jumping out of our skins

Spiritual resource to share: standing by each other





Today, my internet connections are all abuzz with possibility for change from war, economic uncertainty and job losses into more hope, peace and innovation, and more understanding between nations and individuals of different backgrounds.

There is a freedom and connectivity that is happening now via internet that makes it possible for me to be in contact with others. We are more aware of the challenges that we face and more aware of the unlimited ideas we have to meet these challenges. There is a call to sacrifice that I feel people are hungry to respond to. There is a call for modesty in our consumption and I think people will rise to that. There is a call for tolerance that I think people are relieved to hear.

It is fatiguing and tiresome to continue to be at war with others. It is burdensome to always feel that you need more things to be happy. It seems that people are just about ready to jump out of that old limiting materialistic skin and to embrace what is truly at the heart of who we are all called to be: loving, generous, creative, innovative, strong and disciplined.



There is a growing sentiment that says we are not afraid.
Like a wrestler before hitting the mat, a racer before the gate or a mother before giving birth - there is a earnest readiness to do the work because we know that there is nothing that can separate us from Love. We know what we have hoped for will be realized.

Is this a sentiment similar to Paul's when he says

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The rhetoric will soon die down and we will need to prove what we have so eloquently stated. There is great comfort to understand that God's love is infinite and that there are "infinite resources with which to bless mankind." And that comfort is magnified when we realize we are not alone, but that we stand by each other as we meet the new day.


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.

Night

Spiritual resource to share: freshness and contentment



We were out cross country skiing at night again. There is something about the night that I find soothing. In the cold, air becomes a tangible thing. You breathe in and taste a startlingly cold and sweet freshness. You breathe out and you see wisps of rising clouds. It's magical.

Night kind of gets a bad rap when it is used to portray darkness, fear, and so on. So I'm hoping this blog, the picture and poem help to redeem night's other virtues: protection, rest and stillness.

In the dark silence, my husband and I ski. And during the swooshing sound of my skis and the squeak of the cold snow, I take time to pray. The work and persistence of skiing uphill is rewarded by the smooth sailing downhill. Prayer has its rewards as well.

I am grateful for all that night means to me and for the protection that God gives, the rest that comes from dedicated work and the stillness that welcomes every new day. I am grateful to know that prayer becomes a tangible thing. Prayer is the impulse behind kind words, corrected mistakes, forgiveness, renewed commitments and unselfish deeds.

Just as night falls unconditionally and evenly on all things, so does Love grace itself unconditionally and evenly on every thing. The rhythm of my strides and the rhythm of my prayer blend under the safe cover of night.

I found another night lover on the web. Welcome to this poem.

The Night of the Full Moon

by Lloyd Frankenberg

O come with me into this moonlight world.

The trees are large and soft tonight,

With blossoms loaded soft and white,

A cloud of whiteness furling and unfurled.

The houses give their sounds upon the air

In muted tones and secrecies,

Their lights like laughter through the trees.

The evening breathes its vows into our hair.

The evening puts its lips to throat and brow

And swears what it has sworn before

To others and will swear to more.

The evening has its arms around us now.

photo All rights reserved

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.

Say amen somebody!*

Spiritual resource to share: one another's blessings

Staging at the Obama Inauguration 1.20.09

What can I say after a day packed with inspiration? Only to repeat what has already been shared.

Here is an excerpt from Reverend Lowery's benediction blessing at the Inauguration yesterday: (Thanks Maggie for posting this on facebook.)

The Rev. Joseph Lowery's Benediction:

"God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far along the way,
Thou who has by Thy might led us into the light,
keep us forever in the path, we pray,
lest our feet stray from the places, our God,
where we met Thee, lest our hearts,
drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee.

Shadowed beneath thy hand may we forever stand --
true to thee, O God, and true to our native land.

[...]

Help us then, now, Lord,
to work for that day when nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
when tanks will be beaten into tractors,
when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree,
and none shall be afraid;

when justice will roll down like waters
and righteousness as a mighty stream.
Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest,
and in the joy of a new beginning,
we ask you to help us work for that day
when black will not be asked to get back,
when brown can stick around -- (laughter) --
when yellow will be mellow -- (laughter) --
when the red man can get ahead, man -- (laughter) --
and when white will embrace what is right.

