What's your worth?

I have a new blog posted on tmcyouth.com

"What's your worth?"

It begins

"Does a fast food cashier earning $14,000 a year have as much worth as a software programmer earning $150,000? In light of the huge disparities that exist between high and low earners these days..."

Polls again...

I've wanted to run polls on my site for a long time to learn more about who my readers are, and finally got a poll up and running a few days ago. However, I'm wondering if it has caused technical difficulties, preventing some of you from logging onto the site, because I've had one report to that effect.

So, I deleted the HTML polling code tonight in order to ask all of you:

Has anyone had problems logging onto this blog in the last 3 days, and now the problem has disappeared?

Thanks.

Question what you hear and see

Yesterday, a traveling saleswoman stopped into my office to sell me a cleaning product I had never heard of before. It was a green liquid, made of natural ingredients, can clean anything according to its promoter, and was environmentally safe. She licked the tube in the can to prove her point. I politely declined buying her ware, not sure it was legitimate or not, and didn’t need it anyway.

Later, a neighbor store owner stopped by to talk about removing graffiti in our vicinity. I changed the subject and asked her if the saleswoman had stopped by her store. She nodded yes and proceeded to tell me the product was a con, that she hoped I hadn’t bought any, and that it would have been a waste of money. I assured her I made the right decision, at least according to her point of view! When she left, I was glad I hadn’t got conned, hadn’t bought the product and was confident I would never even consider buying it in the future. My mind was made up based upon what my neighbor told me.

Later, though, I thought about how rapidly I had closed my mind to ever using the product. I had no proof one way or the other that the stuff worked. Actually, the saleswoman had cleaned some graffiti off the trashcan outside my office, proving it could clean somewhat. So, it bothered me that I had written the product off as no good so quickly.

What if my neighbor was wrong? What if the saleswoman was right? I didn’t honestly know.

Now, I’m not worried about whether I need the cleaning solution or not. What got my attention was how rapidly my mind closed to an option just because my neighbor said so.

I thought about the millions of people who have been told that Christian Science is a cult, and they believed it, not because it was true, but because they were told so. And they never went on to question whether the verdict was correct or not. (And, by the way, it is not. Christian Science couldn’t be further from being a cult. It worships one God, not any person.) And millions of people have been deprived of the huge healing benefit CS could have brought into their lives, if they only knew the truth about it.

But then I thought of all the times when mortal mind (internal fear, doubt, lack, etc) talks to us as an authority, and we believe it when we shouldn’t.

For example, I remember a time when Kathy and I wanted to buy a house, but didn’t see any way we could afford it. I checked our bank balances and other assets and there was no way we could afford the place. Case closed. Beyond a doubt, it was not a doable deal.

At least, that’s what the material sense report told us. And I believed it beyond a shadow of a doubt. At least for a while....

After a bit, I prayerfully challenged the evidence of the senses. Instead of looking to our bank account for money which was not there, I went to Mind, the source of all supply. I knew there were no shortages in Mind, only abundance. Lack is a finite human concept. Abundance is divine reality. Was I going to live in the realm of the finite or the infinite? I asked myself. I decided to settle for the infinite.

I did not pray for money. I prayed for an expanded view of spiritual abundance, and I found peace in knowing our family did not lack in any way, shape or form. We had all we needed whether we bought the house or not, I concluded. We were complete.

Within two weeks, in what seemed like miraculous ways, $80,000 appeared that enabled us to buy the house. It was astounding, totally unforeseen, but it happened.

To see this demonstration, though, I had to open my mind up to new possibilities. I had to stop listening to the material voice of fear, quit beholding lack, and think out from Mind-Truth. Then the picture changed.

So, the lesson I gain from all this is the importance of not abruptly drawing conclusions that aren’t based on the facts—and when it comes to spiritual healing—upon the spiritual facts! All other evidence is suspect until verified with truth.

Claiming your innocence

One form error takes that often holds people back from being healed is the fear that they are suffering because they did something wrong, when in fact, they didn’t commit any crime, except to unwittingly accept that they were guilty when they weren’t.

