A friend relayed to me the gist of a testimony she read recently about a woman who had struggled with a foot problem for over a year.
In an effort to rededicate her prayers and make some progress, she decided that she was focusing too much on the problem, and not enough on the spiritual truth that would heal the suffering.
The testifier evidently wrote something to the effect of, “If I got as much attention as I’m giving to this foot problem, I’d stick around too!”
In a moment of spiritual levity, she let go of worry about her foot, and finally accepted the truth that God created her okay and she was okay.
The problem vanished quickly, and the healing was complete.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Don't let anger take root
Have you ever gotten angry without any particular reason to be angry?
For example, has your boss ever asked you to do something and you got upset with his request? Or maybe your spouse took a certain action that got you fuming inside, and there really was no particular reason to get angry, except you didn’t like what you were asked to do or accept?
When these kinds of feelings arise, they are not justifiable reasons to get angry, but selfishness and self-righteousness rearing their ugly head. And it's best not to take our sins out on others, but deal with them between ourselves and God.
To counteract the tendency to get angry without reason, I’ve found it helpful to understand better how mortal mind works in the human scheme of things. Like a garden that has untold weed seeds ready to sprout amongst the desirable vegetables when growing season is in full swing, the human mind has untold weed-beliefs that sprout at undesirable times.
In the book of Job, we find, “And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up an down in it.” Satan, or the evil mind, is like the wind carrying weed seeds through the atmosphere of mortal thought looking for a place to plant them. If our thinking is prone to accepting anger as normal, it might become one of those landing pads for resentment or animosity. We have to stay alert and awake to prevent our thinking from becoming a planting ground for error.
Like the faithful gardener keeping diligent watch over his crops and quickly removing all unwanted plants, we too must keep avid watch over our mental garden to quickly yank out any hints of negativity growing.
It’s not normal to feel angry. It’s not natural to get mad and fuss and fume. It’s divinely natural to feel love, express love and be filled with peace and warmth. This is the way God created us and designed us to remain.
So, think faithful to your true state of Mind—the divine Mind, which is filled with Love—and don’t let suggestions of hate and anger take root. Yank them out of consciousness with a rapid-fire response, and preserve your health and sanity. It’s a much more enjoyable way to live.
For example, has your boss ever asked you to do something and you got upset with his request? Or maybe your spouse took a certain action that got you fuming inside, and there really was no particular reason to get angry, except you didn’t like what you were asked to do or accept?
When these kinds of feelings arise, they are not justifiable reasons to get angry, but selfishness and self-righteousness rearing their ugly head. And it's best not to take our sins out on others, but deal with them between ourselves and God.
To counteract the tendency to get angry without reason, I’ve found it helpful to understand better how mortal mind works in the human scheme of things. Like a garden that has untold weed seeds ready to sprout amongst the desirable vegetables when growing season is in full swing, the human mind has untold weed-beliefs that sprout at undesirable times.
In the book of Job, we find, “And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up an down in it.” Satan, or the evil mind, is like the wind carrying weed seeds through the atmosphere of mortal thought looking for a place to plant them. If our thinking is prone to accepting anger as normal, it might become one of those landing pads for resentment or animosity. We have to stay alert and awake to prevent our thinking from becoming a planting ground for error.
Like the faithful gardener keeping diligent watch over his crops and quickly removing all unwanted plants, we too must keep avid watch over our mental garden to quickly yank out any hints of negativity growing.
It’s not normal to feel angry. It’s not natural to get mad and fuss and fume. It’s divinely natural to feel love, express love and be filled with peace and warmth. This is the way God created us and designed us to remain.
So, think faithful to your true state of Mind—the divine Mind, which is filled with Love—and don’t let suggestions of hate and anger take root. Yank them out of consciousness with a rapid-fire response, and preserve your health and sanity. It’s a much more enjoyable way to live.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Spiders and their webs
Two weeks ago, I came into my office one morning and a large spider web had appeared over night between the legs of a table I have sitting in front of my window.
I wiped the web away and proceeded with my day.
The next morning, I came into my office, and another large web spanned the same two legs of that table.
I swiped it away with a cloth and proceeded with my day.
As I sat at my desk, though, looking at the clean legs of that table, I realized the mesh was going to appear again the next day if I didn’t remove the critter that weaved the construct in the first place. Webs don’t appear by themselves! I reminded myself.
So, I hunted down the eight-legged creature responsible for the web and shooed him out the door.
Ta da!