Let all those who do justice and love mercy say amen.

AUDIENCE: Amen!

REV. LOWERY: Say amen --

AUDIENCE: Amen!

REV. LOWERY: -- and amen.

AUDIENCE: Amen!

(Cheers, applause.)

See the whole benediction here:



*Say Amen Somebody is a little known documentary about the history of the American Gospel movement. A long time favorite of Rick's and mine.

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.

Possibility and Responsibility

Spiritual resource to share: readiness to work

It's been the start of an incredibly upbeat week here in the US as we welcome in our 44th President. Pre-inaugural speeches have played up on the theme of everything is possible. Tomorrow's inauguration of our new president has the theme: ‘A New Birth of Freedom’ commemorating the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth and our founding fathers' ideal of equality and freedom for all. Tempered into those talks is the theme of possibility but also responsibility.

I certainly feel the joy of discovering new possibilities and expansive ways of thinking and solving problems. But there is another kind of joy that welcomes our increased responsibility to one another and to ourselves. This is the kind of joy that deepens character and grows confidence.

Taking responsibility for ourselves is how we love ourselves and forms the basis of how we love others. Taking responsibility for one another gives us a place to belong and shows how much we are needed.

Looking ahead of this celebratory week, the challenges we have today will still be there. But collectively we have a new resolve. The Christian Science Monitor's opinion column reports a resolve that goes as deep as spiritual transformation worldwide. "There is a growing confidence that universal peace and well-being are, against all odds, actually achievable on planet Earth.”

Heady stuff.

What I love about Christian Science is that it shows how these ideals can be made practical. How? The founder and discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, has some salient points:

• By understanding that God’s work is already done and is good: "Science reveals the possibility of achieving all good, and sets mortals at work to discover what God has already done."


• And that we have the resources to reveal this good through God: "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."


• And that we have a perfect example in Christ Jesus’ work as to how this can be done: "His (Christ Jesus’) mission was both individual and collective. He did life's work aright not only in justice to himself, but in mercy to mortals, — to show them how to do theirs, but not to do it for them nor to relieve them of a single responsibility."

Responsibility, practicality, community, possibility and the joy to do the work will probably be recurring themes throughout the year. And we are ready!

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.

2009 - a year to pour on the joy!

Spiritual resource to share: overflow!



I have been getting an awful lot of happiness messages on my various technologies lately. (Thank you Amy for this article on the secret of happiness and happiness quotes!) I even have an assignment from one of my mentors to start tracking those everyday happy moments -- of times with friends, children, pets, with nature and so on. Growing up in a photographer's family, we've been dealing with capturing moments of happiness for decades. These all add up. It is these moments that bring out the best of who we are.

I went to bed last night after watching a home made video of my friends' daughter singing ( like really well!) "I'm yours" by Jason Mraz. I wasn't able to get her video on this post but I did get one of Mraz's. Listen to it above. Pure happy.

And now, with the Golden Globes winners announced, that's strong indication that there may be a bigger happiness thing going on! Golden Globe winners and nominees like Slumdog Millionaire, Happy-Go-Lucky and Mamma Mia may make 2009 to be a year for joy to pull out all the stops.

Mary Baker Eddy's take on happiness is timeless:

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

(For other thoughts on happiness from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, click here and type in happiness.)

Happy ( really deeply profoundly happy) 2009!





To share your thoughts on this or to explore this idea further, please feel free to be in contact with me, add your own comments below, email this article to a friend, or add to the healing finds and sites on the web to the right.

The wisdom of DOG - revisited

spiritual resource to share: our pets

It's been a full two weeks with lots of people coming and going. And now, with the last load of guest sheets and pillowcases washed, the air beds deflated, and my husband back in the groove of business travel, I have Mocha, my lovable Rottie, to keep me company. I went back to a posting I wrote years ago and am re-posting it now for all you pet-lovers out there.

