like these guys. My dad and my two uncles are adventurous, always trying new things, traveling, reading, teaching others or joking around. Life is never dull here.


About a year and a half ago, I was inspired my my parents and aunts and uncles and wrote this blog and called it celebrate the octogenarian. Enjoy!


Here are some of the activities from the last few years of my favorite octogenarians: downhill skiing, travel to Italy, sailing across the Black Sea, writing as a regular columnist for the local paper, canoeing, managing a specialty bookstore, getting back into real estate, memorizing Shakespeare, etc.


Even Mary Baker Eddy is on my list of favorites -- she was the one who put the finishing touches on the Christian Science world wide movement and started up The Christian Science Monitor when she was eighty-something. All before women even had the right to vote!


These guys have got a wonderful sense of agelessness. Who says you can't play at any age? The Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures written by Mary Baker Eddy certainly confirm this:

And thine age shall be clearer than the noonday; thou shalt shine forth, thou shalt be as the morning - Job

The measurement of life by solar years robs youth and gives ugliness to age. The radiant sun of virtue and truth coexists with being. Manhood is its eternal noon, undimmed by a declining sun. - Science and Health

I love how Mary Baker Eddy characterizes growing older. She says,

Men and women of riper years and larger lessons ought to ripen into health and immortality, instead of lapsing into darkness or gloom. - Science and Health

As my lessons are getting larger and my years more ripe I remember years ago, when I went to a talk (later written up as an essay entitled "Doing Sixty") by Gloria Steinem. It was unforgettable. "I love sixty" she said "there are no rules anymore."


So I am now asking myself, "Whose rules am I following? Material health laws or God's laws?"


The choice is, of course, God's laws. My expectation is that year after year, I will grow into understanding more about beauty, power, abundance and peace. One day, after skiing down some slope, hiking up some mountain or writing a prize winning blog about spirituality and agelessness, I, too, will become someone's favorite octogenarian.

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.

What does one need to be healed? What does one need to grow spiritually?

Spiritual resource to share: willingness

These two questions are inseparable. Being healed spiritually is a whole transformation of thought that results in a more spiritualized thought and that may result in physical cure, balanced relationships and conditions, and improved character.

I was thinking about how Jesus healed. In so many of his healings, he required or asked something of the one seeking healing. Like the following:

And Jesus answered and said unto him, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? Mark 10: 51
When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? John 5: 6
Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. John 5: 8

This made me ask, what was being asked of those seeking healing? What type of thought did they have that enabled them to grow spiritually and to be healed?

The first thought was that it was willingness. This actually covers a lot of ground. MBEddy says it succinctly:

Willingness to become as a little child and to leave the old for the new,
renders thought receptive of the advanced idea. SH 323

In other words, willingness to become new! To drop ego, and discard hidden or unhidden agendas, bad habits, anything that would limit, dependence on things or processes (like – “I have to have my morning coffee!”), rehearsing arguments in your head, rigidly outlining outcomes and so on.

Now this is easy when we are sick. Who wouldn’t want to be free of some sickness! But it is a little harder when dealing with sin.

What other qualities were expressed by those who were healed? With my own healings, and looking at those stories in which Jesus healed, there are some similar qualities of thought:

• An openness and receptivity to take in new ideas
• An expectation of good – expecting that there will be an insight, an improvement and satisfaction; expecting to be surprised with new insights and solutions
• Humility – that is that willingness to lay aside ego
• Giving our consent – similar to expectation, but consent gives permission or agreement to the healing and transformation expected
• Gratitude – seeing what is good and true in every situation; even the recognition of good in the smallest of circumstances can get you started in the right direction.
• Stating what is true – like gratitude, even stating what you already know to be true (that God is Love, that we are all created by God, Love, and so on…) can grow into a fuller understanding and acceptance of your wholeness and completeness.

As I look over my life and the healings I've had, of physical, relationship and financial problems, I see that they have all benefitted me personally, but most important of all, they have benefitted me spiritually, and I am so much better for it!




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 did you get for Christmas?

