swinging like Tarzan

Spiritual resource to share: living fearlessly

It seems that many of life's challenges are about overcoming fear by letting go of those fears. When you let go of the fear, you open your eyes to what already exists - freedom, peace, grace and full joy. And you find that you can trust God, who is the source of all Life.

I had a wonderful reminder of this a few months ago while on a family adventure in Costa Rica. It was easy for my sons to talk me into doing another zipline tour of the Cloud Forest. Costa Rica is stunningly beautiful and to be able to soar over the jungle and steep grasslands is simply awesome! And I didn't mind the steep short hikes to get to the launching platforms where one gets locked into a pulley system before zipping down a cable that slices through the lush forests or zings high above the land and waterfalls.

But, on this trip, there was something called the Tarzan swing, and that was another story. You are still tied onto a cable, but you have to simply step off the platform into - nothing! I could do all the ziplines, but my knees were protesting the Tarzan swing. As I approached the drop off point, I couldn't move.

I decided not to do it. I confessed to the guide, thinking I would have a sympathetic ear, someone who would understand why I couldn't go ahead with this and let me go back with the others who elected not to do this event.

"This one is a little hard for me." I said quietly so as not to embarass myself in front of those who decided to do it. "You see, I am a little bit nervous ...." The guide leaned over and interrupted me, ".....so am I....." he said, and gently, but firmly, nudged me off the platform!

The rest of the group laughed. I screamed. And then, I flew!! Swinging down deep into a valley then swinging up to almost touching treetops, I could hear my sons and others laughing and cheering. I let out a perfectly articulated Tarzan yell.

Life is good.

Letting go of a limited perspective shows you how limitless life is. We can trust Life to be self-sustaining, self-correcting, joyous and eternal. All we need sometimes is that little bit of encouragement to take that first step out of a fear-based type of thinking to soar over problems and challenges and to experience the adventure of the Life that is God's.

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.

on the loose

Spiritual resource to share: freedom

Micah and friends on the loose somewhere in Europe

"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.

Looking at my two sons and what they are experiencing, I'll bet they would say that now - this is the best time of life for them. With so much ahead and so much to experience right now - I am thrilled with their reminder that the world is large and full of opportunities.

One son is in Germany sometimes traveling, sometimes staying in one place, always learning, always growing. The other son has just come home from school, and in between camping, hiking and mountain bike trips and family reunions, he is helping us here home with some construction jobs.

The graduation speakers at this last son's school were provocative and moving. I'd like to share a song one teacher sung which sums up just where our boys are at right now in their lives - and others their age. Its simplicity and childlike joy and wonder hit just the right chord.

On The Loose*

Chorus: On the Loose to climb a mountain,
on the loose where I am free,
on the loose to live my life,
the way I think my life should be;
for I’ve only got a moment and the whole world left to see.
I’ll be searching for tomorrow on the loose...

Have you ever seen a sunrise turn the sky completely red?
Have you slept beneath the moon and stars with a pine bough for your bed?
Can you sit and talk with friends although a word is never said...
then you’re just like me and you’ve been on the loose...

Chorus: On the Loose to climb a mountain,
on the loose where I am free,
on the loose to live my life,
the way I think my life should be;
for I’ve only got a moment and the whole world left to see.
I’ll be searching for tomorrow on the loose...

There’s a trail that I’ve been hiking just to see where it might go...
many places left to visit, many people yet to know.
But in following my dream, I will live and I will grow...
on the trail that’s waiting out there on the loose...

Chorus: On the Loose to climb a mountain,
on the loose where I am free,
on the loose to live my life,
the way I think my life should be;
for I’ve only got a moment and the whole world left to see.
I’ll be searching for tomorrow on the loose...

So in search of love and laughter I’ll be traveling ‘cross this land.
Never sure of where I am going for I haven’t any plan.
But in time when you are ready come and join me take my hand...
and together we’ll explore life on the loose...

Chorus: On the Loose to climb a mountain,
on the loose where I am free,
on the loose to live my life,
the way I think my life should be;
for I’ve only got a moment and the whole world left to see.
I’ll be searching for tomorrow on the loose...


*written by Steve Schuch (thx Kate!)







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.

Health now determined to be contagious - revisited

What would happen if you were to see this in your local paper's headlines? "Health now determined to be contagious."

Headlines are popping up about the swine flu. And there is a great fear of impending disaster. This has always been the case throughout history. It is easy to be manipulated when one is fearful about the unknown, about being separated from help and about being made vulnerable. It is enough to be scared out of knowing that we have what it takes to deal with these issues! So, how do we un-scare ourselves?

Most of us probably agree on the following:

• Fear spreads disease and in many cases is the cause of disease. Even my one cousin (a medically trained doctor) said that about 90% of his cases come in because of stress, and another cousin (a hypnotherapist) said that most of her cases come in due to a fear of loneliness.
• Loneliness, stress, fear, these are all mental causes to illness. Mary Baker Eddy wrote in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures over 125 years ago, “Sickness is a growth of error, springing from mortal ignorance or fear.” (p.188)
• Health is natural. Even the body will fight disease in an effort to cure it.
  

