The Community Table

Spiritual resource to share: nourishing home-cooked prize-winning food !

Church: whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle

In my newfound expansive expression of church, I am so happy to share an activity that my family and other area churches are involved in. It is called The Community Table. The idea behind it is a community meal to all, with a focus to invite those who need to stretch their dollars at the end of the month.

The watchword is dignity to all, and no one should know who comes from the food pantry or is homeless and who isn't. The instigator of this project is a Franciscan Catholic and I so admire her vision - a divine Principle - to bring the sense of equality and dignity to the community.

In order to do this, she has set down some ground rules:

• We use china and real cups and silverware
• Breads and desserts go directly on the tables
• It's a buffet style feast that includes 3-4 host churches' best foods: Gramma's famous potato salad, Fred's silky chiffon cake, Al's mouthwatering squash casserole and on and on.
• Host churches are assigned for set up and clean up, but everyone serves everyone.
  

I love this activity for its simplicity. It is so......pleasant! There are no agendas, no sermons, just the community taking care of the community. There are a number of ideas that are relevant to this activity that I am reading in a Bible Lesson this week, including these two:

• Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!
• The cement of a higher humanity will unite all interests in the one divinity.

There is something wholesome and real about serving others, and joining with others to do good works. The Community Table is one vehicle that makes me feel good about the higher concept of church which is to elevate the race and rouse the dormant thought to a more spiritualized understanding of who we are to God and who we are to each other.

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.

Muy pronto - ¡artículos en español cada semana!

Recurso espiritual a compartir: Español (una lengua del corazón)

Pronto (estoy esperando por la semana próxima) fijaré los artículos en español por lo menos una vez por semana. ¿Déjeme saber qué temas usted quisiera leer?

Hablo español en un nivel intermedio, ¡pero con más practica, mejoraré!

También, usted puede utilizar este sitio para traducir las páginas. AltaVista da una idea general de un artículo, no una traducción exacta. Vea la información de AltaVista a la derecha o abajo.




Para compartir sus pensamientos, por favor contactome, agregar sus propios comentarios abajo, manda este artículo a un amigo.

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, or email this article to a friend.

does thought evolve or revolve and why should we care?

Spiritual resource to share: hope and progress



Once while I was in grad school, two of my favorite professors were in my tiny office and got embroiled in a debate about whether or not mankind is revolving or evolving. One was a retired Senator who was practical and tactical. The other professor taught global issues/future studies and was insightful and delightful.

One argued that mankind is destined to repeat history and one can project trends into the future based on the past. (This was the ex-Senator.) The other argued that mankind constantly grows into higher levels of consiousness and pointed out the impossibility of ever going back to the past to determine the future. After all, can we go back now and say that the world IS flat? (I mean this literally, not figuratively, Mr. Friedman.)

The debate ended when it was time to eat, and it was resolved that mankind is evolving in an upward spirally type way, making some of the same mistakes amidst an ever evolving and improving background. Think of a metal spring wire on end.

So why should we care?

We care because care makes us hope. Hope gives us the juice to rise above our present situations and to grow. Growing means living. MBEddy writes

The fact that Truth overcomes both disease and sin reassures depressed hope. It imparts a healthy stimulus to the body, and regulates the system.

I think that this applies to all systems - not only bodily systems, but organizational systems, education systems, and other methodologies. To understand - not just believe - that Truth is our basis for reality, principle, wholeness and order is a happy thought. And restored hope in the possibility of progress is powerful!

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.

Points to ponder: Take no prisoners

Spiritual resource to share: authority of the Christ

Be still (Mark 3:49)

Get thee behind me (Luke 4:8)

Get thee hence ( Matt 4:10)

Come out of him (Mark 9:25)

I have been giving the idea of authority a working over lately. When you are studying and learning more about the omnipresence of God and good, it doesn't leave any room for discord, dis-ease or despair.

