War — Huh!

War is incomprehensible to most of us. Personally, I can’t think of anything horrific enough to cause me to file a lawsuit against another person, much less to want to kill them. I hear that countries and groups of people will do things collectively which individuals would find abhorrent. Wars often begin for religious- and/or power-driven causes. I’m sure everyone involved thinks they have a noble cause and they are standing up for righteous reasons, I’m not sure there is such a thing as a “righteous reason” — unless it is love-based. We learn in A Course in Miracles that everything either comes from love or is a call for love. As we watch wars swell intensely, our hearts go out to the people. May this love we send out to the innocents be for all the people, not just the ones we deem to be in the right. God sees no difference in Hitler or Mother Teresa. And we are the image and likeness of that divine Love. Namaste to All …

“Help Me to wake My children from the dream of retribution and a little life beset with fear, that ends so soon it might as well have never been. Let Me instead remind you of eternity, in which your joy grows greater as your love extends along with Mine beyond infinity, where time and distance have no meaning. While you wait in sorrow Heaven’s melody is incomplete, because your song is part of the eternal harmony of love. Without you is creation unfulfilled. Return to Me Who never left My Son. Listen, My child, your Father calls to you. Do not refuse to hear the Call for Love. Do not deny to Christ what is His Own. Heaven is here and Heaven is your home.” 

A Course in Miracles S-3.IV.8:1-9

“It should be thoroughly understood that all men have one Mind, one God and Father, one Life, Truth, and Love. Mankind will become perfect in proportion as this fact becomes apparent, war will cease and the true brotherhood of man will be established.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 467:9-13

Extraordinary Children

 Wiwi Schrøder - Väktaren, (a guardian)

Thinking and writing about childhood trauma can bring a feeling of hopelessness. Don’t we all have trauma as children? Is it inevitable that we remain bruised, if not broken? I know a child can be healed through love, but what if no one realizes the damage has occurred until it has become a part of that person? That is where people with training and understanding come into the equation, and I trust you will seek them out to help you, if need be. I was given away when I was two months old. My young mother wanted to keep me, but her family didn’t want that to happen. She was so distressed that she planned to kill me and then kill herself. She had a pillow over my face when her sister came in and stopped her. I was given to an aunt who had no children, but wanted to be a mother, and was in a position to give everything to a baby. Any trauma I may have suffered in utero and as an infant was neutralized by years of nurturing. Today I read this beautiful statement from L.R. Knost: “Instead of raising children who turn out okay despite their childhood, let's raise children who turn out extraordinary because of their childhood.” I know many young people who are raising extraordinary children, my son included. I love watching the young parents I know as they raise their babies. It is truly extraordinary!

“Miracles should inspire gratitude, not awe. You should thank God for what you really are. The children of God are holy and the miracle honors their holiness, which can be hidden but never lost.”

—A Course in Miracles T-1.I.31:1-3

“Children: The spiritual thoughts and representatives of Life, Truth, and Love.”

—Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 582:28-29

Translating and Releasing Fears

Photo courtesy of Don Matt

Dr. Gabor Maté is an expert in childhood trauma and its effects on people’s lives. I’ve wondered why some folks survive and thrive, while others seem to shrink and retreat into fearful ways of living. Dr. Maté has caused me to ask what behaviors children are exhibiting in reaction to the trauma inflicted upon them by our society — i.e., shootings in school, the fear they are taught to exhibit toward anything outside their homes — worse yet, the fear precipitated inside their homes. And what of our adults? Trauma from childhood has affected far too many of us. We don’t know how to handle the abuses from family, friends, teachers and others in positions of authority. What if we recognized the source of mass shootings and other horrendous crimes? It’s too easy to say the cause is video games, mass media, violent cartoons, and the like. While many things are contributing factors, what if we admitted that early childhood trauma can and does manifest itself in ways we don’t understand. These feelings need to be assimilated, translated, and released. Perhaps the teachings of Gabor Maté (and others who understand what is happening to us) can facilitate the transitions we need to make. If I am able to recognize my reactions to trauma in all its forms, perhaps I can release my own and allow others to have the courage to face theirs. Let’s not be afraid to see where those realizations take us!

“So much of what we call abnormality in this culture is actually normal responses to an abnormal culture. The abnormality does not reside in the pathology of individuals, but in the very culture that drives people into suffering and dysfunction.” — Dr. Gabor Maté

“The great peace of the Kingdom shines in your mind forever, but it must shine outward to make you aware of it.”
—A Course in Miracles T-6.II.12:8

“O wake and hear the angel-song That bids all discord cease, From pain and sorrow, doubt and fear, It brings us sweet release; And so our hearts find peace.”
—Christian Science Hymnal page 9

Invest in What is True

Starting over. Making changes. Reinventing ourselves. Most of us have done this more than once, haven't we? A sea change in our lives may come about because of illness, loss of a job, losing a loved one, or just needing to let go of behaviors which no longer serve us. Whatever the case, many of us resist these changes. Presently, it seems we are all in the midst of major shifts in our perceptions and our daily activities, and it can be frightening. We may wish someone would throw us a life preserver and tow us to safety! Perhaps we know someone grasping at illusions of hope, not seeing through the mist to the pitfalls on the other side. In our desire to show others the danger, we can drive them further away from seeing what's actually going on. And so we must remember that we cannot save anyone, we cannot change anyone; only ourselves. Our values can be expressed through our votes during elections, by the foods we purchase, by the entertainment we choose, and many other daily choices. We’re all in this together. The longer I live, the more I realize what that means. Let's be here for each other. It's the most we can do!

