Providing Knowledge and Understanding

Christa Case Bryant recently became editor of the Christian Science Monitor. Her first editorial reminded me of the original purpose of the daily newspaper, which was founded in 1908. The newspaper became a weekly news magazine a few years back, and maintains its daily presence by way of the internet. At the turn of the last century, our country was being gutted by robber barons, and yellow journalism was rampant. No one knew what to believe and propaganda ruled the day. Now, as then, there’s a great hunger for journalism to speak the truth. As the new editor states: “Our goal is not to tell you what to think, but to give you the essential knowledge and understanding you need to come to your own well-reasoned views.” It will carry on its mission, as Mary Baker Eddy stated in the first issue: “The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.” For more information, please visit their website.

“Smart journalism is allowable, nay, it is commendable; but the public cannot swallow reports of American affairs from a surly censor ventilating his lofty scorn of the sects, or societies, of a nation that perhaps he has never visited.”
Mary Baker Eddy - Miscellaneous Writings 297:10-14

“As we give thanks, the world unites with us and happily accepts our holy thoughts, which Heaven has corrected and made pure. Now has our ministry begun at last, to carry round the world the joyous news that truth has no illusions, and the peace of God, through us, belongs to everyone.”
A Course in Miracles W-151.17:2-3

Reflections of Truth

Photo From Friends’ Visit to New Zealand

Many, perhaps most, self-help books concentrate on how to change behaviors. The two disciplines I study focus on how to rid ourselves of barriers in our thoughts which keep us from being our true selves. What if everything we deem to be wrong about ourselves would simply melt away if we actually knew that we are the image and likeness of our Source? Mary Baker Eddy defines God as Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love. We are the reflection of these words. And they are capitalized because the same words with a small letter at the beginning would simply be the ego’s creations, mortal mind’s confusing interpretations  — of which there are many! When I notice myself falling into the little letter mode of thought, I try not to berate myself, but simply turn thought to a higher level than where the world continually encourages it to be. Let’s be gentle with our corrections, just as Love is. 

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all of the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. It is not necessary to seek for what is true, but it IS necessary to seek for what is false."

A Course in Miracles, Text, page 338

“Correct material belief by spiritual understanding and Spirit will form you anew." 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health 425:24

Happiness is Love. Full Stop

Arthur C Brooks has spent decades studying happiness. Things which bring us pleasure in our early years are not necessarily what nurtures us in our later ones. In his recent book, “From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life”, this columnist for The Atlantic reports, “Those who are unhappiest later in life are often the strivers on a continual quest for money, power, pleasure, and prestige.” Mr. Brooks also teaches a class on happiness at Harvard Business School. He tells us what most of us already know: “The world gives you a bogus formula for happiness. No 1: Use people. No. 2: Love things. No 3: Worship yourself. And it actually seems right because it’s so close to the truth. It just mixes up the nouns and the verbs. The right formula, based on all of the best neuroscience, clinical, and social scientific research, is simply: Use things, love people, and worship the divine. You can boil down all of the studies of happiness to five words. Those words are: Happiness is love. Full stop.”

"Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish; therefore it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to share it."
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 57:18-21

“Happy dreams come true, not because they are dreams, but only because they are happy. And so they must be loving. Their message is, ‘Thy Will be done,’ and not, ‘I want it otherwise.’”
A Course in Miracles T-18.V.4:1-3

What’s So Difficult About Equality?

