Thought Expands Into Expression

"County Road"
painting by Carol Dickie

Today was a day of talking with friends, and it's been fabulous. First thing this morning, I had a long email from a woman I love, one who was an artist at the gallery I ran. She is a skilled writer and I saw every story she told me about her daily life and things in her past (of which I had no clue)! Then I got a snail mail letter from another artist friend who describes herself as "the cut and paste queen of the geriatric set" (and she doesn't mean computer, because she doesn't have one). This quirky and fun friend wrote to me on a page from a coloring book, on which she had intricately filled in the beautiful design. Then I touched base with a nonagenarian whom I met a few years back over the bridge table. She told me of falling out of bed and breaking something, asking if I knew of anyone who might help her with household chores and, she honestly told me, to visit with her. So this prompted me to call another old friend whom I thought would enjoy this task. Then I called someone I've known for almost 40 years, whom I was hoping to help sell some furniture, and while we were chatting, a carpenter I had called stopped by to check out my needed repair. While he was here, a friend stopped by to drop off some clothing she had cleared out of a closet. After she left, the carpenter and I sat down to visit in the carport and he told me of his oldest daughter's problems stemming from Aspberger's and loneliness. In the process, he told me many things I did not know about him. Life is so very rich, and I appreciate each moment in this wild world. But today, it seemed as though all the energies in the universe conspired to bring me happiness. And I am thankful...

"Eternal Truth is changing the universe. As mortals drop off their mental swaddling-clothes, thought expands into expression. 'Let there be light,' is the perpetual demand of Truth and Love, changing chaos into order and discord into the music of the spheres." Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 255:1

Escaping From Your Thoughts

Contemplating the Moab
photo credit: Aaron Springston

It is estimated that we have more than 50,000 thoughts every day. As I heard Wayne Dyer tell us in one of his outstanding talks, the problem with this is that the thousands of thoughts we have today are the same ones we had yesterday! Waking up from the circular thinking in which we are trapped requires an honesty we’re not accustomed to practicing. I know habitual thought is not an easy habit to break, but the desire to do so is the first step. Just like changing any behavior, you have to want to change or you never will. How can we begin to think differently? We can’t simply stop thinking, but we can exchange the trivial musings for substantial ideas. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said: “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” As I go through this day, I’ll often ask myself: What would Eleanor think? Namastè, each and every One! 

“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 299:1-11

Uppercase Living

photo from my son's wedding

[in the past 9 years, I have repeated this "daily" 4 times. It bears a 5th!] 

Today I pay tribute to all of you who practice Uppercase Living! If you've been reading these writings for a while, you may remember that a dear friend of mine wrote an essay by this title years ago. In that writing, he inspired me to think of living as Living, loving as Loving, and to examine all my activities to see if I'm taking them to the level of uppercase-ness. Every day I witness people living Life, feeling Love, helping others to see Truth, and leading grand and noble lives. Each time we leave pain behind, looking past the illusion of ugliness and grasping beauty, we are experiencing Uppercase Living. When we refuse to repeat gossip or anything unlike Good, we are raising the bar for everyone. What we experience, everyone experiences, by virtue of the One consciousness which we share. Give yourself a pat on the back and be proud of your accomplishments!  Mazel Tov! Namaste! Woo-hoo!

“Spiritual living and blessedness are the only evidences, by which we can recognize true existence and feel the unspeakable peace which comes from an all-absorbing spiritual love.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 264:25-27

Freeing the Light

Zion National Park
photo credit: Aaron Springston

I watched a documentary entitled "Queen of the Sun" which asks us to examine what bees are telling us. Bees are the epitome of Oneness. They are a perfect metaphor for the value of community and working together. Their current colony collapse also shows us what happens when our true being is denied. As humans, we have been manipulating all of nature for our own needs. Part of our awakening is the realization that we've been doing many things for the wrong reasons. We've allowed greed and self-importance to take the place of joy and peace. We have learned to fear nature in the oddest ways. Recently a ban on beekeeping was reversed in New York City. Through education, people are finding there is nothing to fear. By opening ourselves to the purpose of each and every creature, we discover we all have a place and a reason for being. To fulfill this purpose brings peace and joy to all. Every crisis we see around us in this material existence has something to tell us when we open our heart to hear. It was stated in this film that pollen is materialized light; that this light is freed in the blocks of honeycomb; that we again free this light by making candles. The freeing of light is cumulative with the bees, and we can experience the same thing as we express the light and peace and joy within ourselves.