It comes in the form of, “I’m suffering, and therefore I must have done something wrong.” Have you ever gone down that route of reasoning?

Yes, sin, when indulged, needs to be corrected. The person suffering from physical pain because his mind is filled with hate and anger, aka mental pain, needs to reform, let go of the negativity and love. But there are many times when suffering is not the effect of a direct sin we indulged, but from being affected by mortal mind hate or ignorance at large.

For example, Jesus did not commit a sin that led to his crucifixion. It would have been unfair for him to query on the cross, “What did I do wrong to deserve this?” He spent his life helping and healing others. He did not sin. It was the world’s hatred of him that penalized him. He endured the attack to prove the inability of evil to destroy his life, and he succeeded. His act was incredibly unselfish, as unselfish as any act can be. But he did not suffer because of his own sins. He suffered from the sins of others.

Similar situations occur when we strive to be good and do the right thing by God today. World belief at large is filled with much envy, jealousy, hatred of purity, and anger toward those who succeed in living upright lives. Evil will often lash out at honesty, integrity and principle because it sees its own weakness in the light of moral and spiritual strength. Evil feels threatened by good because it perceives its own destruction in the advancement of good. We need to be aware of this when praying for spiritual healing because spiritual healing is about advancing the cause of Good, God.

Spiritual healing is the ultimate threat to evil. It spells out the annihilation of evil and all its forms in the world. So when we pray for relief, we should not be surprised if mortal mind goes into full swing to discourage our efforts, and one of those efforts often takes the form of, “You must have done something wrong, and should suffer.” This kind of perverted reasoning, if not caught would dishearten the sincere person looking for spiritual help into submitting to the error, and believing it is justified. It’s like a wife whose husband beats her and she believes it is her fault, and even told by her husband that it’s her fault, which happens frequently. Nonsense! It is not her fault. The abuser is at error and needs to reform. Abuse is never justifiable.

Mary Baker Eddy wisely wrote, “As of old, evil still charges the spiritual idea with error’s own nature and methods. This malicious animal instinct, of which the dragon is the type, incites mortals to kill morally and physically even their fellow-mortals, and worse still, to charge the innocent with the crime.”

If suffering from a crime we did not commit, the one sin we are committing is our belief that we have to suffer. We don’t have to suffer for the sins of others. And we have divine authority for rising above the insidious claims of evil and asserting our spiritual right to live free of pain.

God made us free! In the divine image, we are sinless. We are worthy of the best heaven has to offer, and forever loved and cared for by the divine Father-Mother. Harmony and health are our birthright, and no twisted assertion by mortal mind can take that heavenly inheritance away. This truth is our right to know and experience to the fullest.

Rise, and be free!

Poll

I just added a poll to the sidebar of my blog, located underneath my bio.

Check it out and cast your vote!

Also, I'd love to receive ideas on what polls to take.

What would you like to know?

Any suggestions?

What matters most in life?

When I moved into my new office last spring, I immediately befriended my neighbor to the left of my space who was a sewing machine repairman. We frequently stepped into each other’s shops and said hi, exchanged a few pleasantries and went about our business.

A month, ago, one Monday morning, Phil, my neighbor, never showed up. His Singer store remained locked. This was highly unusual. He was a one man operation with no employees, worked 6 days a week, and very faithfully so. And we usually knew about everything he was up to.

Two days passed, and no Phil. Myself and neighbors were a bit concerned, so I called his home. His daughter answered and said Phil had passed away on Sunday night.

He was 79, and lived a full life, but still, the surprise had a sobering effect.

The family hired a liquidator to dispense with Phil’s possessions. Two weekends ago everything in his house was sold. Last weekend, everything in his store--stuff accumulated over decades—was carted off by strangers in a few hours. The store now stands bare empty, with not even a sign of Phil having been there.

This blog is not about death and coping with grief. I know Phil is alive and well in Spirit, prospering in Mind and happily so. I have no concerns about Phil, although I would have liked to give him a hug good-bye before he left so quickly! Aside from that, I’ve been pondering the rapid liquidation of all his worldly possessions in a mere few hours.

