"Thinking about women," part 4

The fourth part of the tmcyouth.com series on “Thinking about women,” that I was involved with has been posted.

The intro...

You flip on any TV sitcom and chances are you’ll hear some mention of sex. What is the obsession with sex on TV, in magazines, and on the Internet? Why does the media industry feel a need to portray life solely on the sensual? Find out what four guys conclude in this fourth episode of “Thinking about women–the series.” Christian Science lecturer Evan Mehlenbacher, Christian Science practitioner Russel Fogg, and video producer Matt Lawrence join TMC Youth’s David Bates to tackle the question, “Why is sex always in the media?”

Don't get overwhelmed

I have a new blog posted on tmcyouth.com, “God is bigger than your trouble.”

It begins with

“My wife and I sat down to eat at a restaurant. An exasperated looking waitress jetted over to our table, a bit mindlessly gathered herself together, and dropped protocol for a moment while she uttered, “This is the worst day of my life.”

Read on if you’ve ever felt overwhelmed.

The most important obligation

So, what is the most important task for you to accomplish today? Get to work and back home again? Call your customers? Put on a smiley face? Complain? Study? Pass the time quietly? …

A lawyer once asked Jesus what the most important demand was for him to rise to. Jesus told him to love God with his whole heart and to love his neighbor as himself.

As I pondered this command, it struck me how many other obligations we embrace that are unproductive, and even harmful to our progress.

For instance, have you ever felt obligated to worry? What about feeling pressured to correct someone? Or becoming inordinately preoccupied with the body or with illness? Have you felt fear was necessary? The list of errors, when indulged, that waste time, thought and energy can become quite lengthy.

As I ponder my number one obligation to God, which is to love my neighbor as myself, the load is much lighter. I love the inspiration that I am not required to fuss, fret or fume about anything. I’m only asked to live a life of love, peace and harmony, expressing God’s unselfish and unconditional love toward one and all.

If I do worry or fear, then I’m not trusting God. I’m acting like a god unto myself, and no wonder the feeling is unpleasant, I've realized. It’s not a spiritually right activity to be engaged with! It necessarily brings suffering along with it.

So, a quick route out of suffering is often to rise to the simple straightforward demand of “Have one God and love your neighbor as yourself.”

If we spent all of our time loving others there would be no time or mental space left for unloving attitudes and beliefs to absorb our attention. And angst or inner turmoil that cause pain and suffering would be gone.

Love your neighbor as yourself! It's all you have to do today.

Now that’s an obligation I can happily embrace and run with!

Shooting in Illinois response

Just received the below inspiration from a deep-thinking reader in response to my recent blog, “Shooting in Illinois.” It will reach your heart…

Evan,

Last week, I read your blog about the tragic shootings at Northern Illinois University in which you talked about such acts as "extreme selfishness." Like you, I've been troubled by such random and thoughtless acts. This past weekend, I was at Virginia Tech to talk with a number of engineering students. The ways that they've reached out to each other and their care for others is almost palpable on the campus. Here's something I wrote about the experience.

Steve


Giving unselfishly

Saturday morning on the campus of Virginia Tech was an overcast 35 degrees with a chilling wind blowing across the drill field toward Burris Hall. Less than a year earlier, the field was the scene of a tribute by thousands of Hokie students, faculty and administrators as they remembered their 32 friends who, a few days earlier, had been killed by a gunman, one of their own, in the most tragic college shooting ever.

But this Saturday the drill field was empty. A colleague and I parked our Ford Explorer nearby, several blocks from the place we’d soon be speaking to engineering students but only a few feet from the semi-circular memorial honoring VT’s slain students and faculty.

As we walked down the gently sloping path to memorial, I couldn’t help but reflect on how honorably the 32 Hokie Stones, as they’re called, marked the lives of such diverse people. And, if there’s a blessing in the tragedy, it may be that Hokie students and alums are more steadfast in their love for their school and what it stands for—a place to “invent the future” as they call it.

Sadly, only two weeks earlier, another tragic college shooting took place when a gunman killed five Huskie students on the campus of Northern Illinois University. Trying to make sense of the shootings at Virginia Tech and NIU is difficult, if not impossible. A friend of mine, writing in a blog a few days ago, called it “an extreme form of selfishness.” An apt description, that’s for sure.

But as my colleague and I stood at the memorial, numbed by the moment and the cold wind, I told her of my friend’s description of selfishness. She paused for a moment and said, “You know, it’s also an extreme form of loneliness. The killers in these cases were all alone with no friends to listen or talk to. Or at least that’s what they thought.”

