How Far Do We Go?

 

What do you do if you have an acquaintance or neighbor who is asking for monetary assistance on a regular basis, but doesn’t seem to be doing anything to help himself out of the hole he’s in? I recently visited with seldom-seen friends who had this situation with one of their neighbors. They had offered to teach him a trade so he could support himself, but it seems he’s so deeply involved with drugs that he has no desire to work at lifting himself up. What to do? I don’t see any set responses to these situations. I’ve known single mothers who are indeed victims of life’s circumstances and need a foot up to keep on going. And I’ve seen people who appear to be users, hoping to get by all their lives on what others will give them. I know that if someone is in need sitting on the sidewalk, I’ll give him what I can, and if the person chooses to buy alcohol, so be it. That’s where he is and that’s what he needs. I think we must trust our gut feelings in these situations. I wish there was a set answer to life’s tough problems, but it doesn’t seem that’s possible. Let’s keep on loving each other and looking for answers. Namaste…

“Charity is a way of looking at another as if he had already gone far beyond his actual accomplishments in time. Since his own thinking is faulty he cannot see the Atonement for himself, or he would have no need of charity. The charity that is accorded him is both an acknowledgment that he needs help, and a recognition that he will accept it. Both of these perceptions clearly imply their dependence on time, making it apparent that charity still lies within the limitations of this world. I said before that only revelation transcends time. The miracle, as an expression of charity, can only shorten it. It must be understood, however, that whenever you offer a miracle to another, you are shortening the suffering of both of you. This corrects retroactively as well as progressively.” A Course in Miracles T-2.V.10:1-8

“The rich in spirit help the poor in one grand brotherhood, all having the same Principle, or Father; and blessed is that man who seeth his brother’s need and supplieth it, seeking his own in another’s good.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 518:15-19 

Releasing the Future

What does it mean to release the future? We've learned that we must release the past in order to live in the present. "Those who live in the past are condemned to live there alone." (Einstein's Dreams, by Alan Lightman) But what of releasing the future? Does that mean we can't make plans and have dreams of what we'd like to do? No, of course not. It simply means that we mustn't allow those "what-if" situations to control us. If we take the future to the level of constant worry, affecting our every moment in the present, then it's time to release it! I feel there is nothing wrong with thinking about the past or the future, unless it begins to be our focus. With no fear of the future, nor regret in the past, I am free to live in the eternal now — Woo-hoo!

“I place the future in the Hands of God. The past is gone; the future is not yet. Now am I freed from both. For what God gives can only be for good. And I accept but what He gives as what belongs to me. I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.” A Course in Miracles W-214.1:1-8

“As the crude footprints of the past disappear from the dissolving paths of the present, we shall better understand the Science which governs these changes, and shall plant our feet on firmer ground.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 224:4-7

What Can We Do?

Grandbaby Torin 

What Can We Do? This is an editorial addressing school shootings from Mark Sappenfield, Editor of the Christian Science Monitor. June 13, 2022 edition. 

“In the days after 9/11, we published a story that Monitor readers still talk about to this day. The headlines was ‘Why do they hate us?’ And the article asked the question that a confused nation most needed. It interrupted the spiral of despair and instead reset readers on a new footing: Why did this happen, and how do we begin to address it? 

The same thought has been present in our conversations at the Monitor. The news of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, was numbing. The national conversations about guns, mental health, and school safety repeat with no discernible change. The miasma seems thick enough to deaden the soul and dash any sense of hope. Uvalde’s question is: What can we do?

In the days following the shooting, The Monitor offered its answer to that question in a special issue of the Daily based on one conviction: This is unacceptable. This week’s news section likewise focuses on the Search for Solutions to this seemingly intractable problem.

The Monitor’s job is not to prescribe paths forward. It is to show they are possible. How the United States finds progress is for Americans to decide. For years, the Monitor has looked around every corner and under every stone for different options. In the wake of this latest tragedy, we explore several more coming to the surface. But continuing to live with the slaughter of children in schools is not an option. We can do better than the status quo, and defending our freedoms is not at odds with protesting lives. Uvalde, Parkland, and Sandy Hook are screaming signs of something that is broken and needs to be fixed.

Too often, values and freedoms are pitted against one another as a zero-sum either/or. Someone wins, someone loses. The Monitor rejects that thinking. Solutions are often imperfect, but they can light a way forward and reveal the unity that makes us stronger, not weaker. And finding a way to keep schoolchildren safe does not seem too unreasonable a demand.”

Give Me Away …

Best Friends Forever

Tina Cone and Lin Wellford

Lin - July 28, 1951 - April 13, 2022

Lin Wellford’s memorial service was today. Even though I could not be there with her friends and family, I thought of her often. And words from  this poem kept running through my head all day …

“Epitaph" by Merrit Malloy

“When I die

Give what’s left of me away

To children

And old men that wait to die.

And if you need to cry,

Cry for your brother

Walking the street beside you.

And when you need me,

Put your arms

Around anyone

And give them

What you need to give to me.

I want to leave you something,

Something better

Than words

Or sounds.

Look for me

In the people I’ve known

Or loved,

And if you cannot give me away,

At least let me live on your eyes

And not on your mind.

Hands touch hands,

By letting

Bodies touch bodies,

And by letting go

Of children

That need to be free.

 

Love doesn’t die,

People do.

So, when all that’s left of me

Is love,

Give me away.”