There have been no more webs since then.
Then I pondered the relevance of this lesson to spiritual healing.
As a metaphor, I decided the web was like symptoms on the body, and the spider was the mortal mind belief producing the symptoms on the body. If one focuses only on removing symptoms, either with a medicine, a surgery, or through human will power, there may be temporary relief, but the problem recurs until the underlying error in thought has been destroyed.
I remember a time when our daughter was around 4 years old. One day, she was complaining about pain in her legs. I prayed with her. No relief. When I tucked her in at night, we talked some more about healing the pain, and she mentioned something about riding a horse recently. I quizzed her some more, and she said that her legs hurt because they got stretched too wide straddling the horse she had ridden.
I suddenly saw that in her mind, her legs hurt because of straddling the horse, and until we removed that belief from her thought, she was holding a justification for suffering in her mind, and the pain would continue until that belief was removed.
So I targeted the “spider”—or belief—at work behind the scenes causing the outward suffering. We talked about how riding that horse was fun and no harm could come from it, even if our legs got stretched different than normal. She happily agreed, quickly fell asleep, and that was the end of the pain.
So, the moral of the story is, if you don’t want anymore webs of error woven in a particular area of your life, eliminate the critter behind the scenes weaving the maze in the first place. It’s a lot easier that way because you don’t have to keep repeating your work.
I wiped the web away and proceeded with my day.
The next morning, I came into my office, and another large web spanned the same two legs of that table.
I swiped it away with a cloth and proceeded with my day.
As I sat at my desk, though, looking at the clean legs of that table, I realized the mesh was going to appear again the next day if I didn’t remove the critter that weaved the construct in the first place. Webs don’t appear by themselves! I reminded myself.
So, I hunted down the eight-legged creature responsible for the web and shooed him out the door.
Ta da!
There have been no more webs since then.
Then I pondered the relevance of this lesson to spiritual healing.
As a metaphor, I decided the web was like symptoms on the body, and the spider was the mortal mind belief producing the symptoms on the body. If one focuses only on removing symptoms, either with a medicine, a surgery, or through human will power, there may be temporary relief, but the problem recurs until the underlying error in thought has been destroyed.
I remember a time when our daughter was around 4 years old. One day, she was complaining about pain in her legs. I prayed with her. No relief. When I tucked her in at night, we talked some more about healing the pain, and she mentioned something about riding a horse recently. I quizzed her some more, and she said that her legs hurt because they got stretched too wide straddling the horse she had ridden.
I suddenly saw that in her mind, her legs hurt because of straddling the horse, and until we removed that belief from her thought, she was holding a justification for suffering in her mind, and the pain would continue until that belief was removed.
So I targeted the “spider”—or belief—at work behind the scenes causing the outward suffering. We talked about how riding that horse was fun and no harm could come from it, even if our legs got stretched different than normal. She happily agreed, quickly fell asleep, and that was the end of the pain.
So, the moral of the story is, if you don’t want anymore webs of error woven in a particular area of your life, eliminate the critter behind the scenes weaving the maze in the first place. It’s a lot easier that way because you don’t have to keep repeating your work.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Making choices
I had a thought provoking conversation with a friend today about making choices.
“What do you mean?” She came back with.
I thought about big decisions I’ve made over the decades.
For example, the three years I wrestled with staying on the family farm or going into the full-time practice of Christian Science. I wanted to make the transition, but feared a lack of income, being frowned upon by family members, and dad’s likely negative reaction to my leaving the family business. But after all the agonizing, fretting and worrying, the bottom line question became, “What will be the spiritually progressive step to take?” The answer was obvious. Leave the farm and devote yourself full-time to understanding God and healing others with that understanding. I left the farm. It was one of the best choices I’ve ever made.
Another major decision I wrestled with 20 years ago, was whether to get married or not.
I fell in love, but worried about how my life would change if I made a life-time commitment through marriage.
All the freedoms that come with bachelorhood would vanish, I worried.
After considerable mental wrangling with these fears and arguing the pros and cons of the “Should I get married?” debate, the bottom line question became, “What will be the spiritually progressive step for you?”
Framed this way, my choice was clear. I felt that marriage would be the progressive step for me because I would grow faster in working out the problem of being with this woman I loved than without her. I’m happy to report 20 years later, that I made the right choice.
Simple day-to-day decisions can also be framed in the context of “What is the spiritually progressive thing to do?”