Throughout the last seven decades, I’ve watched women and so-called people of color take their rightful place as functioning members of society. It hasn’t been much longer than that when women were not allowed to vote in elections, and only since 1962, if you happened to be a black woman in the United States. Nowadays, most women can hold any job and live any way they choose. It amazes me that men feel threatened by this, but now I’m seeing that many are — and it’s become quite a problem for our society. I’ve never believed that men are put-upon, but observance and thoughtful articles are opening my eyes to what has happened. The most startling statistic is that 70% of the suicides in 2019 were white men. Add to that the fact that only 40% of college students are male. Between 2019 and 2020, men who died from drug- and alcohol-related causes spiked 35%! There are numerous reasons for this, of course. Some have simplistic explanations, such as they think women have stolen their jobs and they now have no purpose. I think it’s true that men feel lost in the current climate of changing gender roles, but I also believe it’s mental conditioning which has caused them to feel this way. This topic will be revisited soon, but for now, I’ll end with a quote from Andrew Yang: “We need to be needed. We imagine ourselves as builders, soldiers, workers, brothers — part of something bigger than ourselves.”

“…man is a generic term. Masculine, feminine, and neuter genders are human concepts.”

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 516:29

“As a man and also one of God’s creations, my right thinking, which came from the Holy Spirit or the Universal Inspiration, taught me first and foremost that this Inspiration is for all.”
A Course in Miracles T-5.I.4:5-6

The Abolishment of War

“The man of imagination, maintaining the absolutely neutral position of Principle, with no pro-this or anti-that, is the one who will discover steps and techniques for communication leading to the abolishment of war.” 
We Are the World We Walk Through (or Christian Science, Re-explored) by Margaret Laird

“The memory of God comes to the quiet mind. It cannot come where there is conflict, for a mind at war against itself remembers not eternal gentleness. The means of war are not the means of peace, and what the warlike would remember is not love. War is impossible unless belief in victory is cherished. Conflict within you must imply that you believe the ego has the power to be victorious. Why else would you identify with it? Surely you realize the ego is at war with God. Certain it is it has no enemy. Yet just as certain is its fixed belief it has an enemy that it must overcome and will succeed.” A Course in Miracles - T-23.I.1:1-

Reputable Fact Sources

Photo courtesy of Blake Lasater

I had a phone conversation with a good friend and the talk turned to social media, various political analysts, the state of our nation, and how to find our way through the destruction we are witnessing. I do not allow myself the laxity of thought which dwells on negativity, but I also am a proponent of being led by Grace and Love to follow the steps required in this daily life. You will never find me listening ad nauseam to repetition of the so-called news, but I often check in with people such as Heather Cox Richardson for guidance through the maze we are navigating. I will soon be putting together a list of podcasts and newsletters which are reliable for straight-up truth in the reporting of daily events. Along with these sources, there will be newsletters which give a spiritual perspective to daily events, while building accurate historical perspectives (Marianne Williamson), and folks who give us answers to why this is happening at this time (such as Iain McGillchrist). Please let me know if you’d like a copy of these sources once they are compiled. Now is not the time to be ill- or non-informed. Nor is it the time to be quiet. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Dylan Thomas

“This material world is even now becoming the arena for conflicting forces. On one side there will be discord and dismay; on the other side there will be Science and peace. 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 96:12-20

“It seems to be the enemy without that you attack. Yet your defense sets up an enemy within; an alien thought at war with you, depriving you of peace, splitting your mind into two camps which seem wholly irreconcilable. For love now has an ‘enemy,’ an opposite; and fear, the alien, now needs your defense against the threat of what you really are.

“If you consider carefully the means by which your fancied self-defense proceeds on its imagined way, you will perceive the premises on which the idea stands. First, it is obvious ideas must leave their source, for it is you who make attack, and must have first conceived of it. Yet you attack outside yourself, and separate your mind from him who is to be attacked, with perfect faith the split you made is real.”
A Course in Miracles W-170.3-4

Quiet in the Midst of Turmoil

 

John Currin - Pistachio, 2016.

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”                                                                                                                                         Henri Nouwen

“Learn to be quiet in the midst of turmoil, for quietness is the end of strife and this is the journey to peace. ⁶Look straight at every image that rises to delay you, for the goal is inevitable because it is eternal. The goal of love is but your right, and it belongs to you despite your dreams.”                          A Course in Miracles T-12.II.5:5-7