It made me wonder if selfishness, when taken to an extreme, is really an inability to see how we fit together in a sort of inter-dependent universe, one in which no one stands alone? Could it be that selfishness is nothing more than a trick that obscures how we are really all part of a great big “whole?”

I realized that the healing of selfishness occurs when we “operationalize Love” by both knowing that God is Love and by living a life of loving one another through inclusion and compassion. Such living would not only help change loneliness into inclusiveness but selfishness into concern for others.

Our talk later that afternoon to 25 engineering students would be about preparing themselves for the world of work by choosing to make a difference in the world. We used an idea from the movie Pay It Forward in which a social studies teacher challenges his students to come up with an idea to change the world. One of them decides he will do something good for three other people. They cannot return the favor to him. but must “pay it forward” to three others who, in turn, must pay it forward to three more. (If you do the math, the number of people who are touched grows very quickly!)

As we talked about this idea with the engineering students they laughed about the fact that the size of the act wasn’t important, it was the act itself. One person told me later, “Good doesn’t come in sizes—good just is.”
The idea of paying it forward can make a huge difference in the lives of people who are lonely and hurting. Even the act of selflessly listening to others can break the spell of loneliness. Such acts of love help clear the dark of loneliness with the light of inclusion; they extinguish the trick of selfishness with the truth of unity and oneness.

We may never know the results of paying good forward as it’s almost impossible to know if doing so prevents bad acts—however minor or extreme—from happening. That’s the wonder of it. We may never know how we’ve made a difference. We just need to remember that we have.

Coma an illusion

A reader sent this link in, “Coma woman woken by husband’s ‘rollicking,’” which is interesting proof that conditions are not what they appear.

After a woman stayed two weeks in comatose, the doctors threatened to take her off of life support. Her husband got mad. Hubby knew his wife hated to be told off, so he told her off in the hopes of rousing her before it was too late. His tactic worked.

These types of experiences are reassuring proof that all is mental. Mind is not ever in matter dying. It’s greater than matter, and dictates terms to the body it governs.

Christian Science is easy to practice

Have you ever heard someone say, “Christian Science is hard to practice?” I have, and I’ve been pondering an appropriate response.

Recently, a friend commented, “It takes hard work to suffer!” What he meant was it takes a huge effort to carry around burdensome beliefs that cause suffering.

Take resentment, as an example.

Have you ever carried around a grudge or complaint against someone for several hours, or several days, even years? Was it easy? Was it easy to complain and resent? Not likely. Usually, it’s quite a burden, a real downer on joy, peace of mind and feeling love. Carrying around resentment is super hard work.

Now, take the opposite state of thought.

Have you ever been filled with love and joy for a few hours, or days? How does it feel? Does it weigh you down or lift you up?

For me, I feel buoyant and inspired when holding to thoughts that produce love and joy. It’s not hard work at all to dwell in Love. It’s very easy, and health producing too.

Christian Science is all about thinking in harmony with divine Love. A consciousness filled with love and truth is a Christian Science consciousness. Anger, ill-will, complaint, ingratitude, fear and their kin, is not Christian Science or anything close. Carrying around evil thoughts is hard work.

Take another approach.

Christian Science is the law of God. CS explains how God governs the universe, how things operate under the government of divine Mind, and our place in the overall activity. These laws are not subjective human opinions, but divine reality.
When we live in harmony with divine law, life proceeds in an orderly fashion. Like a mathematician applying the laws of math. When the accountant adds according to the law of addition, he calculates right answers and gets his work done efficiently. If he deviates from the rule and tries some other approach, he errs and his work is unreliable. It’s not hard work to calculate correctly. The work gets hard when the rules are not applied properly.

The demands of Christian Science require its students to leave all for Christ, or Truth, in order to ascend the metaphysical ladder of spiritual understanding. To leave all for Christ is to let go of material mindedness, selfishness, matter-worship, ego-worship, avid pursuit of things and fame, and any love of mortality. Mortal mind may rebel at these demands and declare, “This is tough!” But Christian Science is not what is tough. It’s mortal mind’s resistance to Truth that makes human life tough.

To the hardened liar, the demand to be honest may sound like “hard work.” But it’s not tough at all to be honest. It’s much more difficult to lie and deal with the penalties and guilty conscience that accompany the evil then to be honest. The liar simply hasn’t figured this out yet.

It’s easy to practice Christian Science. It’s easy to love. It’s easy to live a life of integrity. It’s enjoyable and freedom-giving to live in harmony with God’s laws.