Phil spent decades putting together a home and building a business. In moments it was all gone. All of it! Not a trace left behind.

I saw a similar thing happen when my mom passed. My brother and sisters and I had to clean out her house to sell it. It didn’t take long, a few days, in fact, to undo what mom had spent decades building up. How fast the dissolution happened deeply impacted me. What I had grown attached to over a lifetime was suddenly gone, practically overnight.

Watching the rapid liquidation of Phil’s estate had a similar impact. From a matter perspective, one day, all looked well. The next, it was all gone.

I gain strong spiritual lessons from watching such events. This one in particular teaches me to not put my faith in the build-up of matter. Why would you when you realize it will be all gone someday, and probably rapidly so. We need a place to live, books to read, furniture to utilize, and other things to get by with, but the real substance of life is not in the things we accumulate. It’s in the spiritual life we live.

Life is not in matter. And substance is not in things that can be sold and carted away. There's more to existence then a list of worldly goods that can be sold to the highest bidder in a few hours, I figure.

The essence of Life is divine Love lived, joy expressed, generosity shared, spirituality gained, God understood, Truth demonstrated and gratitude given.

Life and its spiritual goodness is forever, but material things are not.

Adjusting to adversity

I can't change the direction of the wind. But I can adjust my sails.

~ Author unknown

God holds you up

I’ve always been leery of walking to the ledge of a deep canyon and peering over the edge. It’s a ridiculous fear, I know, but one I’ve never fully come to terms with until last month when walking the rim of the Yellowstone Canyon.

While approaching one viewing platform that sat 1500 feet above the bottom of the abyss on top of a small piece of rock jutting out from the canyon wall, I stopped to read a plaque that said a previous viewing platform had been 100 feet further out in the canyon. But in 1978 an earthquake crumbled the walk to the bottom of the hole.

“Oh, great,” I thought. “What if an earthquake hit today and the new platform went crumbling to the bottom with me standing on it?”

I looked up, and the destination ahead looked precarious indeed as if dangling out in the middle of space with no source of support.

I took this as a lesson on how mortal mind plants unwarranted fears and doubts into our thinking and holds us hostage to them if we don’t kick them out with spiritual truth.

For me, hovering over an incredibly deep hole in the ground may create some antsy feelings. For others, speaking in front of a thousand people may produce a few jitters, or getting on an airplane, or asking for a pay raise. But any fears come down to one lie, and that is, that God is not in control.

I was not going to shy away from this opportunity to conquer fear. I was going to look over the steep edge of the railing ahead. I knew.

As I approached the wide open space, I thought about how a few days previous I had absolutely no fear about entering the Lewis and Clark Caverns and walking into the heart of the earth through skinny narrow caves and very confined spaces. Evidently, some people fear the experience for the guide had made a big deal about how there was no turning back at one point. So, I thought, why should I have any less confidence and sense of security now?

There was no sound reason, I concluded.

Then I asked, “Why do I fear walking to the edge of this precipice?” The answer was simple. “What if the ground failed underneath?”

Suddenly the premise of my fear was unveiled, I felt.

I was afraid because I was depending upon rocks and earth, or matter, to hold me up, and of course, I would be nervous, because I had no trust in matter. I was spiritually programmed to not trust matter, and I didn’t.

But I had no fear in the cave, which mortal mind could have gone wild with “What ifs…” So, why should I have any more fear here? I pondered. Wasn’t the cave just as material as this canyon wall? I asked. Maybe not, I reasoned. In the cave, for whatever reason, I was not thinking of it as a material experience. I was so caught up into the beauty, wonder and surprise of it all, that the trip was much more a Mind-experience than a so-called matter experience.

There was no sound reason, for my canyon fear, I concluded. The concern was one of those unwarranted conjectures of mortal mind that seems real when believed, but had no logical basis to back it up.

So I changed the premise of my reasoning. As Christian Science explains so beautifully, we do not live in a universe of matter, but of Mind. It’s not matter that holds us up, but the forces of Spirit.

