We're All in This Together

What blesses one, blesses all. For instance when I first opened an art gallery in Eureka Springs, I was told the other galleries would try to run me out. This made no sense to me, as our village thinks of itself as an art destination, and in my mind that means more than two or three galleries. For instance, when our first winery opened a few years back, the owners stated there needed to be five wineries in the area for visitors interested in wine to think of this as a wine destination. Yes! For the past two decades, I’ve watched people hold onto what they have without seeing how embracing their neighbor could multiply their good. Fresh food markets have requested that roadside markets be moved so they will not have competition; other enterprises don’t understand why they should have anything on their social media page which doesn’t directly relate to them. I can’t help but think of how sellers of similar items can work together to draw more people to both businesses. And I question why farmers’ markets don’t join with animal shelters and other cool causes to cross promote. It seems we think if someone else has sunshine, there will be less for us. I’ve not noticed it works that way!

“To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, today is big with blessings.” Mary Baker Eddy

Cultural Crisis

I have been a fan of Marianne Williamson since I first read A Return to Love in the 90s. I would buy copies in thrift shops to keep on hand and pass out to anyone who was sad or confused. Today, in this time of national turmoil, she is running for our highest elected office and is not afraid to speak of the need for a moral and spiritual awakening. Today, in the Washington Post, she has a powerful article concerning the recurring nightmare of gun violence. She speaks to ways our society is violent, including environmental policies which are violent toward the Earth, our economic system which is violent to the poor, and entertainment media and its violence towards people. She goes on to list our criminal justice system’s violence toward people of color, video games violent effect on our minds, the military being violent when it doesn’t have to be, the violence of our mass media in shaming and blaming for the sake of a better click rate. Finally, our hearts are violent when we abandon each other. Yes, our country is ruled by organizations and corporations which promote shameless capitalism, but our personal lives are permeated by violence to which we seem to be addicted. I’ll be examining my life to see where I’m allowing anything unlike Love to live. Join me! (And if you want to read the entire Marianne article which I referenced, here’s the link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/02/marianne-williamson-us-needs-department-peace/?arc404=true 

Ho'oponopono

Ho'oponopono

I play the organ for our sweet Methodist church here in Eureka Springs. Today’s sermon began by asking us a question: What are you spending your time on, your money, your thoughts? There have been times in my past when I’ve squandered my time with foolish activities, my money on pointless, harmful substances, my thoughts in circular worries and accusations. Occasionally I find myself falling back into judgmental ways of blame, and I don’t like it! When I do this, I’ve discovered a fine way to counter these feelings:  Ho’oponopono. It seems far-fetched to think the repetition of four phrases could make a difference to anyone, but I have seen a yielding of differences occur where it seemed impossible. It gets back to what we all know: to change the world, change ourselves. When we meditate on “I Love You, I’m Sorry, Please Forgive Me, Thank You”, calm overcomes our turmoil. By not pointing a finger at someone else as the cause, we are realizing the completeness of our being. Whether we think of this as being the change we want to see, or loving our enemies — well, actually the best thing is not to think of it at all, but to simply let it permeate you. There’s a lovely story about how Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len allowed this simple process to heal an institution full of diagnosed criminally insane folks. Check it out if you’re so inclined!

“Hold thought to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring them into your life proportionately to their occupancy of your thoughts.” Mary Baker Eddy 

We Are All The Same

At a recent gathering, a group of Jewish women were talking about wearing the Star of David, how one of them had quit doing so for fear of being targeted by a hater, how a swastika had been painted on a music stand at our public school. When Barack Obama was elected president, I truly thought it signified an end to our limited thinking in regard to human beings. It seems to have brought up all sorts of fear and hatred towards anything unlike what we see when we look in the mirror. My heart aches for those who fear because of their religion or race. My mother was a Chicano from South Texas living in Arkansas. I often lamented her not teaching me the Spanish language, but she wouldn’t do so because she was afraid I’d have an accent. Hers had plagued her all her life, in her quest to fit in in America. We have come a long way in equality issues since I was a child, but when I hear people speak of the fear they have of living their truth, I realize we have yet a long way to go. 

"Legally to abolish unpaid servitude in the United States was hard; but the abolition of mental slavery is a more difficult task. The despotic tendencies, inherent in mortal mind and always germinating in new forms of tyranny, must be rooted out through the action of the divine Mind." Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 225:22-28

How Was Earth Created and When?