And the same rule applies to handling sickness and disease. It’s very tough to hold beliefs of sickness in thought as realities. It’s downright miserable, actually. It’s much easier to release them and whole-heartedly embrace eternal health and well being as the reality. When praying for relief from physical suffering, it’s not the knowing of Truth that is hard. It’s the letting go of the false belief that produces the suffering that seems hard to the human mind. And that resistance is mortal mind objecting to Truth.

Child-like faith, trust and faith, accompanied with large doses of humility, help conquer the ego and pride of mortal mind that holds on to suffering beliefs.

God is good. God is All. God is omnipresent Love. These are the realities and the eternal facts of being. The sooner we happily admit these truths, the sooner we feel in harmony with God’s laws, and the sooner the burdens lift.

Christian Science is easy to practice when seen in a correct light.

Vigorous denial works

It was the oddest experience I’ve had in a long time.

Two nights ago, I looked at a part of my body and blinked twice, because conditions didn’t look normal. I thought, “No, this can’t be.” I blinked again, and the situation just wasn’t right.

Horrible images of what might be wrong started erupting in thought.

“You have a disease!” Mortal mind was yelling loud.

In my healing ministry, I hear dozens of descriptions of disease every week, often associated with names people dread. It is my practice to remain unimpressed and immediately know the spiritual truth about the person voicing the error. This has not been hard for me to do.

At this moment, though, descriptions of a particular disease I had heard about many times from patients came to the fore, and I started wondering if I had it.

This type of thinking was so Not Me! But nonetheless, it was happening.

Fear was knocking hard at my mental door.

It was time to go to bed, so I went to the bedroom, but I did not go to sleep. I vigorously defended myself from these very aggressive suggestions. And that is exactly how I viewed the situation—as aggressive suggestion.

The condition looked very physical, but Christian Science had taught me to view physical conditions as suggestions only, never as fact.

If one thinks a problem is physical, he or she might lose hope, because it’s sometimes hard to see how prayer can change a physical condition. But if one sees the condition as suggestion, logic follows that suggestions can be rebutted, denied and silenced.

It took me several hours of vehement and constant rebuttal to silence the error and quiet the fear. But eventually, the voice of error died down, the suggestion disappeared and I fell asleep in peace.

When I awoke in the morning, it wasn’t until later that I remembered the struggle I had gone through the night before. There was no more evidence of a problem. I was fine.

From this experience, I can see how one symptom can lead to another if a person let’s their imagination run wild with fear. Thought will start to outline its growing fears on the body. But, thanks to Christian Science, these symptoms can be checked and prevented from growing into something worse. Or, if they seem to have grown worse, they can still be checked, for every condition, no matter how physical it appears, is still suggestion. It’s never reality.

"Exclude from mortal mind the offending errors; then the body cannot suffer from them." Mary Baker Eddy

I’m grateful for the quick moving through this experience to a right outcome. It reinforces what I’ve learned over the years that denial of a lie, affirmation of Truth, and sticking to our arguments of Truth until the error fades, works.

Shooting in Illinois

Oh, dismay, dismay…another horrible mass shooting yesterday, this time at Northern Illinois University, leaving 6 dead, and many more wounded.

When will the mindless killing stop?

When conversing about the tragedy with my wife this morning, she observed, “What an extreme form of selfishness on the part of the murderer.” And her comment got me to thinking more.

I agreed with her analysis.

Walking out on a stage in front of a classroom full of students and opening fire at random with no offense done by any of the victims is selfishness to the hilt. There was no regard whatsoever in the mind of the killer for the well being of those students. Absolutely none! This was extreme selfishness…the murderer thinking only about himself and entertaining his own personal views.

I immediately asked, “How do we prevent tragedies like this from happening?” And my long run analytical approach to life replied, “Rid our children and population of selfishness.”

Whoa…sounds like a tall order. But I believe there is an inkling of truth here to be appreciated.

As my mind’s wheels turned, it occurred to me that perhaps society at large takes selfishness too lightly. When people see a selfish act, many discount it or even ignore it, justifying the egotism as part of human nature. But should this be? I’m beginning to think not.

Many of us have selfish moments. I certainly have had mine… But maybe extremes of selfishness should not be tolerated in our society any longer anymore than robbing the local bank or destroying public property is allowed. If an ultimate outcome of the extreme self-centered thought is public acts of murder, like the above type of shooting, then shouldn’t the animus of the evil be checked early on? For example, with children at a young age, being raised at home, attending elementary school, and beyond?

How much suffering do we have to endure at the hand of mindless murderers before we realize there is a fundamental shift in thought that needs to occur in public thought to prevent such horrific acts from germinating in the first place?

I don’t mean to imply that I understand all the dynamics and background of yesterday’s shooting. I do not. But I know something needs to change in our society’s thinking to turn the tide away from an increasing number of these types of shootings. A bit more unselfishness in how we interact with each other may help.

