Opening Minds With Music Education

 

Our little village has something wonderful: Opera in the Ozarks. This training ground for talented musicians has existed for more than 60 years. Every year, they perform three operas over a period of 3 weeks. Tonight I went to a performance of the talented musicians who accompany them in the orchestra pit. What a treat this was! Watching these young people having so much fun playing challenging musical selections was a delightful experience. When I got home, I saw the news that a fine, young choral director in a local high school will be moving away to another school. I started thinking about the benefits of music education, and I’m not sure there are any limits to the gain. The avenues in the mind opened by musical instruction cannot be measured, as the growth and development is exponential. Benjamin Winn has shaped lives, from grade school through high school. I attended this same school 50-plus years ago and a teacher such as this one would have been a life changer. Here’s to all the educators, all the musical programs, all the parents who realize the importance of music in our lives. Let’s all make a point of singing today!

“Whatever furnishes the semblance of an idea governed by its Principle, furnishes food for thought. Through astronomy, natural history, chemistry, music, mathematics, thought passes naturally from effect back to cause.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 195:16 

The Participant Observer

 

Beijing, China - photo credit: Aaron Springston

The Reverend Cinthia Jean Saul was the guest pastor at a church where I play organ. Her sermon was on hospitality — as in, providing food and shelter for those in need. I was delighted by her instructions to be a “participant observer”. Her advice was to put ourselves in a situation, at least once a week, in which we can meet someone we otherwise would not. In this way, we can become familiar with lifestyles of groups of people who are not in our regular circle of friends. When we put ourselves in certain situations time and again, we begin to understand others’ viewpoints. One thing I have done for almost three decades is make regular visits to public laundromats. I have met scores of people I wouldn’t have had the chance to sit down and visit with otherwise. In these times of extreme division and self-imposed tribalism, this would be a good exercise for all of us to practice in some form or another. May we look for and find our commonality in these coming days. We all need each other so very badly…

“To the world, generosity means ‘giving away’ in the sense of ‘giving up.’ To the teachers of God, it means giving away in order to keep. This has been emphasized throughout the text and the workbook, but it is perhaps more alien to the thinking of the world than many other ideas in our curriculum. Its greater strangeness lies merely in the obviousness of its reversal of the world’s thinking. In the clearest way possible, and at the simplest of levels, the word means the exact opposite to the teachers of God and to the world.” A Course in Miracles  M-4.VII.1:4-8

“In the spirit of Christ’s charity, — as one who ‘hopeth all things, endureth all things,’ and is joyful to bear consolation to the sorrowing and healing to the sick, — she commits these pages to honest seekers for Truth.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page xii:23

We Are Powerful

Eureka Women - Unknown Photographer

“Don't make yourself small.

Not for anyone.

If someone tells you 

you're too much...

too loud, too sensitive, 

too fierce, too caring, 

too intellectual, too optimistic, 

too realistic, too logical, too emotional...

just smile and move on, my friend.

Clearly, they aren't enough for you.”

L.R. Knost

Our Greatest Fear —Marianne Williamson

“It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,

talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other

people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of

God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,

we unconsciously give other people

permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,

Our presence automatically liberates others.”

—Marianne Williamson

“The manifestation of God through mortals is as light passing through the window-pane. The light and the glass never mingle, but as matter, the glass is less opaque than the walls. The mortal mind through which Truth appears most vividly is that one which has lost much materiality--much error--in order to become a better transparency for Truth. Then, like a cloud melting into thin vapor, it no longer hides the sun.” 

MaryBakerEddy-Science & Health Page 295:14-24

Energy Wasted Denying Truth

Photo credit: Aaron Springston

I’ve always been happy to have friends and family who are smarter and/or more knowledgeable than me. When someone tells me I’m mistaken about a “fact”, or that I’m interpreting something incorrectly, or maybe that my memory is faulty, I’m grateful for the correction. Much in the same way I’m thankful when someone tells me my skirt is stuck in my waistband, I’m glad if knowledge keeps me from spreading information erroneously. Apparently not everyone feels this way! Not only are we witnessing public figures fearing to say “I was wrong and I’m sorry”, but I’ve been noticing a situation with a loved one whose family has maligned him for decades. When did knowledge and the accumulation of information become something to be ridiculed? Metaphysical practitioners recognize that energy follows thought, so I’m not spending a lot of time replaying memories of behavior which I don’t want to manifest. But it sure is hard not to do so! 

