Complete. Perfect.

Spiritual resource to share: new-old inspiration
Well, this is my last in the series of "Complete" posts.  So to sum it all up, what does it mean to be complete? It has a lot to do with understanding that we are the expression of God, aka the children of God.

Mary Baker Eddy writes, "Unless you fully perceive that you are the child of God, hence perfect, you have no Principle to demonstrate and no rule for its demonstration." (From The First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany p. 242:8 )

Accepting this and the principle that we are made in the image and likeness of God ( ie perfect), our very being is based on a perfect principle of God, who is Truth and Love.

So what is the basis of perfection?

Perfect means: Having all parts present………
So this means: YOU ARE WHOLE

Perfect means: Having everything that is required…………
So this means: YOU HAVE EVERYTHING YOU NEED

Perfect means: Complete in moral excellencies…………….
So this means: YOU ARE NATURALLY KIND, GENEROUS, ACCURATE, HONEST, UPRIGHT

Perfect means: Perfect Love…………………………………
So this means: YOU ARE LOVED, LOVABLE, LOVELY and LOVING

Perfect means: Exactly fitting the need in every situation………….
So this means: YOU ARE IN YOUR RIGHT PLACE and SITUATION; YOU HAVE A MISSION AND A PURPOSE IN LIFE

Perfect means: Entirely without flaws or blemish……………
So this means: YOU ARE COMPLETE, CERTAIN, CONFIDENT, SURE, and PURE

From this basis of wholeness, we can meet any challenge with increased confidence.  We have all we need to meet any discord, disease, or lack.  And that is something for which we can be completely grateful!

Complete. We have infinite value.

Spiritual resource to share: our own worthiness

As part of the Complete series, I wanted to answer the question:

Is there a belief that we are blameworthy or unworthy?

Feeling unworthy is a definite distraction to experiencing life fully.  So how does the idea that we are blameworthy or unworthy get traction in our thought?

Of course if you have committed a wrong, there is a need to correct that - and that is a big topic, worthy of its own blog posting - not to say its own sermon, book or seminar.  But I want to look at those times where there is a nagging doubt about one's own self-worth.

Much of Christendom relies on the Adam and Eve story in the book of Genesis to be the basis for their theology.  Modern day Eves operate on this paradigm that they did something wrong and deserve to be blamed, that they have set up the archetype of woman as temptress, and that they came to life only because their husbands sacrificed a rib for them.  Modern day Adams operate on a paradigm in which they have to admit that they were duped, that they have to till the soil (and not like it) and that their primal origin was actually dirt.  This story is similar to other creation stories and may be an easy way to answer the difficult questions about the origins of evil and erratic behaviour of both men and women, but it does not allow for healing or a satisfying or sustainable sense of self.

However, looking at the first chapter of Genesis, there is a whole new way of seeing ourselves:  made in the image and likeness of an all-powerful and all-loving God.  Male and female are created at the same time.  This highest creation is pronounced good.  (See the end of Genesis chapter 1).  This ultimate goodness, this pure concept of living Love is our origin. 

If this is our framework for finding meaning and well-being in our lives, what can we find? 
With our standpoint of purity goodness and love, we find we can heal, in a degree, just as Jesus healed.

Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick.

There is much in the Bible that helps us affirm this perfect and loved view of ourselves. Psalm 139 is one of my favorites and includes this line:

Ps 139:14

I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

The bigger question is: can we accept that we are loved, cherished, considered precious? Or that we have infinite value because we are the beloved children of Love itself! Answering "Yes!" to this question will deliver an emphatic "NO!" to the question: is there a belief that you are blameworthy or unworthy?

Accepting that you have no inherent lack, and that you are created wholy good and complete,  puts you on the right track for claiming the peace and confidence and poise you were always meant to have.

Complete. We are not in process.

Spiritual resource to share:  the right starting point 

As the third part in this Complete series, I wanted to answer this question:

Is there a mistaken assumption that we need to go through something ( like a process, a period of suffering, a certified procedure) in order to be complete?

Do any of these comments sound familiar?

• Once I get my degree, then I will be able to do more.
• If only I had more background on the Bible, then I would be able to contribute more.
• Once I get over this cold, then I can get my work done.
• Of course I am suffering now, I had to stay up all night to get the project done.

