Love For Lent

 

The lenten season means many things to many people. Some of us choose to see this as a time to give up behaviors which do not bring peace, dedicating this time to reconciling actions which have been less than conducive to harmony. For instance, something may be standing in the way of getting along with a neighbor, or perhaps angry words have broken a friendship. There are many things considered to be impediments to living a loving life. Today social media has told me about a multitude of ways to change my actions and become a better person. These memes, together with a homily given by a priest in a service where I provide musical accompaniment, have made me realize only one thing is needed, and that is to Love more. When someone espouses an inane or insane idea, I will love the spiritual reality of that person, not the erroneous material sense they are expressing. Every moment of the day, we have a choice: react from fear, or respond with Love. Let's find out what happens when we return to Love!

“The message of the crucifixion is perfectly clear: Teach only love, for that is what you are.” 

A Course in Miracles T.6.2

“A musician demonstrates the beauty of the music he teaches in order to show the learner the way by practice as well as precept. Jesus’ teaching and practice of Truth involved such a sacrifice as makes us admit its Principle to be Love. This was the precious import of our Master’s sinless career and of his demonstration of power over death.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 26:19-25

Purr-fectly calm

 

“I have lived with many Zen masters — all of them cats.” Eckhart Tolle

“Can you imagine what it means to have no cares, no worries, no anxieties, but merely to be perfectly calm and quiet all the time? Yet that is what time is for; to learn just that and nothing more. God’s Teacher cannot be satisfied with His teaching until it constitutes all your learning. He has not fulfilled His teaching function until you have become such a consistent learner that you learn only of Him. When this has happened, you will no longer need a teacher or time in which to learn.” 

A Course in Miracles T-15.I.1:1-5

“Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and calm trust, that the recognition of life harmonious — as Life eternally is — can destroy any painful sense of, or belief in, that which Life is not. Let Christian Science, instead of corporeal sense, support your understanding of being, and this understanding will supplant error with Truth, replace mortality with immortality, and silence discord with harmony.” 

Mary Baker Eddy Science & Health Page 495:16-24

Spiritual Aridity?

 

Photographer unknown

At a giddy gathering of friends last week, someone mentioned the phrase “spiritual aridity”. To the best of my sketchy memory, I had never heard this term before and it intrigued me. Upon looking it up, its general religious use is rather condemnatory in nature. Many religious leaders use the term quite frequently to chastise their congregations, while some seers are saying that God sends spells of unbelief to test their faith, and — well, I was rather disappointed in seeing what an internet search brought up. When I heard this term in the midst of stimulating conversation, it immediately brought to my thoughts the lack of Spiårit which is being bandied around and sold as religion. It seems many mainstream religions are spewing false ideology, and when I thought of something which was spiritually arid, this came to mind. As I ponder this, it comes to me that the majority of people who love their church are not believing in false prophets. The religions we hear about the most, the ones which are selling themselves through commercials, billboards, and other media blitzes, are the ones which disappoint me. To all the open-hearted, helping-handed folks, I applaud you! Don’t be afraid to love right out loud!

“Millions of unprejudiced minds — simple seekers for Truth, weary wanderers, athirst in the desert — are waiting and watching for rest and drink. Give them a cup of cold water in Christ’s name, and never fear the consequences.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 570:13-17

“The Thought of God surrounds your little kingdom, waiting at the barrier you built to come inside and shine upon the barren ground. See how life springs up everywhere! The desert becomes a garden, green and deep and quiet, offering rest to those who lost their way and wander in the dust. Give them a place of refuge, prepared by love for them where once a desert was. And everyone you welcome will bring love with him from Heaven for you. They enter one by one into this holy place, but they will not depart as they had come, alone. The love they brought with them will stay with them, as it will stay with you. And under its beneficence your little garden will expand, and reach out to everyone who thirsts for living water, but has grown too weary to go on alone.” 

A Course in Miracles T-18.VIII.9:1-8

Truth is a Savior

“Vain are the beliefs and teachings that make man miserable, and false is the goodness that leads him into sorrow and despair, for it is man's purpose to be happy on this earth and lead the way to felicity and preach its gospel wherever he goes. He who does not see the kingdom of heaven in this life will never see it in the coming life. We came not into this life by exile, but we came as innocent creatures of God, to learn how to worship the holy and eternal spirit and seek the hidden secrets within ourselves from the beauty of life. This is the truth which I have learned from the teachings of the Nazarene.”