“Moral and spiritual might belong to Spirit, who holds the "wind in His fists;" and this teaching accords with Science and harmony. In [the] Science [of the Christ] , you can have no power opposed to God, and the physical senses must give up their false testimony. Your influence for good depends upon the weight you throw into the right scale. The good you do and embody gives you the only power obtainable." Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 192:17-24

Taste of a Nation

I love cooking shows, and there are some very innovative ones these days. I’m watching one called Taste of a Nation, where Padma Lakshmi travels around the United States, meeting immigrants and visiting with them in their homes and restaurants. The first show was from El Paso, and it spoke frankly about the immigration problems which have not been solved, but rather multiplied in these last few years. It was heartening to hear everyone supporting each other, no matter what their particular conservative or liberal leaning is. Hearing about people’s lives and watching them cook is so much fun! I love how they bring new ideas for my kitchen, and a knowledge of their heritage, both in their cooking and other things. It’s a wonderful way to be an "accidental tourist" and to visit other cultures from the recliner. Ah — life is good. Sending a big hug to you today. Have a fabulous time today!

"Beauty, wealth, or fame is incompetent to meet the demands of the affections, and should never weigh against the better claims of intellect, goodness, and virtue. Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish, therefore it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to share it." Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 57 

Lay Down Your Arms

Mt. Timpanogos Goat - photo Aaron Springston

Although I am not actively "doing" the Course in Miracles workbook lessons this year, I love it when someone points one out to me. Lesson 170 was brought to my attention by a dear friend who mentioned how pertinent it is to the happenings we're witnessing. It's topic, or focus is: "There is no cruelty in God and none in me." The first sentences my eyes landed on were: "It seems to be the enemy without that you attack. Yet your defense sets up an enemy within; an alien thought at war with you, depriving you of peace, splitting your mind into two camps which seem wholly irreconcilable." Wow! Isn't this what we're all doing right now? We can look at the world and say to ourselves that someone is trying to start a civil war, splitting us into camps and baiting us to attack. But can anyone really do that to us? We have a choice! To quote once more: "You make what you defend against, and by your own defense against it is it real and inescapable.  Lay down your arms, and only then do you perceive it false." Here is the lesson in its entirety:

Lesson 170 from A Course in Miracles

There is no cruelty in God and none in me.

W-170.1. No one attacks without intent to hurt. 2 This can have no exception. 3 When you think that you attack in self-defense, you mean that to be cruel is protection; you are safe because of cruelty. 4 You mean that you believe to hurt another brings you freedom. 5 And you mean that to attack is to exchange the state in which you are for something better, safer, more secure from dangerous invasion and from fear.

W-170.2. How thoroughly insane is the idea that to defend from fear is to attack! 2 For here is fear begot and fed with blood, to make it grow and swell and rage. 3 And thus is fear protected, not escaped. 4 Today we learn a lesson which can save you more delay and needless misery than you can possibly imagine. 5 It is this: 6 You make what you defend against, and by your own defense against it is it real and inescapable. 7 Lay down your arms, and only then do you perceive it false.

W-170.3. It seems to be the enemy without that you attack. 2 Yet your defense sets up an enemy within; an alien thought at war with you, depriving you of peace, splitting your mind into two camps which seem wholly irreconcilable. 3 For love now has an "enemy," an opposite; and fear, the alien, now needs your defense against the threat of what you really are.

W-170.4. If you consider carefully the means by which your fancied self-defense proceeds on its imagined way, you will perceive the premises on which the idea stands. 2 First, it is obvious ideas must leave their source, for it is you who make attack, and must have first conceived of it. 3 Yet you attack outside yourself, and separate your mind from him who is to be attacked, with perfect faith the split you made is real.

W-170.5. Next, are the attributes of love bestowed upon its "enemy." 2 For fear becomes your safety and protector of your peace, to which you turn for solace and escape from doubts about your strength, and hope of rest in dreamless quiet. 3 And as love is shorn of what belongs to it and it alone, love is endowed with attributes of fear. 4 For love would ask you lay down all defense as merely foolish. 5 And your arms indeed would crumble into dust. 6 For such they are.