But let’s take this a little farther. Mary Baker Eddy gives a brilliant look at contagion in an article aptly named Contagion. In it, she asks that “If only the people would believe that good is more contagious than evil, since God is omnipresence, how much more certain would be the doctor's success…”

Health is good. Health trumps illness. Health is from God and is powerful, self-creative and permanent. Health, like God, is eternal.

As children of God, we reflect the power of health, the ability to see and experience the fact that good overcomes illness. We can experience a release from fear and feel God's perfect love. “Perfect love casteth out fear" the Bible writes. God as Love tenderly cares for us. And the natural attraction of Love compels us all to share the truth that makes us free: Health is contagious.

For more discussion on the issue of ensuring healing and protection from swine flu and other contagious elements, please see spirituality.com.

making self-righteousness be still

Spiritual resource to share: releasing the heart

This is a tricky one. Self-righteousness can be such a tangled mess. But getting out of that mess is such a JOY!

It sometimes starts like this: I have a question about the rightness of an activity - usually it is the rightness of someone else's activity. I pray about it and come up with a conclusion that seems reasonable. I start studying and find all kinds of quotes and rules that support my view.
I make my stand. There is a subtle (or sometimes blatant) sense that others' behaviours need to change. I come to feel that by making this stand I am doing the only right thing. And that, if I don't make this stand, the world would be compromised.

So what is wrong with this picture? There is no God in this picture - except as a back up to justify my pre-conceived right way to do things! There is no humility, listening, dropping all sense of self, and willingness to change. This picture hides the unspoken fears, the pride of position and prejudices. Somehow it feeds the small ego into thinking that it is very important to be the one who can right this wrong. It also suggests that by restricting or controlling the behaviours of others, we are doing the right thing.

Here are some ideas have come to my rescue when I have struggled with this: "...humility... is the genius of Christian Science (Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy). Cast the beam out of one's own eye. (See Luke 6.) Let go (of ego) and let God. All of these ideas have helped me break the back of self-righteousness from time to time.

I once worked in a traveling performing group. Our schedule was tight with a show in a different city almost every night. The five of us were together 24/7. When little tensions would flare up, we dealt with them fleetingly, but enough so that we could get back to work. Finally at one point, the tension and pressure of the performance schedule fueled with self-righteousness and a growing frustration led to one very alert member to call for a time out.

What happened next was lovely. After one of our shows, we all met in the back of our traveling RV. We all agreed that we needed to talk.

We first established that we loved each other and that we appreciated each other. This was a surprising and delightful thing to do! It helped to disarm any self-righteousness any of us may have felt. We kept it up until we felt that we firmly had a foundation of love, trust and respect.

We openly talked about our hopes and our motive to make our whole adventure a blessing to others and a support to each another. Even though we all understood what the mission and purpose of our adventure was when we signed up, we needed to re-fresh that and affirm what we were all about and what noble goals we had hoped to achieve. It was in this atmosphere of a unified purpose that we could go forward.

It was only then that we brought up some things that were a concern to us. Then and only then could we go into removing what were becoming increasingly heavy burdens to our work. Being sure to not accuse anyone of wrongdoing, we were able to impersonalize the errant actions and re-establish our trust of one another. Then we each stated individually how certain actions made us feel.

Gone was the sense that if a person felt a concern about something, then they obviously didn't know enough about God! (Doesn't that even sound silly?) Gone was the sense that one person had to carry the whole group. (Whew!) And what was revealed was a sweet kindness that we had always had toward one another, but had been temporarily buried under the pressure of the schedule, misunderstandings and hurt feelings.

The tour went on very successfully. But even more so, I walked away with a major lesson on how to make self-righteousness be still. It is that can be constantly fine-tuned!








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.

Struggles are okay.....

Spiritual resource to share: honest struggle

.....but not much fun. However, they are a perfectly acceptable way to grow spiritually!

Although there have been times that I have soared with inspiration and overcome challenges, many times I have struggled with my own human will and God's will, until I could let the human element go and feel at peace with God's plan. And I have felt the benefits of this struggle. MBEddy writes: "The struggle for Truth makes one strong instead of weak, resting instead of wearying one."

But often, on the heels of wrestling with something, I have felt a sense of shame or guilt. I'd like to delve into this a little deeper, so I can blast it.

Shame would come in and try to say, Well, you must not be a very good person if you are sick. Or Why do you have to call a Christian Science practitioner AGAIN? You must really be bad off.

Guilt comes in and tries to lay on us that we haven't studied enough, prayed enough, been a good person enough, and as a result, (of course) we are sick.

I have gotten better and better at recognizing this double whammy of shame and guilt. When I take steps to deal with a conflict and find myself struggling with it, I am reminded that it takes courage to face up to conflict, that this is how healings begin. It is a point of strength to deal with a perceived weakness. I am not ashamed if I have to pull back from my regular duties to take care of myself. This is a part of loving my neighbor as myself! To try to go to great lengths to hide a struggle can sometimes encourage dishonesty with oneself and others, so dealing with it honestly and if needed, openly, gains spiritual power.

