At-one-ment with Love

photo credit: Richard Quick 

Have you ever had to force yourself to participate in an event only to find, when it was over and done, that you wouldn’t have missed it for the world? I’m thinking now of a community dinner which was held shortly before Christmas last year. A friend asked me to go with her, and I said yes, although I wasn’t enthused. After it was over, I said to someone: Any event with the word “community” in the title, I’m attending! Catherine Reed, set the tone with her guitar and singing. The food was bountiful and delicious. We visited with old friends and laughed and talked and drank wine. I left feeling a communion which was deep and true. The at-one-ment felt at these events and other community-building happenings is a religious experience to me!

Namaste…

“If Truth is overcoming error in your daily walk and conversation, you can finally say, ‘I have fought a good fight . . . I have kept the faith,’ because you are a better man. This is having our part in the at-one-ment with Truth and Love.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 21:1-5

Taking Off Human Shackles

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!

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

Everything a Miracle

PC: Aaron Springston

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

The Quiet Mind

PC: Aaron Springston

Once, years ago, I was taking a carload of kids to the geography bee in Arkadelphia. After the first hour or so, I turned to one of the boys and said, “Everything that goes through your brain doesn’t need to come out of your mouth!” I remind myself of this often. It is easy to get into a stream-of-consciousness way of talking, allowing ourselves to prattle on about everything we think about. If you notice me going on and on when we’re together, stop me! Please! I think meditation, yoga, and spending time with your flowers is good practice for  quieting the mind. Let me know what you do to center yourself and listen!

“Yet there will always be this place of rest to which you can return. And you will be more aware of this quiet center of the storm than all its raging activity. This quiet center, in which you do nothing, will remain with you, giving you rest in the midst of every busy doing on which you are sent.” From A Course in Miracles — The Passing of the Dream 

Changing Belief

PC: Arthur Bruno

I've had two friends who passed on when they were in their 50s, with no physical cause. One woman was traveling, stopped at a hotel, laid down on the bed and was gone. As this was an unattended death, all the legal protocol were followed and it was determined there was no physical reason at all for her passing. I think this is great! The new realms of thought we're accessing allow many old beliefs to be abandoned -- finally! How many material laws have imprisoned us with unlocked doors? The body, as a wholly neutral thing, is an empty vessel waiting to be filled up with thought. Let's make sure that it’s thought independent of erroneous learning and dogma. Everything is important; nothing is important -- neutrality.

“The elements and functions of the physical body and of the physical world will change as mortal mind changes its beliefs.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 124:32-10

Catch Your Brain on Fire

PC: Aaron Springston

My book club read The Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton this month. An interesting discussion ensued and was started off by our hostess for this month’s meeting saying that every day she likes to do something which catches her brain on fire. I love that thought! We decided anything can do this for us, whether it’s a comment made randomly by a stranger in the grocery store, a child expressing something we take for granted, or butterflies landing on flowers. In other words, if we’re paying attention (living in the moment, if you will), something will spark a flame in us which will catch our brain on fire with interest and a desire to know more, or be more, or simply sit and enjoy the smoldering embers. Every moment is a catalyst for this burst of interest, when we’re paying attention. Today I look forward to noticing what causes ignition!

“People go into ecstasies over the sense of a corporeal Jehovah, though with scarcely a spark of love in their hearts; yet God is Love, and without Love, God, immortality cannot appear.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 312:14-17

Internal Awakening

PC: Aaron Springston

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!

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