What is similar in all these comments is a sense that one lacks something now, and has to go outside of self in order to gain something.  This lack - of time, of health, of intelligence, of skill - is a shaky place to try to build on.

Mary Baker Eddy writes:

Man is God's reflection, needing no cultivation, but ever beautiful and complete.

The starting point here is that we are already complete.  Then it follows that our lives are the revealing of that completeness.  This eliminates the stress of believing we have to move ourselves from a position of a "have-not" to a "have." And this replaces it with a sense of exploring what God has already given us.

When facing a challenge, we can approach it with eyes open to what we already do have.

More education is definitely helpful, but now you can claim the intelligent ideas that God is constantly giving to you as ample to meet the need at hand.

Health is more contagious than disease, and disease is cured in proportion as our understanding of Life, God's supremacy increases.

Ideas from God are constant, and we kind find that accomplishing our tasks require less time when we are more open to the ideas that are already present.

Our primal origin to intelligent good and robust Life is our starting point and these lead to good and timely solutions.  We find that we are complete, having all we need at all times, when we start out by seeing ourselves as the reflection of God, of infinite Love, Truth and Life. 

Complete. We are not vulnerable.

Spiritual resource to share:  life answers to difficult questions

Being complete and at peace is
our natural state of being

As part of the Complete series, I wanted to answer this question:

Is there the thought that life includes vulnerability? a subtle argument that we are flawed? an unconscious acceptance that we are at fault and we should expect bad things to happen to us as if this type of punishment was justified?

After I had gone through a difficult time in my life, I called a Christian Science practitioner (a healer) and asked her point blank:  "Is there something wrong with me?  If you could just tell me what is wrong wth me, then I will gladly fix it, and I could get on with my life."

She paused and said slowly, "There is nothing wrong with you."

This shocked me.  It also made me realize how deeply imbedded was the idea that there was some hidden subtlety that had caused the one difficulty that I just emerged from.

But even deeper still, was her conviction that I was not inherently flawed.  She saw - what I was learning to accept -  "the perfect man."  Mary Baker Eddy explains this in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (See S&H 476:28 ) 

"Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick."

As I grew to understand God as invariable Love,  and as a purifying and transformative Truth about my life,  I grew to accept that I was a direct result of Life, of God.  And as I grew to accept that the very nature of my being is a reflection of God, I could affirm with authority my own goodness and virtue.  I grew to see that I was created in the image and likeness of God - pure and free - and that was my natural state!

However, just as an engine that is miscalibrated cannot function, neither could God's creation function if it were flawed.  But God's creation does function, so it follows that it cannot be flawed.

Yes!  This all made sense!  I saw myself more clearly as a child of God.  Whatever was discordant or irritating or painful was not in the original plan, and needed to be rooted out.  Actually, I saw that whatever was unGodlike could not attach itself to me.  So the self-doubt or the belief that I could be vulnerable or lacking in anyway was flushed away in light of the freeing Truth that I was created complete.  I realize that I have the strength, confidence and authority to heal, to live life fully and to be  joyful! 

And if this is true for me, it is true for everyone.  Wonderful!
  

the adventurous life

Spiritual resource to share:  self-discovery



My son's neighborhood this past year in the mountains and
cloud forests of Monteverde, Costa Rica
(c) Gabe Korinek, 2011



It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves - in finding themselves.

- Andre Gide

The adventurous life is a life of challenge.  It is highly glamorized, but in actuality, an adventurous life is one that requires you cast off all that is comfortable, in search of something beyond what is convenient, stereotyped, or inherited.

Stripped of the culture one was born into, of family obligations and social expectations, one finds a sense of self that is surprisingly original.  In addition to that, one finds those aspects of life that are universal:  joy, connection, industry, family, success (defined in a full spectrum of ways).   

In deliberately setting out for an adventure, and to be good at adventuring, one's whole concept of self and of home and of life work stretches to accommodate the expanding world view. Taking a risk to experience life more fully, you see who you are more clearly.  And that is the biggest adventure of all.

who am I going to be?

