Loving Gratitude

Having double below-the-knee amputations, my ability to go places is limited. I can easily move from my wheelchair to different seating in my home, or get into a car, or into my handicap-accessible shower. I get by with a little help from my friends to go to my job as accompanist in a local church, or to attend my book club meetings, or anywhere which does not have stairs. The gratitude I feel to and for friends who take me places and load my moving chair into their vehicles is immense. I play competitive bridge with friends and strangers online; I compete with friends across town or on the other side of the globe in the scrabble-like game, Words With Friends. Thanks to the wonder of the internet I can watch any documentary, movie, or television show ever made — without commercials! Thanks to our wonderful library system, I can read or listen to thousands of books. There has never been a more wonderful time to be housebound! We had our monthly book club meeting this evening. I am thankful for the wonderful women who loaded me into a car and got me there to enjoy great conversation and food. My heart is full …

“The less mind there is manifested in matter the better. When the unthinking lobster loses its claw, the claw grows again. If the Science of Life were understood, it would be found that the senses of Mind are never lost and that matter has no sensation. Then the human limb would be replaced as readily as the lobster’s claw, — not with an artificial limb, but with the genuine one.”
—Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 489:1-9

“The miracle is much like the body in that both are learning aids for facilitating a state in which they become unnecessary. When spirit’s original state of direct communication is reached, neither the body nor the miracle serves any purpose. While you believe you are in a body, however, you can choose between loveless and miraculous channels of expression.You can make an empty shell, but you cannot express nothing at all. You can wait, delay, paralyze yourself, or reduce your creativity almost to nothing. But you cannot abolish it. You can destroy your medium of communication, but not your potential. You did not create yourself.”
—A Course in Miracles T-1.V.1:1-8