Kahlil Gibran

“When we fully understand our relation to the Divine, we can have no other Mind but His, — no other Love, wisdom, or Truth, no other sense of Life, and no consciousness of the existence of matter or error.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 205: 32-3

“Truth is a savior and can only will for happiness and peace for everyone. It gives its strength to everyone who asks, in limitless supply. It sees that lack in anyone would be a lack in all. And so it gives its light that all may see and benefit as one. Its strength is shared, that it may bring to all the miracle in which they will unite in purpose and forgiveness and in love.” A Course in Miracles W-92.5:3-7

Awesome

 

“Try and let your knowledge be sideswiped by awe” — These words are part of a poem I sent out yesterday. The act of “collapsing in wonder” (also taken from the poem) is being reinforced regularly in my daily life. Today I heard a video about stress relief and the main suggestion was to feel awe everyday. Dacher Kelter, the man being interviewed, mentioned that in London, where he is from, no one ever looks up at the sky. An act as simple as laying down on the ground and looking at clouds and birds, connecting with the earth, is the best way to relieve stress. He used the word “awe” time and time again in his explanations of getting past stressful feelings and embracing happiness and peace. Feeling awe, collapsing into wonder, these sound like simple acts which anyone could do. But apparently the majority of us do not. So when we are talking to someone who is sad, or overwhelmed by life, or anxious, or worried, or tired of it all, let’s take them outside for a look around — really looking and getting lost in the wonder. It’s the best feeling of all!

Here is a link to the interview, if you’re interested!

https://youtu.be/NO_GdfSe9To

“It is Love which paints the petal with myriad hues, glances in the warm sunbeam, arches the cloud with the bow of beauty, blazons the night with starry gems, and covers earth with loveliness.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 247:24-27

“There is a light in you which cannot die; whose presence is so holy that the world is sanctified because of you. All things that live bring gifts to you, and offer them in gratitude and gladness at your feet. The scent of flowers is their gift to you. The waves bow down before you, and the trees extend their arms to shield you from the heat, and lay their leaves before you on the ground that you may walk in softness, while the wind sinks to a whisper round your holy head.” 

A Course in Miracles W-156.4:1-4

Collapse in Wonder

The Window (1970)

Vladimir Vladimirovich Zhivotkov

Here’s another social media share from Ramona. Plus, it reminds me of yesterday’s Mary Oliver.

Susceptible to Light 

By Chelan Harkin 

“You don't have to believe in God

but please collapse in wonder

as regularly as you can

try and let your knowledge

be side swiped by awe

and let beauty be so persuasive

you find yourself willing

to lay your opinions at her feet 

Darling, you don't have to believe in God

but please pray

for your own sake

great prayers of thanks 

for the mountains, the great rivers

the roundness of the moon

just because they're here at all

and that you get to know them

and let prayer bubble up in you

as a natural thing 

like song in a bird

You don't have to have

a spiritual path 

but do run 

the most sensitive

part of your soul 

over the soft curves 

of this world

with as much tenderness

as you can find in yourself

and let her edgeless ways

inspire you to discover more 

just find a way

that makes you want to yield

yourself

that you may be more open

to letting beauty fully

into your arms

and feel some sacred flame

inside of you that yearns toward

learning how to build a bigger 

fire of love in your heart

You don't have to believe in God

but get quiet enough to remember

we really don't know a damn thing 

about any of it

and if you can, feel a reverence to be part 

of This Great Something

whatever you want to call it

that is so much bigger

and so far beyond 

the rooftops of all

our knowing.”

Written by Chelan Harkin - Susceptible to Light

“The sunlight glints from the church-dome, glances into the prison-cell, glides into the sick-chamber, brightens the flower, beautifies the landscape, blesses the earth. Man, made in His likeness, possesses and reflects God’s dominion over all the earth. Man and woman as coexistent and eternal with God forever reflect, in glorified quality, the infinite Father-Mother God.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 516:16-22

“All this beauty will rise to bless your sight as you look upon the world with forgiving eyes. For forgiveness literally transforms vision, and lets you see the real world reaching quietly and gently across chaos, removing all illusions that had twisted your perception and fixed it on the past. The smallest leaf becomes a thing of wonder, and a blade of grass a sign of God’s perfection.” 

A Course in Miracles T-17.II.6:1-3

The Attentive Soul

“Ten times a day something happens to me like this - some strengthening throb of amazement - some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.”

― Mary Oliver

“Hence the eternal wonder, — that infinite space is peopled with God’s ideas, reflecting Him in countless spiritual forms.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 503:15-17

“To be in the Kingdom is merely to focus your full attention on it. As long as you believe you can attend to what is not true, you are accepting conflict as your choice. Is it really a choice? It seems to be, but seeming and reality are hardly the same. You who are the Kingdom are not concerned with seeming. Reality is yours because you are reality. This is how having and being are ultimately reconciled, not in the Kingdom, but in your mind. The altar there is the only reality. The adfaltar is perfectly clear in thought, because it is a reflection of perfect Thought. Your right mind sees only brothers, because it sees only in its own light.” 

A Course in Miracles T-7.III.4:1-10