Spiritual resource to share: activity

hiking through Mauricio's farmlands in the jungle near Puerto Viejo on the southeastern coast of Costa Rica

About halfway into our three week trip in Costa Rica, I remember waking up, dreading another hilly walk to our language school, reluctantly starting off the day. As I approached the school, I had a wake up call, or more specifically a wake up question: "Who am I going to be?"

I had been building up a litany of excuses to be tired over the last few days. Really, it had become quite a rut:

Oh - I am doing so much!

Oh - learning a language is so stressful!

Oh - I can't believe how steep, how long, how hot, how cold, how difficult, how high, how low, how complex, and just how tiring things were!

That question - who am I going to be? - helped me see that I was unwittingly setting the stage for fatigue. And ...is that who I wanted to be? Did I actually want to be tired and fatigued?? With whom and with what was I identifying myself?

I am ever so grateful to be practicing Christian Science where establishing our right identification with God is a regular discipline. I have taken to starting my day by broadening my understanding of God, the infinite and eternal Life, Truth and Love. Then I take time to understand just who I am as God's image and likeness.

• As I see God as Love, I see that I am made in the image of Love and I am naturally loving, learning and connecting with others.
• As I see God as Truth, I see that I am made in the image and likeness of all that is pure and true. I have integrity, honesty, clarity and order as my inheritance.
• As I see God as Life, I see that I am made in the image and likeness of Life - of all that is active, energizing, growing.

I could just as easily choose to think tiring and burdensome thoughts as I could choose to think thoughts of peace, order and strength. The difference is that thoughts of peace, order and strength have divine authority - are part of the spiritual substance of Life, God. Tiring and burdensome thoughts are finite beliefs, based on limitations and are ultimately, self-destructive.

So who am I going to be? A child of God made in the image and likeness of God? Or a tired and stressed mortal? When put in those terms, it was pretty easy to choose.

On the walk home from school that day, I was seeing more beauty; I identified more birds; the valley below the school was ribboned with clouds; I bumped into new friends on the way home.

I could easily identify and feel grateful that I am doing so much.

Every day I was gaining more mastery in speaking Spanish.

And every day I was seeing how beautiful, now majestic, how peaceful, how stunning, how articulate, how happy, and how timely my days were.

Who am I being? I had to agree with this: I am being the alert, active and grateful child of an all-loving, omni-active God.

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 your name? - revisited

Spiritual resource to share: your nature


What is in a name? I remember choosing the names of my kids before they were born. We carefully considered every nuance of the possible names and their meanings, linked them to some family history, some inspired moments, weighed their sound and so on. I yelled them out to hear how it would sound when we would call them, whispered the names to hear how it would sound when we would talk softly. We put a lot into their names.

At a recent community meeting, a number of us have been gathering to heal a racial rift in the community that has been going on for decades. One Anishinabe who was at the meeting shared something very helpful - about where he came from, and about how his nation is named - and how this name brings honor and dignity.

He also asked us why we thought Indians were called Indians? We answered that the common thought is that when Christopher Columbus "discovered" America, that he thought that he had landed in India or the West Indies (we were mixed on that account), and so the indigenous population were called Indians.

He was raised with the explanation his grandmother gave him. That Colombus was enchanted with the richness and spirtuality of the native population and brought some of the people back with him. When he presented the people to the Queen, she asked who they were. His answer gave the name commonly used today. He said "Una gente en Dios." This means "A people in God." The "en Dios" stuck and the name Indians is derived from that. (Academics confirm this.)

What is in a name? It is a way of identifying who we are and what we are made of. So the basis of a name, in its spiritual sense, is how we are known spiritually.

I have felt such inspiration from knowing that we are made in the image and likeness of God. So, it follows that God knows Her own creation. God knows our nature, maintains our identity and we reflect in infinite ways, the infinite range of Love, Truth and goodness.


God knows us and calls us by our names, our spiritual nature. Even if we feel that we have been misunderstood, ignored, targeted or mistaken for someone else, it is a comfort to know that we are known, deeply, spiritually and eternally for who we are.


The Bible sings this out beautifully:

Isa 43:1 But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.

Ps 139:14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

Lift up your voice!

Spiritual resource to share: YOU

Have you ever felt you wanted to express yourself, but it was hard being heard? Or have you ever been asked to give a talk and felt at a loss?

I did a deep dive today considering what it means to have a voice.