Spiritual resource to share: your gifts

One of the most touching messages I received this Christmas was from a friend who lost her husband earlier this year. In her Christmas message to friends, she recounted the wonderful gifts her husband gave to us all. Among them were the gifts of curiosity, joy, generosity and acceptance. These are the gifts that bring comfort year-round.

This made me reflect on all the gifts that I have been given all year - gifts that keep opening up!

• peace and the promise of peace
• companionship
• atmosphere of vitality and creativity
• healing
• new and continually fresh views of God - daily!

The beauty of these gifts is that they are contagious and replenish themselves. In the Bible it says, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."

So, what are your top five gifts that you got for Christmas?





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.

Light a candle/Encienda una vela

Spiritual resource to share: your gratitude, your light
Recurso para compartir: su gratitud, su luz

Light a candle and share what you are most grateful for with millions of others around the world. Click here to share!

In this season of gratitude, I just wanted to say how grateful I am that we can all connect and align our thoughts and hearts to greater and greater good. Thanks for stopping by.

Encienda una vela y comparte que es el más agradecido con millones de personas alrededor del mundo. ¡Haga clique aquí para compartir!

En esta estación de la gratitud, estoy feliz que podamos todos conectar y alinear nuestros pensamientos y corazones. Gracias por su visitas.










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.

transitions

Spiritual resource to share: gratitude

Tom's Burned Out Cafe on Madeline Island

"A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle." James Keller

"The law of gravity cannot be held accountable for people falling in love." A. Einstein

"Your silence will not protect you." Audre Lorde

"If you harbour bitterness, happiness will dock elsewhere."

And on and on and on. My family and I spent our last summer weekend biking and camping at Madeline Island and stopped at Tom's Burned Down Cafe before taking the ferry back to the mainland, and then back home. Tom's Burned Down Cafe is a piece of work - a northwoods tavern littered with the wisdom, satire and bloopers of the ages written all over its walls, bars, chairs and tables (see samples above). It was a fitting end to a full weekend and to a summer full of its own wisdom, satire and bloopers!

Really, it was a great summer. We all stretched - traveled farther than we have ever traveled, challenged ourselves beyond limits, stretched our budget, and stretched our ideas of what is possible in our lives. Mmmm....Wonderful.

So now, we are faced with moving forward to school, work schedules and a more regular rhythm of life.

In this transition time, I am so grateful for the summer. The good experienced and the spiritual growth gained will only continue. That is simply the nature of good and spiritual growth. Gratitude is so good for transition times.

I remember another major transition I went through a couple of years ago. For over a year, people at my work were being laid off, and it looked likely that my job would be cut as well. For more than a year, I started the practice of going to bed listing everything I was grateful for.

These gratitude sessions would be specific, and I would count the spiritual impulse behind each one of them. For instance, I was grateful for a specific project that I was on, because it taught me more about trust and patience than I had ever experienced. I was grateful that both our sons had made good friends, so they knew how to adjust to new situations and find that fun and loving companionship is everywhere. I was grateful for meeting so many people earnestly seeking out spiritual answers in their lives. I learned more about humility and universal brotherly love.

In practicing this gratitude, I was literally lifted above any kind of anxiety. I was so clear about God's progressive goodness, that there was no doubt that this progressive goodness would continue.

It turned out that I was laid off. But within about two weeks, my family and I found another home across the country, were able to sell our home and set ourselves up with new work.

How have you prayed during transitions in your life? This is a question being posed on spirituality.com's weekly question. Check out other's responses or add your own!




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 is peace?

Spiritual resource to share: equanimity, serenity

It has been quite a peaceful day: Prayer, new inspiration mixed with cool breezes throughout the day and a family meal with two new people at our table for dinner. Now that the meal is over, the table cleared and everyone into their evening, I have some time to myself and to reflect 'What exactly is peace?' and wanted to share some thoughts with you.

More than the absence of violence – I think that peace is the atmosphere where healing happens, creativity is unleashed and laughter is second nature.

The Hebrew word for peace, "shalom," means "whole" and points to contentedness, gratitude and unselfishness within oneself and between people.