Jesus' sharp and concise directives to evil (see above) given with such finality could only be fueled by an unquestioned sense of the authority of omnipotent Truth. I thought - this is the mind of Christ - the authority and dominion given to us by God to overcome anything unlike good.

I have to include this whole quote from Science and Health. It is such a perfect explanation of the ability of the Christ to thoroughly destroy error or evil. The paragraph heading is "divine severity":

Jesus uncovered and rebuked sin before he cast it out. Of a sick woman he said that Satan had bound her, and to Peter he said, "Thou art an offence unto me." He came teaching and showing men how to destroy sin, sickness, and death. He said of the fruitless tree, "[It] is hewn down."

It is believed by many that a certain magistrate, who lived in the time of Jesus, left this record: "His rebuke is fearful." The strong language of our Master confirms this description.

The only civil sentence which he had for error was,"Get thee behind me, Satan." Still stronger evidence that Jesus' reproof was pointed and pungent is found in his own words, — showing the necessity for such forcible utterance, when he cast out devils and healed the sick and sinning.

And this is the example we have been given to follow and "do likewise." Whoa.




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.

an enlightened look at hell

Spiritual resource to share: dominion


Perhaps you have heard this modern day parable: A little girl is running away from a big hairy monster. It follows her down streets, across bridges, through the trees. Finally, she is cornered in an alley. Frightened almost to death - she turns to the monster and asked "Wh-wh-what are you going to do?" The monster stops, furrows its brows, thinks for a moment and then says, "I don't know. This is your dream."

I thought about this story after reading an exerpt from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. Page 588 carries the definition of hell:

HELL. Mortal belief; error; lust; remorse; hatred; revenge; sin; sickness; death; suffering and self-destruction; self-imposed agony; effects of sin; that which "worketh abomination or maketh a lie."

The "self-imposed agony" was what got me thinking. Science and Health also uses "self-imposed" in this way:

The human thought must free itself from self-imposed materiality and bondage.
AND
(Written about a person healed in Christian Science) He learned that suffering and disease were the self-imposed beliefs of mortals, and not the facts of being;

Reasoning on this, I asked myself, where does the thought of disease come from? It can only be entertained in thought if I agree to give it access to my thought. The thought of disease doesn't have its own agenda. In that way, I am imposing on myself the thoughts of disease because I allow myself to let those thoughts in and I dwell on them! So this puts me in the driver's seat of my own thinking. I can determine what goes in and out of my thoughts. I can ...

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

Once, when mulling over and over again a disagreement I had with an individual, I realized that I had uncomfortably created for myself a little corner of hell by entertaining less than lovely thoughts about this individual. I realized that these were totally self-imposed! Nothing in my little mental argument had anything to do with the individual as a child of God. I was making up the whole unpleasant disagreement. With that old slap of spiritual reasoning hitting me in the face, it freed me from these "mortal beliefs" and I felt at peace.

Lesson learned: the antidote to hell is a disciplined thought that stops discord, dismay, disease in their tracks! We are the ones who determine whether or not we stay in the dream of material thinking.









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.

where is God in a tragedy?

Spiritual resource to share: comfort

No doubt there is a wave of compassion and comfort being poured over the small town of Crandon, a town about an hour south of where we live. News reports have just come out about a shooting of six teenagers - allegedly victims of a rampage from a jealous boyfriend.

It is "a nightmare" said one of the family members, totally unbelievable. Questions come up like: where was God in this? How could God allow this to happen?

When tragedies like this occur it is amazing to see the humanitarian response rush in. This affirms for me that the baseline for mankind is love - it is not an aberration, a nightmare. The fundamental substance of all of us is goodness, tenderness, love.

I got a whole new perspective when I read this in the Bible

And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.

I could see that God is not the creator of death and destrution, but of life and all that sustains creation - order, nourishment, peace and plenty. God is not in the tragedy, but helps us overcome tragic situations. God is the source of compassion and creative solutions.

God is that still, small voice that assures us that life is eternal, that each of His children are eternally loved and cared for. And God is the source of the intelligence that fuels the justice and preventive measures that will no doubt come as a result of this event.