Having a voice is about you being expressed and heard.
Having a voice enables you to be a part of a larger idea.
Having a voice is having a way to communicate ideas.

In short having a voice is about identity, communication and unity.

Identity

My identity, your identity is a result of being a reflection of God (as it points out in the Bible in Genesis that we are made in the image and likeness of God). God’s attributes are Soul, Mind, intelligence, Spirit, Life, Principle, Truth, Love. We are defined by Soul, animated by Spirit, sustained by Life, guided by Mind, intelligence, and maintained by God’s law or Principle. An idea without an expression is absurd. Each one of us is individual, unique, permanent and necessary. Each one of us has a voice that is individual, unique, permanent and necessary.

Communication

Break that word apart and you have common + unity.
“The inter-communication is always from God to His idea, man.”
Ideas are constantly flowing – connecting one another with a common understanding.
Lifting communication up to Spirit, we can trust that the spiritual substance of an idea is communicated properly. The spiritual substance of ears is that they are “not organs of the so-called corporeal senses, but spiritual understanding.”
God, Truth, is the impulse that brings ideas forward. Love provides the receptivity for those to hear. Intelligence weighs in the ideas and sorts, deletes, enhances and brings out what would best glorify God. And we are all governed by Truth, Life and Love.

Unity

"Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?"
We are all related to Life, and to Love and to Truth. We can all understand this relationship to God – when Life fills our days with purpose, when Love satisfies and soothes us, when Truth brings us startling new ideas and solutions. As we sometimes clamber up that mountain of high hopes, we are patient and forgiving of one another, but firm and focused on our goal: to learn more about God.





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.

celebrating Black History Month --- a story

Spiritual resource to share: spiritual identity

At the heart of an article about the heart of celebrating Black History Month, there is a story within a story in which two African-American men meet and talk that I wanted to share with you all. It is from spirituality.com. Enjoy!

While snacking on a boat ramp one day, we met someone I’ll call Mr. Wilson, a black man and grandfather from Texas. He was fishing and suggested I buy Ayoka (my daughter) a fishing rod because she looked so comfortable near the water. We struck up a conversation....

Mr. Wilson opened up about an experience when he was given a ticket by a white police officer who accused him of speeding during a heavy snow storm. He explained to me how difficult it would have been for anyone to speed in those weather conditions. When Mr. Wilson told the officer he didn’t have any money to pay for the ticket, he was put in jail.

I thought about how Mr. Wilson’s modest example echoed the plight of enslaved Africans and the subsequent institutionalization of racism in the US. Mr. Wilson had exemplified many wonderful spiritual qualities. We continued to talk for a while.

As we shook hands and parted, Mr. Wilson got in his truck and waved goodbye. He gave Ayoka and me a really big smile. As I waved goodbye to him, I was so moved by our conversation and how he’d expressed the promise he saw in my relationship with Ayoka. “Now that’s black history,” I thought.

And that’s when something clicked for me.

Mr. Wilson had exemplified many wonderful spiritual qualities resplendent in a child of God. He was warm, gracious, strong, wise, loving, eloquent, and persistent. These spiritual qualities shone forth stronger than the pain and humiliation of his speeding ticket incident.

It occurred to me that those same spiritual qualities Mr. Wilson expressed had been the very catalyst that had ended slavery and furthered a dialogue on civil rights that continues to heal and better our society.

“And that’s what we celebrate about black history,” I thought to myself— resilience, courage, poise, and progress despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

To read the article in its entirety, click here. Please feel free to share how you celebrate this month in the comments section!


Photo by J.Falls
copyright All rights reserved
Anyone can see this photo

define your life in six words

Spiritual resource to share: defining ourselves spiritually

Today's blog is brought to you thanks to wandering bloggers from Belgium and Spain ! Basically I was intrigued and inspired by one of the bloggers who was inspired by another who was inspired reading about a book which collected six-word memoirs, entitled Not quite what I was planning. It is a fun collection of six word memoirs of famous and not so famous people. One wandering blogger writes:

"The one I liked best was "Me see world! Me write stories!" (Elizabeth Gilbert, who seems to me to have been on much the same track already with the title of her book "Eat, Pray, Love", about stays in Italy, India and Bali). I also liked "Am I lost or just wandering?"