But ask the animals what they think—let them teach you;
let the birds tell you what's going on.
Put your ear to the earth—learn the basics.
Listen—the fish in the ocean will tell you their stories.
Isn't it clear that they all know and agree that God is sovereign,

that he holds all things in his hand—
Every living soul, yes, every breathing creature?
Isn't this all just common sense?

Job 12 from The Message

As I start my days, my faithful companion, Mocha, our dog, often settles herself in a corner underneath my large desk and rests while I work and pray. Her presence makes me think about all the spiritual qualities that she has brought into our lives:

• unconditional love
• instant forgiveness
• protection
• loyalty
• gratitude for the little things
• always ready to play
• being a loving, living presence during my day
• joyfulness in the every day acts of living
• innocence
• grace, strength and beauty
• intuition about danger
• receptivity to Truth
• even her goofy little antics reflect spontaneity and humor

With all the animal pets I have had throughout my life, I have to agree: "Isn't it clear that they all know and agree that God is sovereign, that he holds all things in his hand."

What wisdom have animals shared with you lately?

Letting go and letting God

Spiritual resource to share: familiar, time tested life truths


There’s a lot to consider when trusting God – like what it means to let go. It’s talking about letting go of one’s own plans, speculations and opinions to make way for the grace and surprise of God.

There’s a discipline to this, I know. Letting go and letting God is not about letting yourself go, like letting things slide or ignoring things. To let go of self and ego and trust God is a discipline like many disciplines. For instance in dance: I studied dance for about ten years and can only truly say that I felt I was able to truly “let go” and dance only a handful of times. Let me explain and then draw some analogies to healing prayer.

For years, I danced up to five days a week. We always started out with stretches on the floor, stretches standing, then on to small phrases of movements then to movements across the floor. It was repetitive and in certain ways, contemplative. Then we would work on the larger performance piece.

After weeks, even months of class, we performed. This was where the discipline paid off. With the spontaneous connection of a live audience, the art of dance kicked in for me. Because of the discipline, I had more freedom, strength and confidence to move, to jump, to remember the intricacies of the steps, the stretches, the contact with the floor and with one another. The letting go was done because of my trust in all the things that I had learned. It was freeing, empowering and affirming! It all connected and made sense! The dance then was truly inspired.

Something in that perfect coincidence of balance, grace and energy being made manifest resonated deeply with the audience and that inspiration is what moved the audience to a full round of applause!

My approach to prayer is somewhat similar to my approach to dance. I can start with the study of things I know: the Weekly Bible Lesson, reading through Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy or her other writings, the Bible, other inspiring articles. I read these things in order to be stretched – to feel an expanding of ideas (otherwise it is just bland repetition like only reading the letter without the spirit).

I take a new idea and expand it to my life. I then move with this thought to my practice, my patients, to the world. I practice with this one idea throughout the day.

When I get a spontaneous call from a patient, it all comes together. The discipline of the daily work yields up to the inspiration of the moment. I let go of all speculation, human opinions and fears, and listen. I let God guide the conversation and later, let God reveal to me what I need to know. God becomes nearer and dearer to me, and it follows that whatever weight the limited and material arguments had, fall away.

If divine Love is becoming nearer, dearer, and more real to us, matter is then submitting to spirit.

Healing happens as a revealing of our perfect reflection of perfect God. There is something in that perfect coincidence of health, harmony and abundant love being made manifest that resonates deeply with me. And the whole reason for this is for the patient to experience this as well.

I grow in my trust of God’s supremacy. Every day, I can let go more easily and trust God more readily. It is an infinite lesson that I learn every day.





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.

Be still

Spiritual resource to share: quietness and peace

It's no mistake that when Mary Baker Eddy talks about prayer in her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, that she repeatedly urges us to vigorously shut out the clamor of daily life and concerns.

"To enter into the heart of prayer, the door of the erring senses must be closed."
"Lips must be mute and materialism silent."
"The closet (of prayer) ...shuts out sinful sense, but lets in Truth, Life and Love."
"....we must enter the closet and shut the door."
"We must close the lips and silence the material senses."