“We should examine ourselves and learn what is the affection and purpose of the heart, for in this way only can we learn what we honestly are. If a friend informs us of a fault, do we listen patiently to the rebuke and credit what is said? Do we not rather give thanks that we are ‘not as other men’? During many years the author has been most grateful for merited rebuke. The wrong lies in unmerited censure, — in the falsehood which does no one any good.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 8:28

“You do not recognize the enormous waste of energy you expend in denying truth. What would you say of someone who persists in attempting the impossible, believing that to achieve it is to succeed? The belief that you must have the impossible in order to be happy is totally at variance with the principle of creation. God could not will that happiness depended on what you could never have. The fact that God is Love does not require belief, but it does require acceptance. It is indeed possible for you to deny facts, although it is impossible for you to change them. If you hold your hands over your eyes, you will not see because you are interfering with the laws of seeing. If you deny love, you will not know it because your cooperation is the law of its being. You cannot change laws you did not make, and the laws of happiness were created for you, not by you.” A Course in Miracles T-9.I.11:1-9

Reciprocal Interactions With Nature

Photo credit: Aaron Springston

“Nature becomes aware of itself through you, and you become aware of your stillness through nature.” Eckhart Tolle told me this today through one of his short and sweet youTube videos. It caused me to reminisce about my favorite nature documentaries."Wings of Life" is described as a love story from flowers to pollinators. Another reason this movie stayed with me is that its narrator is Meryl Streep. She tells us that the flowers multiply in beauty, with gratitude to the bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and bats. This gratitude turns my thoughts to things which fill my heart: people, music, nature -- movies like this one! In line with my quest to be with those who help my being, I will stay with entertainment which brings beauty and grace to life, turning away from inanities and programing designed to disturb the senses. Life is good, and I am grateful…

“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.” 
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Look with peace upon your brothers, and God will come rushing into your heart in gratitude for your gift to Him.” 
— A Course in Miracles T-10.V.7:7

"This is what is meant by seeking Truth, Christ, not 'for the loaves and fishes,' nor, like the Pharisee, with the arrogance of rank and display of scholarship, but like Mary Magdalene, from the summit of devout consecration, with the oil of gladness and the perfume of gratitude, with tears of repentance and with those hairs all numbered by the Father.” 
— Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 367:10-16

When Women Were Dragons

During a rare, sleepless night, I read a review of a new book: When Women Were Dragons, written by Kelly Barnhill. The book is dedicated to Christine Blasey Ford, as its inspiration came when listening to her testimony during the Brent Kavanaugh hearings for his Supreme Court appointment. The book, set in the mid-1950s, tells the story of  700,000 married women turning into dragons. This “dragoning” is triggered by too may years of women staying quiet, not asking questions one does not ask, not expressing emotions they are not supposed to feel. How many things would you never speak aloud? The review ends with this statement (which makes me want to start reading the book right now!). “The novel’s central questions and concerns link it to today. The suffocating silence concerning all things female exacts a high price, not simply on women, but on all of society. The welcome truth, as Barnhill sees it, is that the urge toward transformation can’t be contained — whether that change is physical and fire-breathing or mental and emotional. As one character admits, ‘I want to be bigger than myself.’” I’m ready, how about you?

“The breaking up of material beliefs may seem to be famine and pestilence, want and woe, sin, sickness, and death, which assume new phases until their nothingness appears. These disturbances will continue until the end of error, when all discord will be swallowed up in spiritual Truth.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 96:15-20

“There can be no conflict between sanity and insanity. Only one is true, and therefore only one is real. The ego tries to persuade you that it is up to you to decide which voice is true, but the Holy Spirit teaches you that truth was created by God, and your decision cannot change it. As you begin to realize the quiet power of the Holy Spirit’s Voice, and Its perfect consistency, it must dawn on your mind that you are trying to undo a decision that was irrevocably made for you. That is why I suggested before that you remind yourself to allow the Holy Spirit to decide for God for you.” A Course in Miracles T-6.V-B.6:1-5

Mysteries Too Marvelous …

 Tijana Lukovic, "Wolf Moon"

 

Mysteries, Yes

by Mary Oliver

“Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous

 to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the

mouths of the lambs.

How rivers and stones are forever

in allegiance with gravity

while we ourselves dream of rising.

How two hands touch and the bonds will

never be broken.

How people come, from delight or the

scars of damage,

to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those

who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say

‘Look!’ and laugh in astonishment,

and bow their heads.”

“Listen,—perhaps you catch a hint of an ancient state not quite forgotten; dim, perhaps, and yet not altogether unfamiliar, like a song whose name is long forgotten, and the circumstances in which you heard completely unremembered. Not the whole song has stayed with you, but just a little wisp of melody, attached not to a person or a place or anything particular. But you remember, from just this little part, how lovely was the song, how wonderful the setting where you heard it, and how you loved those who were there and listened with you.” A Course in Miracles T-21.1.6:1-3