I realized that this was kind of what I have had my Sunday School students do! - to be able to explain themselves, but on spiritual terms. I've blogged a bit about learning how to identify oneself spiritually in other posts.

In each case, we start out by looking at MBEddy's definition of God. Now, she was able to define God in seven words: Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life, Truth and Love. Taking synonyms of the synonyms, we come up with a list of dozens, even a couple of hundred words describing the qualities of God.

From that list, we ask ourselves, if we are made in the image and likeness of God, than how must God see me? From those qualities listed, each student takes a cluster of qualities the best define him or her.

Try it! What cluster of spiritual qualities or best six words define you as a child of God?




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.

you are here

Spiritual resource to share: your place in the world

A little boy was once asked: "How do you know that God is here?" And he answered, "Well, because I 'm here!" I love that confidence in the inseparability of God and us!

MBEddy writes "As a drop of water is one with the ocean, a ray of light one with the sun, even so God and man, Father and son, are one in being."

So where does this idea leave us? That we are in our right place. Why? Beause the omnipresent God is in Her right place and we are never separated from God.

We are always in our right place. That means that we have all we need where we are. So every opportunity for growth and every need for living is present right where we are. And, if these things don't appear, we will be removed from that situation and placed in a situation where growth and supply are available.

So not only are we assured we are never separated from God, but that it is confirmed that we have a purpose as well. Just as the number "42" always is in its right place in the numeric system, so does it also serve its purpose in keeping the whole numeric system working. Likewise, we are distinct and in our right place. Our purpose is to glorify God, in Her full expression. Each of us is needed to express the complete spectrum of God's goodness, intelligence and grace.

Our purpose is maintained by God and we are able to answer the question, "What am I?" with this response: "I am able to impart truth, health, and happiness, and this is my rock of salvation and my reason for existing." (from The First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany p. 165.) And another fav from the Bible:

Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.

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.

wherever you go, there you are

Spiritual resource to share: sense of self

As some of you may recall, about 2-3 years ago, a number of my colleagues, myself included, were laid off. We scattered far and wide - throughout the rural, suburban and urban areas of the US, Europe and Canada and Mexico. As many of us are still in touch, it is fascinating to see where we have all landed. People have started businesses or new jobs, gotten into the Christian Science practice, have become parents, and have started blogging....and more!

So after a period of transition, we are all in a very new place. So what is the lesson here? For me, it was to find that - like the title - wherever I go, there I am. And because I am there, God is there. We are inseparable.

Stripping away one's sense of identity from a specific job, a lifestyle, a geographical location, a family arrangement - can be a terribly de-nuding experience! It demands the question be asked - who are you and what defines you?

Here are some fav quotes from MBEddy that help to answer that question:

Goodness never fails to receive its reward, for goodness makes life a blessing. As an active portion of one stupendous whole, goodness identifies man with universal good. Thus may each ....rise above the oft-repeated inquiry, What am I? to the scientific response: I am able to impart truth, health, and happiness, and this is my rock of salvation and my reason for existing. -Miscellaneous Writings, p. 165

Breaking away from the mutations of time and sense, you will neither lose the solid objects and ends of life nor your own identity. Fixing your gaze on the realities supernal, you will rise to the spiritual consciousness of being, even as the bird which has burst from the egg and preens its wings for a skyward flight.

Principle is not to be found in fragmentary ideas. The material body and mind are temporal, but the real man is spiritual and eternal. The identity of the real man is not lost, but found through this explanation; for the conscious infinitude of existence and of all identity is thereby discerned and remains unchanged. It is impossible that man should lose aught that is real, when God is all and eternally his.

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.

Beauty treatment

Spiritual resource to share: radiance

picture from the International Museum of Women

Today, I was thinking about beauty and how much it is pursued throughout the world. Mary Baker Eddy gives us a whole beauty treatment in Science and Health that I have worked with for years. Then I thought of all the interesting and inspiring blogs I have read on image, identity, weight loss, beauty, etc and thought it would be a friendly thing to share all of that here!

So, for those of you looking for a morning exercise on beauty and balance, enjoy!

From Evan:

• Trying to lose weight?
• Cosmetic surgery's darker side
• What is beauty?

