Our Essence as Love

photo credit: Richard Quick

What is love? As a personal value, love changes and shifts. Friendships end over disagreements, marriages fall apart, societies struggle with how to remain cohesive while accepting those who think differently. In reality, Love is unchanging. This Love changes our material expectations and perceived shortcomings, when we allow it. There was a time when two people I care for did not get along with each other. Seeing them both as expressions of Love helped them to see themselves this way, too. Seeing myself as complete allows a shift to occur in the way I treat others — and myself. All problems, large and small, are symptoms of a basic misconception that we are fallen humans separated from Love. The understanding that we are Love, wholly and purely, starts a domino-effect process which inevitably includes everyone in this shift of thought, away from the unreal belief in what we think we are to the pure comprehension of  our essence as Love.

Mary Baker Eddy quote: “From Love and from the light and harmony which are the abode of Spirit, only reflections of good can come.”

Science & Health Page 280:4-7

Go Where the Music Takes You

photo credit: Richard Quick

Music is an aid which opens our thought to things we may have forgotten or, perhaps, never have known. I love to sit with an all-encompassing symphony orchestra, opening my mind to only the music, until at some point I feel there is nothing else in the world. I recall Wayne Dyer talking about muscle testing using different items. An organic banana allowed full strength in his son, whereas holding a CD of raucous music left him much weakened. Each of us enjoys different kinds of music, and there are many levels of this enjoyment. Something we would enjoy with friends at a party may not compare to the quiet strains of Bach, which take us deeper within ourselves prior to meditation or writing. Find the music which opens you to hearing the messages Life, Truth, and Love are offering you. Surround yourself with this river of salvation and see where it takes you!

“Mozart experienced more than he expressed. The rapture of his grandest symphonies was never heard. He was a musician beyond what the world knew.This was even more strikingly true of Beethoven, who was so long hopelessly deaf. Mental melodies and strains of sweetest music supersede conscious sound. Music is the rhythm of head and heart. Mortal mind is the harp of many strings, discoursing either discord or harmony according as the hand, which sweeps over it, is human or divine.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 213:19-29

Just Write

Paulo Coelho is one of my favorite authors. In his book, "Aleph”, and others, he takes us on a spiritual journey which shows that we are indeed not alone in either our fears or our realizations of Truth. This novel is described as his most personal, and from the little I know of Mr. Coelho's life, our main character seems to have many common characteristics with his creator. When he writes of spiritual progress feeling stagnant, I ache for him. These  sentences ask for remembrance: "It isn't what you did in the past that will affect the present. It's what you do in the present that will redeem the past and thereby change the future." What a vibrant, hopeful statement! And now is the time. What you do right now is the pivotal point in your life. Let go of any and all grievances of any kind. Notice your thoughts as they peek out at you during the day. Are they reinforcing old, often-painful beliefs, or are they leading you out of them?  I find novels such as those written by Mr. Coelho to be delightful. I urge each of you to write! Write in blogs, write letters to the editor, keep a journal -- anything and everything which solidifies our yearning to know Oneness needs to be written. It deserves a voice which contains no fear, no shame, only honesty.

“It requires courage to utter truth; for the higher Truth lifts her voice, the louder will error scream, until its in‐articulate sound is forever silenced in oblivion.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 278:1-11

Harmony - June 7, 2018

Conflict resolution. Conflict transformation. How much time and energy do we spend in attempting to negate conflict between others and/or within ourselves? We can make lists of the merits of our choices, we can role play and put ourselves in others' places in a situation, we can enlist therapists to help us out. There are lots of ways to search for the door out of conflict. I have found the only true way to leave it behind is to realize that such a thing does not exist anywhere other than in my thought. Anyone who has ever tried to calm fighting siblings knows the process can be daunting no matter how you approach it! I'll always remember a time when my boys were around 8 and 10 years of age. Their disagreements had advanced to the point where I saw no way out other than to give one of them away! One day, during a particularly intense bout, I gave up and sat down in my bedroom to have a good cry. Next to my chair was a stack of Christian Science Sentinels, the weekly publication which gives us practical metaphysical writings. I reached down and pulled one from the middle of the stack and opened it up to an article about brothers fighting! I don't remember anything about the content, other than it was just what I needed for the situation. And I remember the solution had to do with having no strong opinions. By letting go of my I'm-right-you're-wrong attitude, I was able to lead them to the same way of thought, by living it, not just telling them what they should do. Living Love creates bridges which bring us together in peace. Trust that your function and your happiness are your heritage, and don't be afraid to open up and see what unexpected ways it will be manifested.