For instance, my son accidentally broke a toy his friend lent him over the weekend. He wanted to replace it, and pronto, with a new one that he would pay for himself. It was the end of the day. I did not want to go shopping, so I told him we’d get to it later in the week.
But then I thought, “What kind of example am I setting?” He wants to immediately rectify the mistake, and I’m delaying his rapid response. Should I be a bit less selfish here, and take him to the store now? What was the nearest right thing to do spiritually? I asked myself.
After a bit of prayer, I set my personal desire to stay at home for the evening aside, and told him we’d go right after dinner. The trip was quick and easy. My son is happy, and his friend has a new toy to replace the broken one. And I feel good that I helped him quickly remedy an unfortunate incident he felt badly about.
It can be hard to know what to do when faced with hard choices, but if we look carefully enough at the pros and cons and weigh our decision in the scale of “What is the spiritually progressive step to take?” the best choice will become clearer. When we want to do the spiritually right thing, God's help in making the best choice will become apparent in the form of our own sound reasoning.
“What motivates the choices you make in life?” She asked.
“I make the choice that I believe is the most spiritually progressive.” I answered.
“I make the choice that I believe is the most spiritually progressive.” I answered.
“What do you mean?” She came back with.
I thought about big decisions I’ve made over the decades.
For example, the three years I wrestled with staying on the family farm or going into the full-time practice of Christian Science. I wanted to make the transition, but feared a lack of income, being frowned upon by family members, and dad’s likely negative reaction to my leaving the family business. But after all the agonizing, fretting and worrying, the bottom line question became, “What will be the spiritually progressive step to take?” The answer was obvious. Leave the farm and devote yourself full-time to understanding God and healing others with that understanding. I left the farm. It was one of the best choices I’ve ever made.
Another major decision I wrestled with 20 years ago, was whether to get married or not.
I fell in love, but worried about how my life would change if I made a life-time commitment through marriage.
All the freedoms that come with bachelorhood would vanish, I worried.
After considerable mental wrangling with these fears and arguing the pros and cons of the “Should I get married?” debate, the bottom line question became, “What will be the spiritually progressive step for you?”
Framed this way, my choice was clear. I felt that marriage would be the progressive step for me because I would grow faster in working out the problem of being with this woman I loved than without her. I’m happy to report 20 years later, that I made the right choice.
Simple day-to-day decisions can also be framed in the context of “What is the spiritually progressive thing to do?”
For instance, my son accidentally broke a toy his friend lent him over the weekend. He wanted to replace it, and pronto, with a new one that he would pay for himself. It was the end of the day. I did not want to go shopping, so I told him we’d get to it later in the week.
But then I thought, “What kind of example am I setting?” He wants to immediately rectify the mistake, and I’m delaying his rapid response. Should I be a bit less selfish here, and take him to the store now? What was the nearest right thing to do spiritually? I asked myself.
After a bit of prayer, I set my personal desire to stay at home for the evening aside, and told him we’d go right after dinner. The trip was quick and easy. My son is happy, and his friend has a new toy to replace the broken one. And I feel good that I helped him quickly remedy an unfortunate incident he felt badly about.
It can be hard to know what to do when faced with hard choices, but if we look carefully enough at the pros and cons and weigh our decision in the scale of “What is the spiritually progressive step to take?” the best choice will become clearer. When we want to do the spiritually right thing, God's help in making the best choice will become apparent in the form of our own sound reasoning.
I hope this story makes some choices you have to make a bit easier!
“Every step of progress is a step more spiritual.” The People’s Idea of God, Mary Baker Eddy.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
My blog posting
For those of you accustomed to finding regular postings on this blog, you probably noticed they slowed down a bit this past couple of weeks. I typically blog during what I call "free time" during the day. This time is not very frequent with my active practice and family, which is always my priority. I have another very positive goal to reach at the moment filling these free minutes, so blog writing has come to a halt.
Just wanted you to know, so you weren't left wondering, "What happened?" All is very well here.
Lots of love.
Just wanted you to know, so you weren't left wondering, "What happened?" All is very well here.
Lots of love.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Watch thought, not effect
Last Friday, while practicing my tennis strokes with a ball machine, I learned a valuable lesson about watching thoughts and knowing what the effect of those thoughts would be without checking outward evidence.
Let me explain.
During one stroke exercise, I disciplined myself to watch the ball to my racket while I followed through with the appropriate swing. Then, without looking, I would guess where my ball would land at the other end of the court, based upon how I hit the ball. I was amazed how accurate my guesses were. By closely watching my expectations and execution I could guess within 2-4 feet where my ball would land almost every time, without looking first.