So why is this important? It's because the inner thought is expressed in the outer action.

I ask myself:

How is peace a part of my life?
I can control my anger.
I can refuse to participate in violence, by increasing my confidence in the power of good - the omnipotence of Truth. Truth is natural, primitive.

Is my family practicing peace?
Are my sons being taught how to respond, and not to react to anger?
Are we ( my husband and I ) modeling good conflict resolution, respect for one another and the ability to listen – truly listen – with our hearts?

How am I practicing peace?
Am I contributing to peace in my community?
Am I supporting those activites that channel energies into productive and helpful channels?
Am I investing in my community by acknowledging what is good and multiplying that good?
Am I being a productive citizen? Caring for the earth, for my neighbors
Am I publishing peace – making peaceful and grateful gestures to the grocery clerk, the telemarketer? Spending time to magnify peace in all areas of my life?

MBEddy's comments have a special resonance when it comes to disciplining one's life with peace:

We should remember that the world is wide; that there are a thousand million different human wills, opinions, ambitions, tastes, and loves; that each person has a different history, constitution, culture, character, from all the rest; that human life is the work, the play, the ceaseless action and reaction upon each other of these different atoms.

Then, we should go forth into life with the smallest expectations, but with the largest patience; with a keen relish for and appreciation of everything beautiful, great, and good, but with a temper so genial that the friction of the world shall not wear upon our sensibilities; with an equanimity so settled that no passing breath nor accidental disturbance shall agitate or ruffle it; with a charity broad enough to cover the whole world's evil, and sweet enough to neutralize what is bitter in it, — determined not to be offended when no wrong is meant, nor even when it is, unless the offense be against God. (from Miscellaneous Writings, p. 224)

What is peace to you?

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The OPPE of praise

Spiritual resource to share: gratitude

Every Sunday School class of mine goes through a praise phase. There is so much in the Bible about praise, it is worth at least a major focus!

Consider many of the Psalms and the beginnings to many of the Paul's letters in the New Testament which start with praise and gratitude:

I will praise thee, O Lord, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works.
I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people: I will sing unto thee among the nations.
We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you.
We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers.

So why all this about praise? My Sunday School kids helped me break it down:

• Praise opens our thought to more and more of God's goodness.
• Praise purifies. Nothing can enter into a heart full of praise.
• Praise protects. Constantly affirming the reality of God as good automatically denies evil a place for activity.
• Praise establishes us. Acknowledging God, we are actually acknowledging who we are as children of God. Our inseparable relationship to God remains intact.

To remember this, we referred to this as the OPPE of praise to which they added more attributes of praise: it helps us acknowledge God, remember good, love others, etc. Whether this is done in the stillness of the morning, the quiet of the night or in the middle of an active day, praise is as nourishing and uplifting as the air we breathe!

For more on gratitude and love click on here and here and here for other fellow healers' comments. And for a rousing, inspiring blast of praise, click on the picture above or below of the Soweto Gospel Choir. Wonderful.

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.

gratitude + humility = protection

Spiritual resource to share: protection

• Humility is the stepping-stone to a higher recognition of Diety.
• Great charity and humility is necessary in this work of healing.
  - from Mary Baker Eddy's Miscellaneous Writings
  

I was an administrator of a nursing care facility in the late 80's and was attending a workshop hosted by our headquarters. A representative of the Board of Directors shared greetings from the Board and expressed gratitude for what we were doing. Well, I certainly felt justified in this gratitude - because after all, I was working nine hours a day and had to take occasional calls on weekends!

Then we were thanked again and this representative went into greater detail about just how grateful the Board was to have us there, how grrateful they were for the support of our families, etc. I remember thinking that that was nice.

Then, we were thanked again. I started feeling a little uncomfortable. But when we were thanked again for the fourth time, I started feeling that I needed to do much more if I was to be worthy of all this gratitude just pouring out from the Board!!

I also knew that this Board was under significant criticism for taking some new and innnovative steps. This only made their statement of gratitude even more poignant.

