Peace Within

Mongolia - photo credit: Aaron Springston

Although I know peace is a choice within my own self, I would love to share it with everyone, everywhere. It has taken quite a while to grasp the concept that the only thought I can change is my own. After spending years trying to change thoughts and actions of husbands and friends, I think it was my children who finally taught me the meaning of Oneness. I could watch the mood of the household change with my emotions. Holding to peace within myself is all I can do. Jumping on the bandwagon of resentment and other negative emotions used to seem impossible to avoid, but I don’t find it as difficult now to simply witness these things without becoming a part of them. While I can't change what anyone else is thinking or feeling or experiencing, I can adjust my vision of reality. Every thought is important! We are all in this together, in every way, at every moment. Today I will make an effort to see everything through the eyes of Love.

“Spiritual living and blessedness are the only evidence​ ​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 264:24-27

Thank you, Marianne Williamson

Today Marianne Williamson says everything I want to say. And she does it so well... Happy Sunday!

photo credit: Aaron Springston

“The mindset that dominates this world is simply an inadequate container for the energies that need to come through now if humanity is to survive. Putting our separate needs before the well-being of the earth and its inhabitants, we’ve created political and economic systems that subconsciously plan the obsolescence of the human race. American politics, which one would have hoped would be an incubator for understanding and solutions, is dominated by a perspective that at its worst perpetuates the problem and at it’s best simply enables the ever-quickening race towards planetary destruction. The good news - and there is good news - is that more and more people are awakening to the intersectionality of the problem and to the personal as well as political dimensions of the needed transformation. We’re like at the stage where you’ve woken up, made your first cup of coffee and are just starting to feel the brain fog of sleep receding. Clarity and spirituality first, then illumination and guidance. A new state of being calls forth a new kind of doing. It’s a stretch, but who’s not being forced to stretch right now. There’s no way we’ll pull off the salvation of the world unless we’re willing to change, to become different, to drop our preoccupations with smaller, ultimately meaningless things. No littleness allowed. Only magnitude, and love. The world won’t be what we want it to be until we’re no longer who we used to be. It’s hard to be alive at times; we’re all learning lessons, shedding old skin and growing into who we need to be. But the effort is worth it. The world is on fire. And those of us who have walked through the fire are the ones who will put it out.” Marianne Williamson

"The broadcast powers of evil so conspicuous today show themselves in the materialism and sensualism of the age, struggling against the advancing spiritual era." Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 65:13

Reflections

An interesting question was posed to me today: If you met yourself, would you like you? I love this question! Let's all think about that -- and ask our social media "friends" to do the same...

Happy Weekend, Lovely Ones!

"Love it reflected in Love." Mary Baker Eddy 

Happiness is the Secret

Photo Credit: Tina Cone - Belize

Recently someone asked me: What next? Locusts? I couldn't keep from laughing as I told her, yes, this was the year the locusts cycled out of hibernation in our area. And therein is the secret we all need to remember: Laughter. I've been noticing who is happy and adjusting to the changes we are experiencing on a day-to-day basis. I'm pretty sure it's the people who were happy all along, don't you think? It seems this is what will bring us through to the other side, whatever that will be. Nobody can predict what's going to happen tomorrow, but we can predict how we will react to it. Laughing in the face of tragedy is NOT what I mean by this; please, don't think it is. There are many dire circumstances which need our attention, and we shall give it wherever we are led to participate. But let's tap into that innate joy which is programmed into us from before we were conceived, the Love which is our true being, and the peace that cannot be touched by outside influence. Kevin saved a cat and two kittens today. That is cause for celebration! There was a gentle rain which nurtured the plants and animals in our woods. Therein is joy. Pollyanna is on the Disney Channel! That makes me very happy...

"The loss of earthly hopes and pleasures brightens the ascending path of many a heart. The pains of sense quickly inform us that the pleasures of sense are mortal and that joy is spiritual." Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 265: 26

Change is the Bottom Line Here

"No Looking Back"
Creation of Sandy Starbird

I hear a lot of news. My Kevin is a news guy and has read and/or listened to every bit of news put out since the mid-70s, so I get lots of information by osmosis. I purposely follow some people on Facebook in order to find out what Fox is baiting folks with nowadays. I follow Steve Grant's (KY3) page so I can gauge the way everyone is leaning on multiple issues. I read the Christian Science Monitor for moments of clarity and sanity. It's exhausting and it would be easy to shut down, but we shouldn't pretend all is well, or that we needn't act as it will work itself out. When people send me their particular views on matters via a video on youTube, or a particularly biased meme, or anything other than their own words expressing how they feel/think about something, I have begun to tell them exactly how I feel. The bottom line here is that things need to change. Our actions which have been destructive to the Earth, which harm people, which put money ahead of everything else -- well, we need to examine that and do things differently. We have a great opportunity at this time of forced change, so let's embrace it and find better ways to do things! I'm weary of political parties and strong opinions which keep us stuck in our ways, believing "I'm right and you're wrong". Let's give up these beliefs and look at what is actually happening here. It might be simpler than we think!

"Right motives give pinions to thought, and strength and freedom to speech and action. Love is priestess at the altar of Truth." Mary Baker Eddy - Science and Health Page 454:19

The Panoply of Love

Altai Mountains - PC: Aaron Springston

Every day we hear more truth. Every day we see that money has become the most important thing in many people's lives, and we witness where it has taken them. Every day another person is shown to be a wolf in lamb's clothing. Preachers and politicians are the expected charlatans, as they are so publicly blatant in their use of words to manipulate their flocks. But occasionally we see a seemingly sweet woman, or someone who should be the finest of our community, showing their true colors. Today I heard about a white supremacist group, a statewide organization, which features a local deputy as one of its prominent members and organizers. In the same organization was a woman from the big city who is a nurse. She has since retracted her affiliation with this militant, bigoted group of people. These are the sort of uncoverings which assure me everything is going to be alright. No matter what horrors people are perpetrating on others, they will become known, and while we must witness the nasty workings of these vicious minds, we can also see those who rise up to meet the hate with love. We are finding out how adamantly we must love in order to overturn the ingrained attitudes of centuries. And we know we can do it, because we've been practicing a long time. I have a vision of Sean Connery as King Arthur rising up shouting, Never surrender! Let us go forward with joy and wisdom, facing whatever challenges are in our path. Namaste...

"Clad in the panoply of Love, human hatred cannot reach you. The cement of a higher humanity will unite all interests in the one divinity."  Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 571:18

A New Way of Living

photo by Aaron Springston

This is a time of rapid change in thought. Most everyone I know senses something important in the air. I notice myself doing things differently without planning a change. Think about it! Aren't you evolving into more You? We're doing things we never considered possible in the past. A good friend, who is a veterinarian, is allowing herself to communicate with animals on an entirely different level than when she started her career.  I know a woman who gardens and is experimenting with talking to the deer and other animals who want to eat her vegetables. We are all waking up to new ways of living -- or is it old ways of Being? When I allow my beliefs to take a rest, the world I see and experience is one of common ground amongst everyone and everything. We are not different, you and I. We may have convinced ourselves that the material differences we see in each other make us separate, but look past all of that to your heritage as a child of Love. Let go of preconceived notions about how things are or should be. Let's allow ourselves this freedom of thought -- and see where it takes us!

“When will the ages understand the Ego [note capitalization], and realize only one God, one Mind or intelligence?” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 204:19-20