W-170.6. With love as enemy, must cruelty become a god. 2 And gods demand that those who worship them obey their dictates, and refuse to question them. 3 Harsh punishment is meted out relentlessly to those who ask if the demands are sensible or even sane. 4 It is their enemies who are unreasonable and insane, while they are always merciful and just.

W-170.7. Today we look upon this cruel god dispassionately. 2 And we note that though his lips are smeared with blood, and fire seems to flame from him, he is but made of stone. 3 He can do nothing. 4 We need not defy his power. 5 He has none. 6 And those who see in him their safety have no guardian, no strength to call upon in danger, and no mighty warrior to fight for them.

W-170.8. This moment can be terrible. 2 But it can also be the time of your release from abject slavery. 3 You make a choice, standing before this idol, seeing him exactly as he is. 4 Will you restore to love what you have sought to wrest from it and lay before this mindless piece of stone? 5 Or will you make another idol to replace it? 6 For the god of cruelty takes many forms. 7 Another can be found.

W-170.9. Yet do not think that fear is the escape from fear. 2 Let us remember what the text has stressed about the obstacles to peace. 3 The final one, the hardest to believe is nothing, and a seeming obstacle with the appearance of a solid block, impenetrable, fearful and beyond surmounting, is the fear of God Himself. 4 Here is the basic premise which enthrones the thought of fear as god. 5 For fear is loved by those who worship it, and love appears to be invested now with cruelty.

W-170.10. Where does the totally insane belief in gods of vengeance come from? 2 Love has not confused its attributes with those of fear. 3 Yet must the worshippers of fear perceive their own confusion in fear's "enemy"; its cruelty as now a part of love. 4 And what becomes more fearful than the Heart of Love Itself? 5 The blood appears to be upon His Lips; the fire comes from Him. 6 And He is terrible above all else, cruel beyond conception, striking down all who acknowledge Him to be their God.

W-170.11. The choice you make today is certain. 2 For you look for the last time upon this bit of carven stone you made, and call it god no longer. 3 You have reached this place before, but you have chosen that this cruel god remain with you in still another form. 4 And so the fear of God returned with you. 5 This time you leave it there. 6 And you return to a new world, unburdened by its weight; beheld not in its sightless eyes, but in the vision that your choice restored to you.

W-170.12. Now do your eyes belong to Christ, and He looks through them. 2 Now your voice belongs to God and echoes His. 3 And now your heart remains at peace forever. 4 You have chosen Him in place of idols, and your attributes, given by your Creator, are restored to you at last. 5 The Call for God is heard and answered. 6 Now has fear made way for love, as God Himself replaces cruelty.

W-170.13. Father, we are like You. 2 No cruelty abides in us, for there is none in You. 3 Your peace is ours. 4 And we bless the world with what we have received from You alone. 5 We choose again, and make our choice for all our brothers, knowing they are one with us. 6 We bring them Your salvation as we have received it now. 7 And we give thanks for them who render us complete. 8 In them we see Your glory, and in them we find our peace. 9 Holy are we because Your Holiness has set us free. 10 And we give thanks. 11 Amen.

...When You Know Better, Do Better

Everything seems electric with excitement in this time of shifting thought. Big changes are happening which are unexpected for many, but many more of us have been waiting for this all our lives. I remember in the 1960s when we all sang "this is the dawning of the age of Aquarius", and just knew it was happening right then! We were excited to "get ourselves back to the garden" and bring in a time of peace and love. Then the years passed and it seemed nothing changed. We became lackadaisical in our expectations and quietly (for the most part) accepted Citizens United, and the so-called Moral Majority, and other groups which declared themselves to be the good which would expose and bring down the evil. Through the decades, many things did become better on the surface, but very little could bear the scrutiny of total transparency. The excitement I feel today is brought on by many things. Big corporations, such as PG&E in California, are accepting responsibility for their wrong-doing, coming right out and admitting liability and trying to do better. Our highest court in the land is making decisions based on morality and law, not pressure from big money and powerful politicians. What excites me the most is the individual declarations of "I was wrong", and watching what happens as they raise up their heads proudly and try to change their ways. I am told of a house on the way to Bentonville which had confederate flags and other ugly things in its yard. They are all gone. Once we begin to question our actions, our thoughts, healing begins to happen. I can hardly wait for tomorrow! Thank You greatly ...

"Eternal Truth is changing the universe. As mortals drop off their mental swaddling clothes, thought expands into expression." Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 255:1