As I advanced down the path, I decided that I was not walking out onto a material ledge, but exploring in the universe of divine Mind.

Mary Baker Eddy astutely wrote,

“Spirit is the life, substance, and continuity of all things. We tread on forces. Withdraw them, and creation must collapse. Human knowledge calls them forces of matter, but divine Science declares that they belong wholly to divine Mind, are inherent in this Mind, and so restores them to their rightful home and classification.”

I was going to rely upon the forces of Mind to hold me up, keep me safe and protected, not upon what mortal mind called matter. The forces of Love were ever-present, above, below, around and beneath. I could proceed with no fear.

The jitteriness disappeared as I went all the way to the ledge and enjoyed the view. And even more, celebrated a victory over an unwarranted fear!

Falling ants and the disappearing sliver

I love the new office space I moved into last spring. All conditions proved ideal the first few months, except for one. There were ants. Not too many ants, but enough to get me bothered. They would fall from the ceiling onto my desk. One or two at time would land on my glass top and start crawling around looking for refuge. This would happen 3 or 4 times a day. I put up with it figuring it was no big deal, but didn't care for the surprise aliens invading what I considered my territory.

In July, the problem worsened rapidly and I was ready to call an exterminator. I had hesitated because I didn’t want chemicals in the air, but the accelerated bombardment of creepy little creatures falling from above was driving me buggy!

I opened the phone book, found a company to call, lifted the receiver and started to dial, but then abruptly stopped, hung up the phone and comitted to pray about it one more time.

There has to be a spiritual solution to this, I protested.

Humbly, I listened for a helpful inspiration.

“There is nothing to bug you in your office space,” a little voice uttered within. And by “office space,” I knew the nudge meant mental office space.

"There was nothing to bug me in my mental office space," I repeated.

I couldn’t think of any irritation off-hand that was bothering me, other than how to deal with these nuisance critters falling from the rafters. But suddenly, in my prayers, found peace of mind about the whole antsy episode.

"God is Love. I live and work in God’s allness. There are no bothersome ants in the office space God has provided for me," I affirmed.

My prayer was short, to the point, and quickly brought to a close.

I forgot all about calling an exterminator. I didn’t care to do that anymore, and went back to work.

A week later, I realized that not a single ant had appeared since that little de-bugging prayer. Not a single one. I even looked around for a straggler. None! No ants. It’s been over two months now, and not a solitary ant has appeared on my desk. I'm still thanking God for the change in circumstances.

I had another experience that caught me by surprise in August while camping.

One evening, I noticed a large black sliver in one of my fingers. My first impulse was to get it out. But it was buried deep and looked immovable. I did not have proper tools, and didn’t want to tear up my finger trying to get it out, so I decided to leave it alone and prayerfully know that it was not a problem for me.

In my prayers, I went directly to absolute Truth. In Truth, I knew, there was no sliver in an unwanted place, that I was not a victim of a harmful incident, that I was in no danger, and that as a spiritual child of God I would remain pain free and healthy during the rest of the camping trip. It was a short, simple and to the point prayer. I forgot about my finger.

The next morning, while eating breakfast, my vision ran across the digit I had been worried about the evening before. And there was no sliver.

I did a double take. I inspected it closely. I looked for an opening where it might have exited. There was no opening. There was no sliver. There was no evidence whatsoever that a piece of foreign matter had been there. My finger was perfect.

The above two incidents have gotten me to thinking even deeper about the fundamental truth Christian Science teaches, that there is no matter. What we call matter, and material conditions, are but mortal beliefs. Change the belief, the condition changes. And the change doesn’t have to take time. Truth is not any truer tomorrow than it is today. So, why not experience it today!

Watch the mental company you keep

A rule we learn in Christian Science for preserving health and well being is to keep thinking free of external negative influence. If we are not alert, the influences we feel around us in the atmosphere of thought, we might take on as our own and live them out.

