White Fragility

 

At the beginning of 2021, I decided my personal focus would be on gaining a better understanding of racism, along with trying to figure out why we humans have such a tough time in discerning truth. The latest book I’m reading is: White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. I am starting to recognize many things about the roots of racism and how we perpetuate those beliefs in our daily lives. This evening I’m pondering the statement: “I don’t see color; everybody is the same.” These are words I’ve heard many times and it has never felt quite right, and now I’m realizing why that is. Not only can it not be true, but it should not be true. Saying this is but one way we attempt to absolve ourselves of responsibility. Then we can say, “I’m not racist”, and feel good about ourselves. But what if it takes more than that? I leave you with this quote from the book: "I believe that white progressives cause the most daily damage to people of color. I define a white progressive as any white person who thinks he or she is not racist, or is less racist, or in the ‘choir,’or already ‘gets it.’ White progressives can be the most difficult for people of color because, to the degree that we think we have arrived, we will put our energy into making sure that others see us as having arrived. None of our energy will go into what we need to be doing for the rest of our lives: engaging in ongoing self-awareness, continuing education, relationship building, and actual antiracist practice. White progressives do indeed uphold and perpetrate racism, but our defensiveness and certitude make it virtually impossible to explain to us how we do so.” ― Robin DiAngelo

"A few immortal sentences, breathing the omnipotence of divine justice, have been potent to break despotic fetters and abolish the whipping-post and slave market; but oppression neither went down in blood, nor did the breath of freedom come from the cannon's mouth. Love is the liberator.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science and Health Page 225:14-22

Internal Awakening

 

photo credit: Steve Shogren

​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!

[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." Mary Baker Eddy  Science & Health Page 589:8-11

Primal Order

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photo credit: Richard Quick

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

Taking Off Human Shackles

photo credit: Aaron Springston

 ​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!

“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.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 256:1-5

Love Supports the Struggling Heart

 

My neighbor across the street was in her ​90s​ when she moved away​. ​After her husband passed on, she ​was unhappy with everything around her. Holidays reminded​ her of times they shared, and she​ was​ sad they​ were ​over. The changing of seasons ​brought grief for various husband-related reasons. She d​idn't enjoy meals or celebrations of any sort because she ​couldn't share them with him. We spoke ​many times about th​ese things​, ​because she talked about him a lot. ​When she would lament her life and tell me why she was sad, I​'d​ remind her of ​the joy around her and encourage her to participate. ​I talked her into going to a Willie Nelson concert with me once, but she mentioned time and again what Jack (her husband) would say. ​I don't think she​ understood ​it​ was all right to be happy. She fe​lt she would dishonor him by having fun without him. ​But I saw it as the opposite: the dishonor ​was in turning from joy to sadness in the name of love. ​I highly advocate honoring grief and feeling it to its full extent, giving it its due and turning it inside out. I know many widow women (as my mother would have called us), and I hope you will post your feelings and ideas on the blog, which is linked below. Namaste, dear friends ...

“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

Vibrational Energies on the Rise

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photo credit: Richard Quick

In the years I was involved with the metafizzies here in Eureka Springs, I learned many things. Never would I have been exposed to crystal skulls, or pyramid power, or any number of other fascinating thought systems if not for our weekly meetings. Because of those years, nothing surprises me today. One of the main topics of conversation in the first decade of the 2000s was that of the Mayan Calendar. Some believed that in 2012 time would end and we would simply disappear. Others predicted huge upheavals in the environment which would cause us all to die. Many people saw it as the end of an era, rather than the end of time. We have certainly seen that occur, and are still witnessing changes we never dreamed of back then. Most humans acknowledge that everything is made of energy -- and some even happily opine that we are all the same energy. As much as I dislike saying so, it seems many people are not able to accept the rising vibrational energies which are swirling around in this time of shifting consciousness. This inability to accept change is manifested in horrific ways, along with those who embrace the new paradigm and are finding joyous expressions of living the Love which is our natural state. Perhaps some of us simply can't or won't participate in these changes and are returning to pure energy to await whatever comes next. Our lives are quite an adventure on the calmest of days, and it's been a while since we've seen those! Let's love life right now, just as it is, and be kind to those who can't leave the old for the new. And please, remember to laugh and dance whenever possible!

"Think of this, dear reader, for it will lift the sackcloth from your eyes, and you will behold the soft-winged dove descending upon you. The very circumstance, which your suffering sense deems wrathful and afflictive, Love can make an angel entertained unawares. Then thought gently whispers: 'Come hither! Arise from your false consciousness into the true sense of Love, and behold the Lamb's wife, -- Love wedded to its own spiritual idea.' Then cometh the marriage feast, for this revelation will destroy forever the physical plagues imposed by material sense." Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 574:25

Arise and Shine

 ​[This is an article from the Christian Science Monitor on Easter 2018. I particularly liked it. Happy Easter!]​

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This year Easter fell on what’s called April Fools’ Day in the United States and several other countries. The coincidence of these days got me thinking that some people might feel anyone who believes a man named Jesus literally rose from the dead is a fool of sorts.

The Bible says, “The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God” (I Corinthians 3:19). What is wisdom – the obvious appearance that death is inevitable and irreversible? Or could there be a wisdom Christ Jesus and a few others in history have had that overcame death?

Common science describes human life as made of material elements that finally die. Yet it’s becoming more accepted in physics today that consciousness, rather than matter, may be the foundational reality.

Christian Science accepts that premise, not just intellectually but as something that can be proved by degrees in daily life. It takes the Bible accounts of Jesus’ power to heal disease and injury and even raise people from death as evidence that he understood each life as the expression of an indestructible Principle called God. His advanced consciousness of life as wholly spiritual could restore what we observe as physical life.

It’s a big claim to say that even one person actually rose from the dead, but one way to think of it as not just a legend is to begin taking small steps ourselves toward proving it. For example, it’s possible to rise from the death of joy regarding something we’re missing by gaining the consciousness that happiness isn’t in something physical but is always present if we live to give it to others. Many people have risen from the death of hope and have overcome fear or shame or sickness through the consciousness that they are loved by the perfect Love that gives life.

Easter is a celebration of healing possibilities for those who accept that consciousness, rather than physicality, constitutes life. That’s not foolishness. It’s the promise of expanding life for everyone, one risen thought at a time.