Poem by Merrit Malloy

“Can you be separated from your life and your being? The journey to God is merely the reawakening of the knowledge of where you are always, and what you are forever. It is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed. Truth can only be experienced. It cannot be described and it cannot be explained. I can make you aware of the conditions of truth, but the experience is of God. Together we can meet its conditions, but truth will dawn upon you of itself.” 

A Course in Miracles T-8.VI.9:5-11

“Question. — What is Life?

Answer. — Life is divine Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit. Life is without beginning and without end. Eternity, not time, expresses the thought of Life, and time is no part of eternity. One ceases in proportion as the other is recognized. Time is finite; eternity is forever infinite. Life is neither in nor of matter. What is termed matter is unknown to Spirit, which includes in itself all substance and is Life eternal. Matter is a human concept. Life is divine Mind. Life is not limited. Death and finiteness are unknown to Life. If Life ever had a beginning, it would also have an ending.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 468:25

Super Brain

 

Richard and I at Andy Warhol Exhibit

A book titled “Super Brain” by Deepak Chopra and Rudolph E. Tanzi is bringing me affirmation of many things I’ve witnessed in people, particularly during the pandemic isolation and beyond. The first chapter speaks to things people do which exercise their brain and the value of those activities. Something mentioned is how we may get up in the morning, do the same thing that we do every day, think the same things we think every day, without challenging or stretching ourselves in any way. This, they say, is a recipe for dementia and disease. Learning new things, reading about topics you do not understand and deeply thinking about that information, learning new languages — or contract bridge! — there are many activities we can do to keep our thinking fresh and our lives exciting and fun. I have a dear friend who takes me on adventures regularly. Although I would prefer to stay in my home and do things I love, he takes me outside of my little world and opens my mind to experiences I would not ordinarily have. I hope you have a friend like Richard!

“I ask to see a different world, and think a different kind of thought from those I made. The world I seek I did not make alone, the thoughts I want to think are not my own.” A Course in Miracles W-131.11:3-4

“We are all capable of more than we do. The influence or action of Soul confers a freedom, which explains the phenomena of improvisation and the fervor of untutored lips.” Mary Baker Eddy Science & Health Page 89:21 

Educating Our Children

Fun new experiences

When I was a child, education seemed fairly straightforward. We all went to primary school, very few people we knew were functionally illiterate, and no one we knew thought the earth was flat. Today it’s a different scene. I hear tell that around 50% of the people in the United States cannot read on a 7th grade level, and that an alarming percentage believe the sun rotates around the earth. The recent pandemic changed the face of education, and time will tell if we have learned anything from those events. We see steps in the right direction. Tennessee has started a statewide tutoring program to get their students back to the “normal” level, and it will help around 150,000 students. Worldwide, we are also seeing baby steps. In Ethiopia, more than 2 million children are currently out of school, due to war, drought, flooding, and other circumstances. They have begun an accelerated learning program where in 10 months the first three years of school can be taught, allowing the children to enter school in 4th grade. This program is held in brightly decorated spaces with a focus on music and games in order to encourage a sense of joy. Perhaps this is the solution: bring the joy of learning back to school. If children are happy in school, feeling comfortable and safe, they will learn. We can do this …

“Child of God, you were created to create the good, the beautiful and the holy. Do not forget this. The Love of God, for a little while, must still be expressed through one body to another, because vision is still so dim. You can use your body best to help you enlarge your perception so you can achieve real vision, of which the physical eye is incapable. Learning to do this is the body’s only true usefulness.” A Course in Miracles T-1.VII.2:1-5

“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 Page255:1 

Tribalism …?

 

I’ve never understood this thing we call tribalism. I have a friend who mentions the idea so often that I decided to delve into the topic. Starting with the definition of tribalism, I realize I know what it is, but I want to understand why we exhibit this tendency. As the Universe would have it, many writings have come my way concerning this phenomenon. Two recent issues of my favorite news magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, have looked at what we have done to indigenous people in our country and neighboring Canada. Then, for no reason other than the title, I chose the audiobook, “The Tender Land” by William Kent Krueger. This beautifully-written book takes us into the lives of young people who were forced into indigenous residential schools. While everything I learn is eye-opening, it doesn’t tell me why we the people exhibit this us-against-them behavior. I’m not sure anything can explain it to me because I’ve never had the desire to be with a certain group of people, and usually haven’t even noticed there are groups. But I have become more aware, in my later life, that many have suffered greatly because of these divisions. And so I will pay attention and put my energies into neutralizing these odd separations we have fostered. Namaste …

“A sense of separation from God is the only lack you really need correct. This sense of separation would never have arisen if you had not distorted your perception of truth, and had thus perceived yourself as lacking. The idea of order of needs arose because, having made this fundamental error, you had already fragmented yourself into levels with different needs. As you integrate you become one, and your needs become one accordingly. Unified needs lead to unified action, because this produces a lack of conflict.” A Course in Miracles T-1.VI.2:1-5

“As the Psalmist saith, ‘Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King.’ It is indeed a city of the Spirit, fair, royal, and square. Northward, its gates open to the North Star, the Word, the polar magnet of Revelation; eastward, to the star seen by the Wisemen of the Orient, who followed it to the manger of Jesus; southward, to the genial tropics, with the Southern Cross in the skies, — the Cross of Calvary, which binds human society into solemn union; westward, to the grand realization of the Golden Shore of Love and the Peaceful Sea of Harmony.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 572:11