A simple example of this is, if you walk into a room of very happy joyous people, you’re likely to feel uplift from their inspired attitude. And conversely, if you walk into a room of angry hateful people, you might feel burden from their heavy dark thinking. This does not mean we have to be affected by other’s negativity, but it does mean we have to scientifically protect ourselves from its baneful influence to keep our own well being intact.

A friend called me last week and reported a lesson she learned last month on better defending her mental precincts from the influence of mental darkness.

She had been a Harry Potter fan from the beginning, and was listening to an audio recording of the most recent Potter book. The ritual seemed innocent enough.

However, during the month, she found herself struggling severely with depression and a terrible mood. She was cranky, hard to get along with by family members, down on life, saw no light ahead of her, uninspired and feeling like a failure. Life looked very dark.

Feeling pushed to the edge, she prayed for relief, and in a moment of light made a connection between all the darkness she had been absorbing from the Harry Potter book and the heavy darkness she was feeling.

Aha!! She cried. I think there’s a lesson here!

I have not read the latest Potter book, but understand it is filled with evil impressions. I read the first three volumes out loud to my children when the Potter series started because my children were determined to have them read one way or the other, and I decided, who better than me to have the experience with them! At least I could talk to them about what they were hearing during the story. And we learned many lessons about defending self from evil through reading those books together. But I rapidly lost interest because the content was getting darker and darker. The preponderance of evil sapped my enthusiasm for gaining the other lessons to be learned. I quit reading them.

Anyway, my friend went on to say that she saw the need to get her thinking filled with light once again and not so saturated with the threat of Voldemort, who is the hideous impersonation of dark evil in the Potter book.

She turned off the audio player, and turned to God, infinite Light for inspiration. She acknowledged God, good, as the only power and influence over thinking and life. She denounced the belief that evil had power over her, or over anyone. As she got grounded once again in spiritual truth, the darkness lifted and joy washed over her perspective. Her normal happy self returned, and the depression vanished.

The above story is a simple lesson, but a powerful one. We all must stay alert, pay attention to what is happening in thought, and not accept without question whatever comes in our direction. As we stand guard at the front entrance of our home, keeping out unwanted strangers or criminals, we must stand watch at the front entrance of our mental home, barring entrance to any undesirable suggestions, claims or evil assertions.

God has given us a good life to live, but that life will never be found in evil thoughts. It’s found in good thoughts, and those good thoughts come from God. But we need to shut down the evil sense and not give it our ear in order to hear those angel messages coming from above that lift our view to a higher happier level.

To a consciousness of infinite Love, omnipresent Good, Voldemort is no threat!

Loving your enemies podcast

“How can you love an enemy?"

"How can you love someone who hates you and wants to harm you?”

These are some of the questions I answer in a new podcast that just launched on tmcyouth.com.

Click here, “Loving your enemies,” and listen to how you can respond to your enemies with a power that disarms their hatred and brings healing.

Flowstone

While touring the Lewis and Clark Caverns in Montana last month, our guide frequently pointed out flowstone. Flowstone is rock formed by water dripping or trickling over a cave surface leaving calcium deposits behind. Over thousands and millions of years, the flowstone formation grows larger from the minerals left behind creating often a very impressive display.

The sight of trickling water, which appeared very clear to the eye, creating sometimes monstrous formations was mind-bending. Where nothing appeared to be happening in the short term, something was happening in the long run.

I thought about metaphysical lessons to be learned.

Do we ever allow flowstone mental-rocks to form in thought? I asked. These mental formations could be either good or bad.

For example, suggestions like, “I’m not very good at remembering things,” or “Life is hard,” or “Health is vulnerable,” or “I’m fragile,” or “I’m at a disadvantage,” and more limiting claims, may at first not appear to be any big deal when considered. But these beliefs, when allowed to trickle through thought for decades, leave deposits behind that build and build like flowstone.