Where is God in a tragedy? God has never left us. Because we are made in His image and likeness, nightmares will never have the final say of who we are. God's love and always present comfort gives us what we need to be strengthened, guided and assured. God's love still defines us.







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 intrigues me most about Christian Science - revisited

Spiritual resource to share: revisiting a new/old inspiration

Now that I have literally hundreds of these blogs, I find myself browsing through them, looking at past lessons learned, my gradual improvement at writing, continuing spiritual growth. When I came across this one blog, I was surprised how much I still feel the same way I did when I first wrote it. But then, Christian Science is like that for me. It is always fresh.

Here is the old blog:

Recently I was talking to a number of other Christian Science practitioners and we were all asked this question: What intrigues you most about Christian Science. Their answers were clear and varied. One practitioner loves the sound reasoning of Christian Science. Another practitioner loves how effective Christian Science is at problem solving. Another practitioner commented how Christian Science taught her to move through the world with dominion.

As for me, not only do I love the fact that Christian Science is so many things to so many people, but I am most thrilled to know that Christian Science spells out the universal law of Love and shows how to apply it to every situation imaginable.

Let me break this down as I understand it.

Christian Science is the science or the "how to" of Christianity.
Science is all about a system or method reconciling practical ends with scientific laws or the application of certain principles that bring about a consistent result.

Christianity is based on the teachings of Christ.
Christ is all about the expression of an omnipotent and omnipresent God (Love) in our human experience.

So, Christian Science explains "how to" do universal love, how to be loving, and be loved, and how to heal and harmonize with divine Principles of Love.

OK, so the thrilling part of this again is that these principles of Love find receptive hearts everywhere: with your immediate family members with whom you live and in situations a half a world away. Regardless of any human category you put yourself into or any situation you find yourself in, there is a principle, a law of Love, which when applied, brings the human picture into harmony.

To practice Christian Science means a never-ending discovery into the depths of understanding infinite Love and feeling the effects of Love's harmonizing influence. It has an impact on our individual lives. Christian Science has an impact on communities and nations. It seems to me that Christian Science explains the science of genius, of all that is brilliant and good and enduring. Through the science of Christ's teaching, we can all experience the promise that "with God, all things are possible."

Another friend commented that when she first read Science and Health ( the textbook of Christian Science) she was left breathless. It still does that to me, even after years of reading and practicing the ideas in 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.

already employed

Spiritual resource to share: value

Once I was very much in need of a job and feeling a bit desparate. The resolution to this dilemma was so complete and I had such a good outcome that I thought I would share it.

I was on my way to an interview when I saw a poster in the window of a Christian Science Reading Room that read "You are already employed." I quickly turned the corner, stepped on the brakes and ran in. "What does this mean?" I asked the person on staff. The staff person looked at me and smiled and we had a wonderful discussion.

The conversation left me understanding more about God and

• my completeness - my life has everything that is needed; and this is supplied by God who "always has met and always will meet every human need." This includes being employed right now, utilizing all the spiritual qualities that God has given me.
• my mission - God maintains and sustains my identity and my purpose.
• my future - God exists in the eternal now; I can see and be grateful that I can count on Her guidance and His protection always, just as I had in the past and was doing at that time.
• my value - God created everything in His image and likeness; all things created by God have value, purpose, dimension; and all ideas are harmonious - God's ideas don't compete with each other, judge each other or withhold something of value from one another.

I went on to the interview with such confidence. It was clear to me that not only was I going to be interviewed, but I was interviewing my prospective employer. We both wanted to determine what was a good fit.

With the confidence of knowing I was already employed, already valued and that we all ( in that interview scenario) were united in the same purpose, I went in to the interview, aced it, and started work the next week!





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.

stand by

Having some techie difficulties.
Please come back on Monday and have a wonderful weekend.

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

Spiritual resource to share: immensity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



*thought-spill=an elevated form of brainstorm

photo by Gabe Korinek - copyright2007

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.