Maybe it speaks to the discipline needed to actually get to the point of stillness and openness in our thought where we can feel God's peace and warmth. This type of prayer affirms the fundamental, primitive nature of God's goodness, aligns consciousness with all that is pure and true and makes us aware of God's full approval and delight in His creation, that is, in us.

A well-loved poem reflects this expectant prayer:

Doves*
William B. Lynch

I want
the words to flutter
around you and land softly
on your shoulders in peace.
I want you to hear them
tell you of heaven.

Stand still
and they will gather.








*From the book Ideas on Wings - a collection of poems from the Christian Science periodicals, The Christian Science Publishing Society, Boston, MA 1978
photo © Igor Nikolayev - Fotolia.com

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.

Christmas presence

Spiritual resource to share: true giving

I received an email today. In it, the writer talked about his recent trip to the Middle East where he saw many of the Holy Land hot spots. What struck him was that above every spot where some sacred activity was reported to have happened, some type of institution was built. It was even harder for him to imagine the original event given the buildings and all their attempts to institutionalize those sacred moments. And he asked himself - how much institutionalization, traditions, and history have tried to bury the living Christ? How much have I let it be buried? These are probing and necessary questions, especially pertinent now during the Christmas season where commercialism and overscheduling are so prevalent.

I keep a running list of "whatsoever groups." These are groups that are doing some life-transforming things, and I like to increase their exposure on my site - even as modest as it is!

The "whatsoever group" idea came from a quote from the Bible which actually came from a letter written by Paul to a small but growing church: "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."

Today I got another post on my facebook about a group that works to provide clean water worldwide. It is put in a context that has a life-transforming message for us all. It is my gift to you: an opportunity to "think on these things" and to share your thoughts about the presence of Christmas in your life.




For more info, check out http://www.adventconspiracy.org/


This Christmas season, may you give generously, live deeply and have many moments of peace, stillness and satisfaction! Merry 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.

Lessons from the Dogslayer

Spiritual resource to share: eternal life

In thinking about life and death, I go back to a pretty simple explanation I gave my sons a number of years ago. This was written a while ago........

(Micah with his first hamster, Cinnamon)
Dogslayer was our last hamster, having been named for the curious effect he had from our Rottweiler - Mocha. At their first introduction, the hamster stretched forward to smell Mocha's nose, which sent Mocha cowering back. No amount of coaxing could get Mocha to at least touch the hamster. Hence the name, Dogslayer.

Both sons are teenagers now, so when when Dogslayer died, it was not a very big deal. We put his body in a nice padded gift box and lovingly placed it in the garbage. That was it.

The first time the boys experienced the death of their first hamster was when they were about 6 and 9. It was a big deal. My younger son cried, which made my older son upset because it was his pet, and both of them didn't understand why the pet died.

In praying about how to explain immortality, death, life, I came up with something that I think helped them both. We talked about what a loving home we gave to the hamster and this home probably made the hamster feel very loved and cared for. But the clincher was to understand that life goes on and all the spiritual qualities of this hamster - being adorable, satisfied, friendly, funny - go on as well.

Then, I asked my sons to think of a number. One gave me the number 8. I wrote "8" on our chalkboard. We could all see that written number. Then I erased the number "8" on the chalkboard. "Where did the 8 go?" I asked. "Is there no longer the number 8 because we can't see it anymore?" Well, of course, the answer is that the eight always exists because it is an idea.

From here, it was an easy analogy to help us see that the wonderful qualities of the hamster are still with us even if we can't see the hamster anymore. I think they got it. Enough so, that soon after, we got ourselves another hamster.

Mary Baker Eddy often refers to death as a transition or a phase:

In the illusion of death, mortals wake to the knowledge of two facts: (1) that they are not dead; (2) that they have but passed the portals of a new belief.

Death is but another phase of the dream that existence can be material. Nothing can interfere with the harmony of being nor end the existence of man in Science. ... God, Life, Truth, and Love make man undying..

I have often looked back at that lesson with my sons, illustrating that life is eternal. When we understand who we are spiritually - as an idea or child of God - we can never lose one another. God, Life, Truth and Love make us undying, continuing on to grow, learn, progress. And understanding this, we can find peace in our own eternal and infinite nature.







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.