“God has endowed man with inalienable rights, among which are self-government, reason, and conscience. Man is properly self-governed only when he is guided rightly and governed by his Maker, divine Truth and Love.”

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 106:7-10

Love Is The Common Denominator

I love silly situation comedies, such as Modern Family.  A favorite episode is one where Claire has lunch with an old college friend. Her friend has a very successful career and an exciting life as a single woman. Claire is jealous and wants to show off her three kids and husband of seventeen years, so she takes her friend home to meet them. Her handsome husband is inexplicably wearing a huge fake mustache and is trapped in a port-a-potty placed there by the water department while they work on the lines. Her oldest daughter is having a loud altercation with her boyfriend. Her other daughter and her son have been recycling in the neighborhood and have the kitchen filled with semi-empty bottles of alcohol. The son is in his underwear because he spilled booze all over himself, while the daughter is trying to catch a rat which came in with the boxes. So much for self-importance, huh? Most of us probably have a silly story about a situation which backfired when we've wanted to show off in some way. If we stop and think about these feelings and what's behind them, it's easy to see how this desire to be "special", to be better than someone else, is at the core of every disagreement and conflict in the world.  With the understanding that we are all the reflection of Love each demonstrating our individuality within this realm of unity, it becomes possible to release false images of self-importance and relax into the perfection of this experience we know as life. By doing so, we are the light of the world! Seeing ourself in others and others in ourself, we fulfill our function of forgiveness. We do this by giving up ideas and beliefs which foster the misconception that we are all different, and instead embrace Love as our common denominator.

"Self-forgetfulness, purity, and affection are constant prayers." Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 15:26-27

Living Love

PC: Aaron Springston

Cynicism hides the light of the world very effectively. As a small child, I freely expressed joy in everything and to everyone, but slowly and thoroughly this joy was quieted by rules and other forces of conformity.  During the 60s and 70s, although it was heralded as the Age of Aquarius, the free love that permeated our atmosphere was actually a charade of the love I had felt as a small child. We made fun of those who weren't like us, and by doing so became unsure of what we were. There was an attitude of disdain which came with our superiority. We knew our government was wrong, as were our parents, most teachers, and the majority of our peers. It's no wonder that a major magazine's cover declared that God was dead, because materialism and cynicism had killed any expression of real Love. I was convinced that to have children would be a travesty, as this world was no place for humans to be. Nearly half a century past those turbulent times, I see wonderful changes in all of us. We know that Love is a force within us which can't be quieted, and fear can never be as powerful as Love. More people every day are waking up to the truth of their being, living the salvation of this realization, and not allowing anything to hide that light. Any day now everyone will awaken to their function as a living ray of this Love, and we won't be afraid of it. It is our heritage! We have denied it as long as we can. The Truth is alive within us and it only takes recognition to bring it to fruition. Let's live our salvation today!

"The understanding of Truth and Love, the Principle which works out the ends of eternal good and destroys both faith in evil and the practice of evil, leads to the discernment of the divine idea." Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 561:1-4

Trust

photo credit: Aaron Springston

Trust seems to be a national issue right now. The things we have learned to trust suddenly feel frightening — i.e., policemen, politicians, preachers. Sometimes we have a tough time trusting our friends and loved ones. I know people who speak in derogatory terms about their children and their spouses. What is this thing we think of as trust? Does it truly originate in someone else, or does it come from within ourselves? Perhaps we don’t trust others because we don’t trust ourselves, or do we not trust ourselves because we don’t trust others? It all seems terribly complicated. I’m questioning, within myself, what it means, where it starts, where it ends. Perhaps it’s like love, and there is no beginning nor end, although there certainly seems to be a finite amount to go around. I suppose I’m looking at this from a material view and I should practice what I preach, looking beyond human feelings and fears into the infinite realm of Love. Okay, I think I’ve convinced myself…

“My angels are exalted thoughts, appearing at the door of some sepulchre, in which human belief has buried its fondest earthly hopes. With white fingers they point upward to a new and glorified trust, to higher ideals of life and its joys.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 299:7-12