From Laura:

• What I've learned about weight
• Beauty and blessing (scroll down to April 10 posting)
• Exuberance (scroll down to April 13 posting)

From Julie

• How to control weight from a spiritual standpoint

From spirituality.com

• Real beauty is more than skin deep
• Beauty from the inside out

From me

• Scroll down through this whole series to read these posts: Sparkle; Powerful womanhood; totally, absolutely perfect; beauty redefined; 50 is now the new 30; and - last post of this series - Beautiful and attractive
• Also see the right hand column for ideas on beauty!

And, the treatment mentioned above from Science and Health:

Beauty, as well as truth, is eternal; but the beauty of material things passes away, fading and fleeting as mortal belief. Custom, education, and fashion form the transient standards of mortals. Immortality, exempt from age or decay, has a glory of its own,--the radiance of Soul. Immortal men and women are models of spiritual sense, drawn by perfect Mind and reflecting those higher conceptions of loveliness which transcend all material sense.

Comeliness and grace are independent of matter. Being possesses its qualities before they are perceived humanly. Beauty is a thing of life, which dwells forever in the eternal Mind and reflects the charms of His goodness in expression, form, outline, and color. It is Love which paints the petal with myriad hues, glances in the warm sunbeam, arches the cloud with the bow of beauty, blazons the night with starry gems, and covers earth with loveliness.

The embellishments of the person are poor substitutes for the charms of being,
shining resplendent and eternal over age and decay.

The recipe for beauty is to have less illusion and more Soul, to retreat from the belief of pain or pleasure in the body into the unchanging calm and glorious freedom of spiritual harmony.

Love never loses sight of loveliness. Its halo rests upon its object. One marvels that a friend can ever seem less than beautiful. Men and women of riper years and larger lessons ought to ripen into health and immortality, instead of lapsing into darkness or gloom.

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.

living from the inside out

Spiritual resource to share: a quiet and passionate happiness

Finally! I had been trying to reach an old friend from WAY back ever since my family and I moved back from the East Coast to the Midwest. And... after two years and many phone calls later, I found her!

We shared a love of getting out into the world and doing stuff - whether it was traveling, being an activist for some cause, or having outdoor adventures, we loved it! M's take on it always included the world and she did some mighty admirable things... she worked in Sudan with the American Refugee Committee, presented papers in China re: advances in physical therapy and skiied across Iceland (or was it Greenland?) on some environmental project. She was active helping others in the community and always mindful of having enough time for herself, a book, some company and a cup of tea.

Her wedding to a remarkable guy was most memorable. Each of the communities in which she and her husband were involved were so easy to distinguish: there were many from the Hmong community, the Catholic community with nuns in their habits, a number of folks in wheelchairs, the outdoor enthusiasts with their oddly lined summer tans, and other races and all ages. What a hoot!

(After finding myself taking notes on our conversation, I realized I need to get M into blogging. She's got so much good stuff to share!!)

Even after all these years, and all the changes that years give us, she was the same wise, humble, and fun person I have always known her to be.

So what have we learned from these many years? We realized that for both of us, it was the external things that helped define who we were. Our passions and commitments were played out in big ways. We both sought these experiences out and thrived in challenging situations.

It was M's thought that now she finds she is learning to live from the inside out. I had to agree. There are no major trips or pressing projects demanding me to challenge complacency, doubt or inability. That is something that is requiring inner strength to meet those kinds of challenges.

We are both parents of teen-age kids ready to claim more and more of their independence, which adds a demand for a whole new level of inner strength! Our current role with our kids is to be there for them, but also to learn to get out of the way. They are learning to make more choices, all the while we are still in the safety boat as they start off on their own journeys.

I know a lot of you reading this have had intensely challenging and spiritually rewarding demands placed on you by others, or other institutions. So now, when these external demands are gone, we are left with defining ourselves from our most still and quiet moments. Our happiness comes from a source within us, our inspiration comes from quiet moments with God. It was there all along when those external events demanded it. It is even here now.

I like this idea of living from the inside out. It feels more like being the fountain than playing in the fountain. And, for me, this is my time to understand more the spiritual fountainhead of all the passions and loves that have played out in the first part of my life.

For all of you adventuresome friends reading this - whether you are rising to the challenge put to you, or cultivating your own inner strength, it is wonderful to know that the adventure of spiritual living just keeps going.