I watched a Public Broadcasting Service show about how rocks give us clues to the earliest beginning of our planet, Earth. It was fascinating to hear scientific facts providing an explanation of how we have arrived at this parenthesis in eternity. I hear tell that many people don’t want to believe in science, but would rather believe something they call God created everything just like it is today. Through the ages, we have been pointed toward truth by many wise men. Through my studies, I have come to see that a spiritual God cannot create a material universe, hence the dead end that many religions run into. I love thinking about these concepts and trying to understand how giving up concrete concepts can lead to flowing with cosmic consciousness. To quote someone else, How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?

Lulled by stupefying illusions, the world is asleep in the cradle of infancy, dreaming away the hours.” 
― Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures

Starting The Blog Again!

My book club has been meeting for more than 15 years. We are a group of women who read books and discuss them deeply, all the while having great food and drink and friendship. This evening, we discussed Becoming by Michelle Obama. This woman could be sitting in our living room, laughing and having fabulous conversation with us. Her insights into daily life are uplifting, and her realizations about the public life of a first lady are humbling. We have decided to have three goals by our next meeting. These goals will center around how to get young people and grandmothers out to vote on election days, or perhaps how to help a favorite candidate become a winner of an election, or what we can do to help the environment, or -- well, the possibilities are endless! On the way home from this gathering, my friend, Jean, told me she missed my daily writings. I realized I did, too! So I'm back to my daily emails and blog posts. I've missed them, and hearing from all of you, too!

New Beginnings...

Dear Friends,

I have written to you each night for over seven years, and have loved every day of it. Due to life's circumstances, I am looking for ways to cut back on duties in order to carve out time for something else I feel is important. Many of you have expressed to me your enjoyment of these morning musings in your mailbox, and I don't want you to be disappointed if you need or want a thought to start your day. Please know that there are more than 2,000 entries on the blog link below. Let's say you wake up and are worried about your dog. You can go to this blog and search for "dog" and all the dailies which mention this topic will be shown you. So in this way, you will be able to customize your morning spiritual focus!

Please know that when an event happens which prompts me to write, I shall do so! I hope you will keep me on your list of people you receive emails from, and feel free to write me with your thoughts, as many of you have done these last few years. 

“Love one another” (I John, iii. 23), is the most simple and profound

 

counsel of the inspired writer.

" Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 572:6-8

Love Enriches

PC: Steve Shogren

I know a woman who is in her 90s. Since her husband passed on, she has been unhappy with everything around her. Holidays only remind her of times they shared, and she's sad they're gone. The changing of seasons brings grief for various husband-related reasons. She doesn't enjoy meals or celebrations of any sort because she can't share them with him. We have spoken numerous times about this, as she talks about him a lot. Every time she relates her grief, I remind her of her happiness. I don't think she knows it's all right to be happy. She feels she would dishonor him by having fun without him. I see it as the opposite: the dishonor is in the turning from joy to sadness in the name of love. Today I will examine the thoughts I have which hurt. Is it possible to change the pain to quiet joy by a slight shift in thought about the situation? I look forward to finding out! 

“Human affection is not poured forth vainly, even though it meet no return. Love enriches the nature, enlarging, purifying, and elevating it. The wintry blasts of earth may uproot the flowers of affection, and scatter them to the winds; but this severance of fleshly ties serves to unite thought more closely to God, for Love supports the struggling heart until it ceases to sigh over the world and begins to unfold its wings for heaven.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 346: 13-16

Remembering

PC: Aaron Springston
Central Park

Any number of people, whom I know quite well, have told me they don't feel like they belong here. I think we all, at some time or another, have felt this way. What if, rather than us not belonging here, this "here" we speak of isn't what we think it is? What if we don't belong in this crazy world, but the world we see isn't reality? Perhaps our true home is something we've sensed is there, sort of like seeing a movement out of the corner of your eye, but when you look directly at it, it's not there.  For years I grasped at straws while ignoring the vast Truth of eternity. We're not strangers in a strange land when we realize the truth of Life. We may think everything is real that we touch and see, but it's shifting and changing, as opposed to the omnipresent stability of our true home. So let's be still a moment and ask to know what that home is. We want it so badly, but we've forgotten what it is. Now we're not afraid to remember!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“As mortals begin to understand Spirit, they give up the belief that there is any true existence apart from God.”

Science & Health Page 282:30-32

Infinite Possibilities

Lothar Schäfer

Someone was sitting on my couch in the living room. She was checking her phone for messages, holding it up to her ear, when a movement in the reflection on the screen caught her eye. As she looked closely at it, she saw that it was showing her the mirror which hangs on the wall across the room from her. In that reflection, she saw the house across the street, and it was moving as though she were passing it in a car. She checked the angles and reflections, searching for how such a thing could have happened, but there was no explanation. When she told me about this, she was surprised I believed her. I explained there are dimensions right here and now which are invisible to us, because we don’t want to believe anything exists other than what we see. I am now contemplating the field of infinite possibilities — and thinking of my dear friend, Lothar Schäfer. Hugs and Love sent to you!