This lesson had huge metaphysical implications. It taught me that if you are very aware of your thoughts and expectations, you’ll be very aware of any resulting effect, for every thought has a specific effect.
When praying for physical healing, have you ever checked your body to see if your prayer is working?
Why?
Per my lesson with tennis strokes, you can tell exactly how well your prayer is working by examining your thoughts and expectations. You don’t need to check the body. You can tell “where the ball will land” without looking, because every thought has a certain kind of effect. You can tell what you’ll find on the body by examining your thoughts about the body, because those thoughts determine what you’re going to find.
If we feel a need to check the body to see how we’re doing, chances are strong that we’re still believing we have a problem. Why else would we check unless we doubted our perfection? And the very belief that we have a problem is much of the problem in the first place.
With my tennis strokes, I have this terrible habit of looking across the court to see where my ball will land before I hit it. It causes me to miss hit frequently. Once I realized I didn’t need to look “out there,” but could stay focused on hitting the ball only, my miss hits started to vanish. My accuracy skyrocketed.
Likewise, this rule applies in prayer. If we spend all our time checking the body to see if we’re okay or not, we’re not doing our job of praying correctly in the first place. If we’d stay focused on knowing the Truth that heals us, instead of checking the body, we’d advance more rapidly. Once we get the right thoughts in firm view, the right effect will follow.
So, I learned from this little episdoe that we can quit looking across the court to see where our ball is going to land, and concentrate on hitting the ball correctly. If we hit the ball correctly, the ball will land in the right spot. If we hold to the pertinent spiritual truths, the body will correspond exactly to those spiritual truths. We don’t need to check to see what is happening. We’ll know what is happening by watching our thoughts and expectations.
A metaphysical tennis lesson for the day… :-)
Let me explain.
During one stroke exercise, I disciplined myself to watch the ball to my racket while I followed through with the appropriate swing. Then, without looking, I would guess where my ball would land at the other end of the court, based upon how I hit the ball. I was amazed how accurate my guesses were. By closely watching my expectations and execution I could guess within 2-4 feet where my ball would land almost every time, without looking first.
This lesson had huge metaphysical implications. It taught me that if you are very aware of your thoughts and expectations, you’ll be very aware of any resulting effect, for every thought has a specific effect.
When praying for physical healing, have you ever checked your body to see if your prayer is working?
Why?
Per my lesson with tennis strokes, you can tell exactly how well your prayer is working by examining your thoughts and expectations. You don’t need to check the body. You can tell “where the ball will land” without looking, because every thought has a certain kind of effect. You can tell what you’ll find on the body by examining your thoughts about the body, because those thoughts determine what you’re going to find.
If we feel a need to check the body to see how we’re doing, chances are strong that we’re still believing we have a problem. Why else would we check unless we doubted our perfection? And the very belief that we have a problem is much of the problem in the first place.
With my tennis strokes, I have this terrible habit of looking across the court to see where my ball will land before I hit it. It causes me to miss hit frequently. Once I realized I didn’t need to look “out there,” but could stay focused on hitting the ball only, my miss hits started to vanish. My accuracy skyrocketed.
Likewise, this rule applies in prayer. If we spend all our time checking the body to see if we’re okay or not, we’re not doing our job of praying correctly in the first place. If we’d stay focused on knowing the Truth that heals us, instead of checking the body, we’d advance more rapidly. Once we get the right thoughts in firm view, the right effect will follow.
So, I learned from this little episdoe that we can quit looking across the court to see where our ball is going to land, and concentrate on hitting the ball correctly. If we hit the ball correctly, the ball will land in the right spot. If we hold to the pertinent spiritual truths, the body will correspond exactly to those spiritual truths. We don’t need to check to see what is happening. We’ll know what is happening by watching our thoughts and expectations.
A metaphysical tennis lesson for the day… :-)
Mind, not matter, is causation. A material body only expresses a material and mortal mind. A mortal man possesses this body, and he makes it harmonious or discordant according to the images of thought impressed upon it. You embrace your body in your thought, and you should delineate upon it thoughts of health, not of sickness. You should banish all thoughts of disease and sin and of other beliefs included in matter. Man, being immortal, has a perfect indestructible life. It is the mortal belief which makes the body discordant and diseased in proportion as ignorance, fear, or human will governs
mortals. Mary Baker Eddy