The reverse effect can occur as well. Christian Science is fabulous in this regard, for Christian Science teaches us to hold perfect ideals in thought. Spiritual truths like, “I am a perfect child of God. I am healthy and whole as God made me. I’m fully provided for. I do not lack. I have eternal life. Health is permanent.” And more, trickling through thought for decades has an extremely positive benefit. At first, to the uneducated sense, declaring oneself to be a perfect child of God may sound farfetched and illusory. But it’s a fact, and even though not understood in the beginning, leaves “deposits” behind in thought that build over the decades for a cumulative good effect.

So, I’ve been watching more closely any flowstone developing in my thought. Is it good or not so good? Does the trickle need to be sped up, or shut down?

One flowstone belief I’ve noticed needs curtailing more is the belief of aging. As the calendar pages have flipped in my life, I’ve noticed more fears, not my own, coming from all directions in the media and from personal conversations suggesting a decline of health accompanies advancing years. This is not fact, but fiction. But if allowed to trickle through consciousness, as water over flowstone runs, builds into a seeming reality. A stream of belief that definitely needs to be dammed up and stopped!

So, is there any flowstone in your thought that needs to be reversed, or contrari-wise, better appreciated?

Worthy attitudes

Read the below on the wall of a high school teacher's room last night during an open house.

"Attitudes are contagious. Is yours worth catching?"

You are precious

Sometimes we just need to be reminded!

A speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20.00 bill.

In the room of 200, he asked, "Who would like this $20 bill?"

Hands started going up.

He said, "I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this.

He proceeded to crumple up the $20 dollar bill.

He then asked, "Who still wants it?"Still the hands were up in the air.

Well, he replied, "What if I do this?"

And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe.

He picked it up, now crumpled and dirty. "Now, who still wants it?"

Still the hands went into the air.

My friends, we have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20.

Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless.

But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value. Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, who you are, as an immortal child of God, will never be soiled.

It’s not what you look like, what’s happened in the past, or what might happen in the future that should count in your mind, but who you are in the divine image and likeness. And that will never be lost.

You are special. You are spiritual! And that’s enough.

Dog lessons

Thinking about the special dogs my family has cared for over the years, and all the joy, spirit and unqualified love they’ve expressed, I chuckled when reading the below sent in by a reader.

A family was discussing among themselves why dogs live shorter lives than humans.

The four year old son piped up, “I know why!” He said. “People are born so that they can learn how to live a good life--like loving everybody all the time and being nice, right? Well, dogs already know how to do that, so they don't have to stay as long.”

Remember, if a dog was the teacher you would learn stuff like:

When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.

Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride.

Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy.

Take naps.

Stretch before rising.

Run, romp, and play daily.

Thrive on attention and let people touch you.

Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.

On warm days, stop to lie on your back on the grass.

On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree.

When you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body.

Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.

Be loyal. Never pretend to be something you're not.

If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.

When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle them gently.

Keep clear of death beliefs

While hiking near Yellowstone last month, a guide told my group that forest rangers were quick to clear campgrounds and hiking trails of dead animals. And periodically, campgrounds and trails that had a dead carcass would be closed for the season to protect future campers and hikers.

Closing a campground or trail for several months because of a dead animal that had been removed seemed odd to us, so we asked why? And the metaphysical implications of his answer have kept me thinking ever since.

Our leader explained that dead carcasses attract predators, and the predators can come for weeks after the event, detecting the smell of death lingering in the air for miles around even though the dead animal was gone. Unsuspecting campers and walkers could be victims. So, the forest service found it best to keep those areas cleared of people until the scent was totally gone.

I had read in a museum that a bear’s sense of smell is several times more powerful than a bloodhound’s. Wow! I thought. Smells humans think are long gone, are still present to the more acute nose.

Metaphysically speaking, I saw large lessons in this scenario. Most importantly, it’s important that we absolutely not harbor “death beliefs” in our thinking if we don’t want predators attracted to our campsite!

And by death beliefs, I mean any suggestion of lack or loss.

For example, have you ever gotten depressed or feeling hopeless and your circumstances just got worse and worse? This is a classic case of one feeling of lack attracting another, and the picture of hopelessness escalates until checked. Or, one may start to believe they are old and aging and susceptible to loss of health. One health problem occurs, then another… This is another example of one death belief attracting another. The predators of dismay, discouragement, apathy, gloom and doom, doubt, suspicion, fear, and resignation would pounce upon and annihilate hope, confidence, courage, faith, trust and fruition.