“As mortals gain more correct views of God and man, multitudinous objects of creation, which before were invisible, will become visible.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 264:13-15 

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/217281/infinite-potential-by-lothar-schafer/9780307985958

At-one-ment with Love

photo credit: Richard Quick 

Have you ever had to force yourself to participate in an event only to find, when it was over and done, that you wouldn’t have missed it for the world? I’m thinking now of a community dinner which was held shortly before Christmas last year. A friend asked me to go with her, and I said yes, although I wasn’t enthused. After it was over, I said to someone: Any event with the word “community” in the title, I’m attending! Catherine Reed, set the tone with her guitar and singing. The food was bountiful and delicious. We visited with old friends and laughed and talked and drank wine. I left feeling a communion which was deep and true. The at-one-ment felt at these events and other community-building happenings is a religious experience to me!

Namaste…

“If Truth is overcoming error in your daily walk and conversation, you can finally say, ‘I have fought a good fight . . . I have kept the faith,’ because you are a better man. This is having our part in the at-one-ment with Truth and Love.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 21:1-5

Taking Off Human Shackles

I received a call from a political pollster which has left me confused about more than a few things. Mainly, I’m wondering when three words in particular began to imply varying degrees of lunacy. Here are the words, with a short definition: Liberal - open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values. Conservative - holding to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change or innovation. Moderate - average in amount, intensity, quality, or degree. These words and their definitions do not convey the extreme meaning which the news media apparently wants us to feel. When I was asked by the pollster which I considered myself to be, I was speechless. But then I threw caution to the wind and answered boldly, remembering what I write about every day: change of thought, seeing a new world where illusions appear to be, living fearlessly as Love!

Mary Baker Eddy quote: “Progress takes off human shackles. The finite must yield to the infinite. Advancing to a higher plane of action, thought rises from the material sense to the spiritual, from the scholastic to the inspirational, and from the mortal to the immortal.” Science & Health Page 256:1-5

Everything a Miracle

PC: Aaron Springston

I love this quote attributed to Albert Einstein: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Through various religious teachings, most of us think of a miracle as divine power setting aside a material law, allowing something otherworldly or supernatural to occur. What if a miracle is simply a correction of our limiting beliefs, opening us to divine Mind and the limitless Life which is our true heritage as a child of Love? By this remembrance, we heal our mind of separation, giving us a clarity of thought and sight before unknown. I am very grateful —

“The miracle introduces no disorder, but unfolds the primal order, establishing the Science of God’s unchangeable law. Spiritual evolution alone is worthy of the exercise of divine power.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 135:6-10

The Quiet Mind

PC: Aaron Springston

Once, years ago, I was taking a carload of kids to the geography bee in Arkadelphia. After the first hour or so, I turned to one of the boys and said, “Everything that goes through your brain doesn’t need to come out of your mouth!” I remind myself of this often. It is easy to get into a stream-of-consciousness way of talking, allowing ourselves to prattle on about everything we think about. If you notice me going on and on when we’re together, stop me! Please! I think meditation, yoga, and spending time with your flowers is good practice for  quieting the mind. Let me know what you do to center yourself and listen!

“Yet there will always be this place of rest to which you can return. And you will be more aware of this quiet center of the storm than all its raging activity. This quiet center, in which you do nothing, will remain with you, giving you rest in the midst of every busy doing on which you are sent.” From A Course in Miracles — The Passing of the Dream 

Changing Belief

PC: Arthur Bruno

I've had two friends who passed on when they were in their 50s, with no physical cause. One woman was traveling, stopped at a hotel, laid down on the bed and was gone. As this was an unattended death, all the legal protocol were followed and it was determined there was no physical reason at all for her passing. I think this is great! The new realms of thought we're accessing allow many old beliefs to be abandoned -- finally! How many material laws have imprisoned us with unlocked doors? The body, as a wholly neutral thing, is an empty vessel waiting to be filled up with thought. Let's make sure that it’s thought independent of erroneous learning and dogma. Everything is important; nothing is important -- neutrality.