God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis. - Mary Baker Eddy

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 spiritually defined

Spiritual resource to share: knowing each other spiritually

If you know someone spiritually, you will never lose them.

I picked up this bit of wisdom somewhere along my spiritual journey. Not sure where. But I sure was thinking a lot about this idea the last couple of weeks after a person I loved passed on.

A couple of days ago, we had a very inspiring memorial service for him. At the end of the service, I joined two of the young grandsons and others to do a balloon launch. We had balloons on which we had put lots of qualities of this loved grandpa: "Gentle", "peace-maker", "kind", and so on. One grandson wanted to put "smart." The other younger grandson wanted to say "very smart" and both suggested to write: "we love you " on the balloon.

As we cut each balloon free of its ribbon and watched them soar up and away, the oldest grandson said, "I know what we are doing, we are sending up all of what my grandpa is so God will recognize him."

He understood quite well that spiritual qualities make up who we are. That's how we recognize each other. That's how God recognizes us. And I have found, time and time again that we never can lose that which is spiritual. Mary Baker Eddy explains this so well:

The material body and mind are temporal, but the real man is spiritual and eternal. The identity of the real man is not lost, but found through this explanation; for the conscious infinitude of existence and of all identity is thereby discerned and remains unchanged. It is impossible that man should lose aught that is real, when God is all and eternally his.

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 are we really? (continuing prayer for Virginia Tech)

Spiritual resource to share: spiritual identity

To donate to Virginia Tech's

Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund, click on ribbon

One post from The Wall (a Blacksburg community's response to the Virginia Tech tragedy), drew my attention to a growing concern about cultural stereotyping. Here is an excerpt:

Tuesday night, at an Emory candlelight vigil, a South Korean student stood up and said he was afraid. He was afraid that the shooter at Virginia Tech was going to ruin things for all South Korean students studying in America. Perhaps he was thinking about the backlash towards Muslim students after Sept. 11.

But Virginia Tech does not need to become an example of a culture clash. As educated people, we are taught to see the foolishness of generalization and false-attribution. I pray that nobody on this campus feels afraid because of what they look like, or because of the hometown they left to come study at Emory. We must find the courage to unite against the unfounded stereotyping used by some in the aftermath of Sept. 11. - D.H.

In a couple of days, we welcome into our family a very well-loved international student who has been here for over seven months. Not only is he fun and active in sports, he is well liked by his fellow students, teachers and community members. He is from South Korea, so I have been attentive to the climate of thought here. Although I don't think there will be an issue in this community, the issue of negative cultural sterotyping still needs to be addressed prayerfully.

South Koreans students represent one of the largest international student populations in the US, according to my son's admissions counselor at his school. And since racial stereotypes have flamed into ignorant acts in the past, I feel that prayer - focussed on all of us as God's children - is going to help dissolve the negative suggestions of ethnic stereotyping.

The identity of one does not determine the ethnic character of all. To me, each individual has a unique relationship to the divine. Each individual has their own spiritual journey, which reveals his or her own spiritual qualities.

But classifying ( stereotyping) others can be a subtle force, making us feel that we know others when we don't and isolating others on the basis of physical characteristics or behavioral patterns. I felt this when I lived abroad for a short period of time and I had the opportunity to see that I was more than my cultural sterotype. As a child of God, I had unique talents and insights. I could see that God determined who I really was.

So it makes sense to me to continue that prayer and line of thought that recognizes each individual in his or her own true light, as a child of God. We're not absorbed into a clump of humanity, but we are all children of one God who is spiritual -- good and loving.

I can also support the intelligent care of our community to see beyond cultural stereotyping to the spiritual qualities in each of our community's students.

This intelligence runs throughout every community. The spiritual insight, to recognize the good in each individual member, has a healing impact. Being alert to everyone's spiritual identity helps to bring people in to community, as opposed to seeing only their physical attributes which tends to isolate others who are different than us.

Man is not absorbed in Deity, and man cannot lose his individuality, for he reflects eternal Life; nor is he an isolated, solitary idea, for he represents infinite Mind, the sum of all substance. - Mary Baker Eddy

(For more articles and resources on this topic, see Virginia Tech prayers.)

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.