Setting up camp in a safe place

The lesson I learn from this is that we need to stay extra alert to keep our campground, or consciousness, clean of any hint of death. Any suggestion, claim or assertion of decline, lack, or loss needs to be instantly eliminated from the premises. From our thinking! And promptly replaced with the purity and wholesomeness of Life!

From a mental point of view, we can choose the site where we wish to set up our tent. And we can choose the campground of Life, where death is unknown; there are no predators to fear, and no prey to be found. Love is all.

Heaven and hell

A holy man was having a conversation with the Lord one day and said, "Lord, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like."

The Lord led the holy man to two doors.

He opened one of the doors and the holy man looked in. In the middle of the room was a large round table. In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew, which smelled delicious and made the holy man's mouth water.

The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles that were strapped to their arms and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful. But because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.

The holy man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering.

The Lord said, "You have seen Hell."

They went to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same as the first one. There was the large round table with the large pot of stew which made the holy man's mouth water. The people were equipped with the same long-handled spoons, but here the people were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking. The holy man said, "I don't understand."

It is simple," said the Lord. "It requires but one skill. You see they have learned to feed each other, while the greedy think only of themselves."

What makes a life?

“From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life.”

~ Arthur Ashe

Do we care enough to stop and help?

This past weekend, I spoke and led several workshops at a camp for youth in the Mid-west. It was a glorious three days capped off by a spectacular fireworks display over a nearby lake.

Many minutes passed as we awed over the impressive pyrotechnics show the sponsors had put together. Crowds clapped at the bursting colors and flaming rockets of light jetting in all directions. The weather was perfect. The temperature was ideal. The setting was idyllic. As I watched and participated, I made a gratitude list of all the blessings I had witnessed that weekend and would take home with me.

But as the immense celebration continued, I glanced about and noticed a lone young man standing near me, with hands in his pockets, standing tall and erect, crew cut, and deep in thought. I did not know this young lad personally, but I did know he was headed to military training, and then presumably off to fight in the Mid-East war.

It was a very sobering moment.

I pondered what might be going through his thinking.

We were watching harmless fireworks in the sky designed to entertain. He might have been pondering real bombs bursting above his head, tanks firing, bullets whizzing by, grenades being lobbed, and how he might have to escape such dire scenes.

Suddenly, I was not so interested in the fireworks anymore. I wanted to mine this ironic setting for spiritual lessons.

I thought about times in life when a person might think they are doing the most important activity of all, but standing right next to them is someone in far greater need.

For example, we race to the grocery store, feeling pressed for time, running down the aisles gathering our items in hopes we’ll get home in time to cook dinner for the family, but in our rush fail to notice another shopper, also thinking about their family, but also crumbling under the fear of some disease. Or, we fret and fume over how to get the bills paid, but a neighbor down the street is losing their home because their bills are not paid at all.

Now, I don’t believe in getting down on ourselves, and I did not. But standing next to this military recruit, and knowing I would fly home safely to Washington State, and he would, in a few months, likely head to Iraq, was a call to further action for me, that it’s very important to consider our neighbor’s needs and be there to help.

And I do help. I’ve devoted my life to helping others. I believe most all of us are quick to help our neighbor in need when we can. And that is very good.

But I took a moment to pray for this boy. I blessed him with the truth that wherever he went, he would be going in the presence of God, and that the divine presence would protect him from harm. That he was loved, cared for, watched over and protected at all times, and that he would feel, know and experience safety whether driving down the streets of a large city in the USA, or walking down the streets of an Iraqi town with a rifle in his hands.

We did not know each other personally, and I wasn’t sure exactly what the facts were concerning his future, so I didn’t speak directly to him, although, maybe I should have. But I did give him a big metaphysical spiritual hug and still think of him as armored and shielded in Love.

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Matthew