“The elements and functions of the physical body and of the physical world will change as mortal mind changes its beliefs.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 124:32-10

Catch Your Brain on Fire

PC: Aaron Springston

My book club read The Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton this month. An interesting discussion ensued and was started off by our hostess for this month’s meeting saying that every day she likes to do something which catches her brain on fire. I love that thought! We decided anything can do this for us, whether it’s a comment made randomly by a stranger in the grocery store, a child expressing something we take for granted, or butterflies landing on flowers. In other words, if we’re paying attention (living in the moment, if you will), something will spark a flame in us which will catch our brain on fire with interest and a desire to know more, or be more, or simply sit and enjoy the smoldering embers. Every moment is a catalyst for this burst of interest, when we’re paying attention. Today I look forward to noticing what causes ignition!

“People go into ecstasies over the sense of a corporeal Jehovah, though with scarcely a spark of love in their hearts; yet God is Love, and without Love, God, immortality cannot appear.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 312:14-17

Internal Awakening

PC: Aaron Springston

I feel the “second coming” is an internal awakening. It involves seeing and feeling the never-beginning, never-ending Truth of our being. This burgeoning understanding has brought me the peace which intellectual reasoning never did. I see the world as a loving place, filled with people who care about each other and their environment. In the past, most every day numerous people would tell me why they felt the world was a hate-filled place. Now it's a rarity. Have they changed or have I? Is there a difference if we're all One? Love = Peace = Harmony. Feel the Love!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:[This is from the Glossary, where she gives us the spiritual significance of terms.]

"Japhet (Noah’s son): A type of spiritual peace, flowing from the understanding that God is the divine Principle of all existence, and that man is His idea, the child of His care."  Science & Health Page 589:8-11

Surrounded by Love

[This was written a few years ago when my gallery was open]

When sitting in my gallery with Steve Tyrell singing Frank Sinatra songs, it's easy to feel surrounded by Love. As this is the first cool day in quite some time, I have the front door open to enjoy the fresh air and invite people to come in and see the great collection of art and fine craft we have. Suddenly, the calm is broken by raucous laughter. I look out to see a seemingly drunken man standing in the middle of the street, pretending he's directing traffic, while his friend takes photos of the performance. I nearly slip into judgmental mode, but refrain. I have vowed to see everyone through the eyes of God today. So I enjoy his antics as I sway to the sultry music filling the air. Shortly thereafter, the man in the street comes in with his friend. They rather sheepishly talk about what they were doing. The friend states that usually the man in the street is a quiet, subdued person who would never think of making a scene. As I watch them enjoying their vacation, I see that they truly are reflecting Love, too. I see the motorcycles roaring by as extensions of the fun-loving folks riding them. I take a deep breath and smile.

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“The very circumstance, which your suffering sense deems wrathful and afflictive, Love can make an angel entertained unawares.”

Science & Health Page 574: 27-30

Infinite Individuality

PC: Aaron Springston

At one point in her writings, Mary Baker Eddy refers to earth as a "preparatory school". To me this means we are learning how to let life become Life. As the image and likeness of God, we reflect eternal Life, divine Mind, healing Love. A number of friends are currently facing major challenges in their lives. While I can't experience what they are (as their feelings are individualized) I can remind them that they are always embraced in Love; that Love is contained by each and every one of us. We are unified in our essence, but individual in our form. As we go through our day, no matter what the circumstance, let's allow divine Love to lead the way.  

“The one Ego, the one Mind or Spirit called God, is infinite individuality, which supplies all form and comeliness and which reflects reality and divinity in individual spiritual man and things.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 281:14-17

Following Your Heart

PC: Aaron Springston

I met a young woman who told me that God was talking to all of us -- and it was time to listen! As we chatted briefly, she told a story of finding out her husband had a girlfriend, getting divorced, feeling hopeless. Then she left a job she didn't enjoy and followed her dream of starting a little antique store where she has lots of cool stuff, like freshly ground coffee and books she wants to share with others: a place where everyone feels welcome. She tells me this happened because she listened to God. Now, this guidance can be called many things -- following your heart, listening for the still small voice, living your dream -- but whatever it's called, it can only be heard by shutting out ego thoughts, the material-based fears, all those other voices telling us we're not good enough, not capable enough. It's heard by silencing the advice of mortal mind, telling us to just stay put because it's safe there and who knows what might happen if we listen to intuition and follow an unknown path. Well, I was very much buoyed by her joy and new-found confidence. It was inspiring that she started the conversation by telling me it was time to listen to God! She made me want to shout Hallelujah!

“Nature voices natural, spiritual law and divine Love, but human belief misinterprets nature. Arctic regions, sunny tropics, giant hills, winged winds, mighty billows, verdant vales, festive flowers, and glorious heavens,--all point to Mind, the spiritual intelligence they reflect. The floral apostles are hieroglyphs of Deity. Suns and planets teach grand lessons. The stars make night beautiful, and the leaflet turns naturally towards the light.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 240:1-9