"This scientific sense of being, forsaking matter for Spirit, by no means suggests man's absorption into Deity and the loss of his identity, but confers upon man enlarged individuality, a wider sphere of thought and action, a more expansive love, a higher and more permanent peace."
—Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 265:10-15

“The way to correct distortions is to withdraw your faith in them and invest it only in what is true. You cannot make untruth true. If you are willing to accept what is true in everything you perceive, you let it be true for you. Truth overcomes all error, and those who live in error and emptiness can never find lasting solace. If you perceive truly you are cancelling out misperceptions in yourself and in others simultaneously. Because you see them as they are, you offer them your acceptance of their truth so they can accept it for themselves. This is the healing that the miracle induces.”
—A Course in Miracles T-3.II.6:1-7

Complete Simplicity

Photo credit: Don Matt

 Little Gidding

By T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot

We shall not cease from exploration 

And the end of all our exploring 

Will be to arrive where we started 

And know the place for the first time.

Through the unknown, remembered gate

When the last of earth left to discover

Is that which was the beginning;

At the source of the longest river

The voice of the hidden waterfall

And the children in the apple-tree

Not known, because not looked for 

But heard, half heard, in the stillness

Between the two waves of the sea.

Quick now, here, now, always--

A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything)

And all shall be well and

All manner of things shall be well

When the tongues of flame are in-folded

Into the crowned knot of fire

And the fire and the rose are one.

        Little Gidding V,

        Four Quartets.

        -- T.S. Eliot (1943)

“Truth is, and ever has been, simple; and because of its utter simplicity, we in our pride and selfishness have been looking right over it.

—Mary Baker Eddy - Miscellaneous Writings - Page 469:5-9

“The Holy Spirit, seeing where you are but knowing you are elsewhere, begins His lesson in simplicity with the fundamental teaching that truth is true. This is the hardest lesson you will ever learn, and in the end the only one. Simplicity is very difficult for twisted minds.” 

—A Course in Miracles T-14.II.2:1-3

Vapor Melting Before the Sun

Photo courtesy of Blake Lasater

Childhood memories: We all have them. But I've begun to question how many of mine actually happened! Perhaps the memories are stories parents or siblings told over and over, or maybe they come from photographs that you've looked at repeatedly. Don't get me wrong here, because I don't think that's a bad thing. Stories teach us and stories lead us to places we need to be. But sometimes those stories can mislead us, too. Recently an aged-aunt called me wanting confirmation about a family rumor. I had never heard about this occurrence and told her so. While she was questioning me, she said she was calling me rather than writing on Messenger (our usual mode of communication) because another relative had told her that I was getting off of Facebook. I have never considered doing such a thing, because I keep up with friends and family through that medium. But this has caused me to think on many things! What we believe to be true may be nothing more than words we want to believe. So let's keep an open mind and heart, whether we are remembering our past or listening to someone else's ideas which they want us to believe are true. We live in an age of rampant propaganda, whether it be from commercials bombarding us or bots inundating our social media feed, we must be aware that many people have an agenda which they are doing their best to propel into being. Our brains are pretty good at picking out illusions, and I'm going to practice ascertaining truth by looking back through those childhood moments which seem so real.

"As vapor melts before the sun, so evil would vanish before the reality of good. One must hide the other. How important, then, to choose good as the reality!" 
—Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 480:31

“And when the memory of God has come to you in the holy place of forgiveness you will remember nothing else, and memory will be as useless as learning, for your only purpose will be creating. Yet this you cannot know until every perception has been cleansed and purified, and finally removed forever. Forgiveness removes only the untrue, lifting the shadows from the world and carrying it, safe and sure within its gentleness, to the bright world of new and clean perception. There is your purpose now. And it is there that peace awaits you.”
—A Course in Miracles T-18.IX.14:1-5

Listen Without Judgment

Food insecurity is the nice term we have coined to describe people who are hungry or in need of nutritious food. I have a friend who severely budgets her food dollars, yet she won’t take advantage of the wonderful programs we have in our area which would help her survive. I often send her photos of the food deliveries Answering the Call supplies every other Wednesday, trying to tempt her. I tell her, “You don’t even have to sign up; just drive through and pick up.” This morning, I found myself mentally berating her for her choice. Then I remembered that making assumptions is a death knell for true communication. I was self-righteously accusing her with the assumptions I was making. And so my morning meditation was then prefaced with a desire to listen without judgment, while extending a compassionate hand with no expectation of the result. It’s easy to think we know what is best for someone, or to decide our intentions are pure and their reactions are based in false pride. May this realization allow me to extend Love purely, expecting no specific result.

“Where concepts of the self have been laid by is truth revealed exactly as it is. When every concept has been raised to doubt and question, and been recognized as made on no assumptions that would stand the light, then is the truth left free to enter in its sanctuary, clean and free of guilt. There is no statement that the world is more afraid to hear than this: I do not know the thing I am, and therefore do not know what I am doing, where I am, or how to look upon the world or on myself. Yet in this learning is salvation born. And What you are will tell you of Itself.”
—A Course in Miracles T-31.V.17:4-9

“The wrong done another reacts most heavily against one’s self. Right adjusts the balance sooner or later.”
—Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 449:7