Guilt is about lack - and the thought that lack can actually cause something. It is a little silly to think that because I didn't clock in enough hours to pray and study, that that would hinder eternal Mind/omnipotent Love from doing its work. It takes a moment to commune with God. MBEddy says plainly: "Become conscious for a single moment that Life and intelligence are purely spiritual, — neither in nor of matter, — and the body will then utter no complaints. "

When we are struggling or we see others struggling, we can feel and give compassionate, warm and comforting support to one another -- a healing comfort that points upward and leads toward healing.

To close, I'd like to give a few examples of the blessings that come from honest struggles:

• Jesus (read on from this starting point)
• Jacob (read on from this starting point)
• Mary Baker Eddy
• a student of Christian Science

Picture by Paul (Eugène-Henri-) Gauguin,
Vision After the Sermon, Jacob Wrestling with the Angel

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.

How rich is that life on the edge!

Spiritual resource to share: breaking limitations

One of J's outdoor programs:

spLORE/outdoor adventures

for people with disabilities

I woke this morning to get an email from a recently reunited friend to say her husband died last week in an accident. This was a shock. We had just talked two weeks ago. I called her today which inspired me to share this posting.

This is part of her husband's obituary:

....John was an excellent athlete, a member of the Colorado All State high school soccer team and an active mountaineer. In 1971 he was injured in a skiing accident, losing the use of his legs. This did not deter him from the active life he loved. John devoted much of his life to sharing his passion for nature with others as a gifted K-12 classroom teacher and in such organizations as POINT (Paraplegics on independent nature trips) in Texas, numerous Outward Bound Schools, the Vinland Center in Minneapolis, MN, Adventure Etc. in San Francisco, CA, Telluride Adaptive Sports Program, and other programs.

John represented the United States as the first US Nordic skier in the 1988 Paralympics in Innsbruck, Austria. He loved to sail, play tennis and ski. He was an avid fly fisherman and loved anything to do with water and boats.....

Both my friend M and her husband J were masters at overcoming limitations: cultural barriers, physical barriers, political challenges and others. In some cases, they dutifully challenged the status quo in standing up for what they believed in, for themselves and for others. J 's testimony to the US House of Representatives on wilderness and sustainability issues is a good example of that, as was his involvement in programs mentioned above.

J lived a bit over the edge, as his wife attests. Certainly he lived it fully and left quite a legacy of inspiration complete with tons of river analogies about life.

So what lives on? Looking back at what he has done, it is obvious that everything he did for others will live on. He inspired so many to see beyond the material picture, to see beyond a comfortable life to a life that takes you a little over the edge.

I think that however simple and day to day our lives are, what makes life worth living is that we love one another - which motivates to do things for each other and to make sure that those experiences that have meant so much to us are available for the next generation. It is all about love.

In this way, it is easier for me to understand we are all spiritual. Loving is what we do. Challenging limitations is what we do. Breaking out of dead-end thinking to see more of God's love and God's loving provision is natural for us. Like J, we have a natural, holy curiosity to explore all of God's goodness and grandeur. We are all spiritual beings and understanding this helps to see that we can never really lose one another. All is well.

A couple friends have posted this poem. It is one that I recently read at another's memorial service last month. I love it.

Death is nothing at all
by Henry Scott Holland 1847-1918, cannon of St Paul’s Cathedral

Death is nothing at all.
It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
Nothing has happened.
Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you,
and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.

Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by the old familiar name.
Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.

Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without an effort,without the ghost of a shadow upon it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was.
There is absolute and unbroken continuity.

What is death but a negligible accident?
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you,
for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just round the corner.

All is well.







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 if we lived our lives tomorrow without fear?

Spiritual resource to share: Q&As to fearless living


........

Had a deeeee-lightful talk with a friend the other day! "Why do we have to deal with all this negative stuff if we really believe that God is good and good is all?" This reminded me of a quote from Science and Health:

It is unwise to doubt if reality is in perfect harmony with God, divine Principle, ... since you admit that God is omnipotent; for from this premise it follows that good and its sweet concords have all-power.

Why doubt, indeed! I started to see the logic in the question of my friend. This set me thinking out different types of answers:

What if we lived like Love is omnipotent?
Then maybe we would feel freer to compliment a neighbor (no fear of stirring up anger).
We would tell our spouse, our children or our best friend that we love them (no misunderstanding there).
We could tell someone we forgive them (no fear of losing anything).

What if we lived as if Truth were all-powerful?
We could tell the truth and not fear any repercussions.
We could feel spiritually powerful by being honest.

What if we lived as if Life were eternal?
We may have more courage to do the thing we have been avoiding.
We would stop forcing the issue (whatever the issue was - because we are more patient).
We would feel we had more time.

What if we lived by loving our neighbor as ourselves?
We would love more freely because we wouldn't be afraid of rejection.
We would be kind to people we didn't know and we wouldn't be afraid of distrust.

What if we lived knowing that there is one God?
We would be less afraid of everyone, because we all have the same Parent.

What if we lived knowing that we all reflect the infinite source of intelligence, one Mind?
We would feel less stressful, knowing that there are solutions to every sort of problem and complaint.
We would be more open and expectant to see new possibilities for any obstacle.



So how would you answer any of the above questions???





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.