I could see how their sincere gratitude also provided a protection to the individuals on the Board. Nothing can really touch a heart deep in humility and gratitude. And not only did this provide a safe haven for those really out there making a difference, but it helped bring progressive ideas to the institution that are still in place today. So it provided protection to the individuals involved, to the institution as a whole and to the new and progressive ideas that helped many more outside of the institution's walls.

That experience gave me such a tangible sense of the power and protection of love, humility and gratitude, I will never forget it. It has and continues to embolden me to do those things I feel bring the most love and healing to others, and to do so with humility and grace.

Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health "Clad in the panoply of Love, human hatred cannot reach you. The cement of a higher humanity will unite all interests in the one divinity." We are safe when we love and when we heal.




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 is happiness?

Spiritual resource to share: happiness


Quick on the heels of growing medical studies about the effectiveness of healing through prayer, there is now a body of research being pioneered to determine what constitutes happiness.

In a recent news article, "Researchers seek routes to happier life " the head researcher comments on how simple "exercises" based on gratitude can bring about happiness. For many of us non-researcher types, this has been as obvious as the popularity of Oprah's gratitude journals and has become a regular part of our daily practice (as seen on different blogs of friends).

Gratitude, love, joy -- it's all connected to happiness. The website www.spiritualityandpractice.com connects it all this way:

Joy is an essential spiritual practice growing out of faith, grace, gratitude, hope, and love. It is the pure and simple delight in being alive. Joy is our elated response to feelings of happiness, experiences of pleasure, and awareness of abundance. It is also the deep satisfaction we know when we are able to serve others and be glad for their good fortune.

I hope we can see more of this type of research. All things that require a deeper understanding of our spiritual essence are going to help move thought forward from a sensual and materialistic explanation of life to a more spiritual sense of life. And, I am convinced, the more grounded we are in a spiritual understanding of life, the more happy we are.

Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,

The author's medical researches and experiments had prepared her thought for the metaphysics of Christian Science. Every material dependence had failed her in her search for truth; and she can now understand why, and can see the means by which mortals are divinely driven to a spiritual source for health and happiness.

I am also convinced that our primitive natures are spiritual. So, the only thing that truly satisfies us are spiritual things -- found in God - who is our highest sense of what is good, pure and enduring. Here are some more thoughts from Mary Baker Eddy on happiness:

Soul has infinite resources with which to bless mankind, and happiness would be more readily attained and would be more secure in our keeping if sought in Soul. Higher enjoyments alone can satisfy the cravings of immortal man.

Happiness is spiritual; born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish, therefore, it cannot exist alone but requires all mankind to share it.

May you have a happy day and share it with many!




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.

(Photo by Kim)

lighting a candle of gratitude -- an ongoing Thanksgiving

Every morning for the last two years or so, I would either wake up or go to sleep feeling really grateful about something: my work, my family, what I am learning about God, etc. Looking back over those two years, I can see that this gratitude has had an amazing payback.

• In these last two years I have made major changes along with my family. These transitions have gone very smoothly.
• I have launched on a career that I had been hoping to do for almost 30 years!
• My family is closer than ever.
• I am learning more about God and Her infinite goodness in surprising ways.
• I am less afraid of things that I was afraid of.
• I am more committed to be a contributing global citizen.

Gratitude kind of feeds on itself, and I find the more grateful I am, the more I have to be grateful for! In Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, she sums this up nicely:

Are we grateful for the good already received? Then we shall avail ourselves of the blessings we have, and thus be fitted to receive more.

On Thanksgiving Day in the US, there will be a surge of gratitude expressed. But I welcome you all to join on ongoing gratitude fest by lighting a candle of gratitude along with others from 242 other countries. "Light a candle" is hosted by gratefulness.org - a bridge and forum for grateful hearts everywhere. The vision for their site is "to create a worldwide community dedicated to gratefulness as the core inspiration for personal change, international cooperation, and sustainable activism in areas of universal concern."

gratefully,

Kim




Please feel free to add your own comments or visit my website at www.kimckorinek.com.