Christian Science more than a religion

Last week, a young woman, who was raised in Christian Science, told me that she was leaving the faith because “the Christian Science religion was not right for her anymore.”

Her words gave me pause and much to think about.

The first thought that came to me was, “Christian Science is not something you can leave.”

Let me explain.

You see, many people think of Christian Science as a religion, and I suppose justifiably so. There is a church, The Church of Christ, Scientist, whose members practice Christian Science. But Christian Science is much more and bigger than a religious institution or practice engaged by a group of people. Christian Science, by definition, is the laws of God.

Christian Science explains how God governs the universe. To say, “Christian Science is not right for me anymore,” is the equivalent of a mathematician saying, “The principles of addition aren’t right for me anymore.”

Hmmm…is this possible? Not really.

As there is one principle to math, that I know of anyway, there is one Principle governing the universe. And CS explains what that Principle is and how it operates.

I’ve seen people who view CS as a religion treat it like an individual item on a smorgasbord of options to choose from; like going to a buffet and choosing which food you’d like to eat. But CS is not that way. CS is a universal truth, like music is universal, or the principles of math are common to all mankind. CS is not a reality one chooses to accept or not. It’s how God governs the universe. And we’re all a part of that government whether we choose to be or not.

I thought about Newton discovering the law of gravity. Gravity had always been on earth, but Newton was the first to understand it and gain enough comprehension of how it worked to explain the law to others.

I asked myself, “Once he made the discovery, did people have the option to decide whether gravity was right for them or not?” Not really. It affected them whether they made the choice to accept it or not.

And that’s how CS works. It’s not a human theory or set of nice sounding ideas. It’s a discovery, a spiritual revelation of reality. It’s God speaking to man explaining how the cosmos works and our part in it.

Anyway, I found my peace of mind about the above woman’s statement by realizing that she could never walk away from God’s goodness or chose not to be a part of it. God blessed her through divine law no matter how she identified herself here on earth.

There are certainly people who disagree with CS and doubt its statements of truth. But in my mind, there is no doubt. The more one studies the laws, the more they make perfect sense. All put together, they comprise an absolutely perfect and seamless explanation of existence. In my quest for Truth, I have found them able to answer my every question.

I have much to learn, but am enjoying the adventure and cherish every forward step.

The secret to a happy marriage...

Just for the chuckle…

Forwarded by a reader…

A man and woman had been married for more than 60 years. They had shared everything. They had talked about everything. They had kept no secrets from each other, except that the little old woman had a shoe box in the top of her closet that she had cautioned her husband never to open or ask her about.

For all of these years, he had never thought about the box, but one day the little old woman got very sick and the doctor said she would not recover. In trying to sort out their affairs, the little old man took down the shoe box and took it to his wife's bedside.

She agreed that it was time that he should know what was in the box.

When he opened it, he found two crocheted dolls and a stack of money totaling $95,000. He asked her about the contents.

"When we were to be married," she said, "my grandmother told me the secret of a happy marriage was to never argue. She told me that if I ever got angry with you, I should just keep quiet and crochet a doll."

The little old man was so moved, he had to fight back tears. Only two precious dolls were in the box. She had only been angry with him two times in all those years of living and loving. He almost burst with happiness.

"Honey," he said, "that explains the dolls, but what about all of this money? Where did it come from?"

"Oh," she said, "that's the money I made from selling the dolls."

"Thinking about women," part 3

Episode #3 in the series, “Thinking about women,” that I was involved with, has been posted on tmcyouth.com.

The intro…

Most people think sensual desires are natural to human beings. But are they? And are they something we just have to learn to deal with, or is there another solution ? These are the kinds of questions a group of guys talk about in the third installment of “Thinking about women-the series.”

Christian Science lecturer Evan Mehlenbacher and Christian Science practitioner Russel Fogg join TMC Youth’s David Bates to try and figure out where these urges for sex come from.

"Thinking about women" part 2

Episode #2 of the podcast series, “Thinking about women,” that I participated in, is posted on tmcyouth.com.

Here’s the intro:

“Most people are familiar with Adam, Eve, and the apple. (A drawing of the story is even shown at the beginning of the popular television show, “Desperate Housewives.”) Its underlying theme has really impacted everyday life whether we feel it directly or not. So, “How do we get beyond the Adam and Eve model?”

In the second installment of “Thinking about women-the series,” Christian Science lecturer Evan Mehlenbacher, Christian Science practitioner Russel Fogg, and video producer Matt Lawrence join TMC Youth’s David Bates to figure out how we can move beyond a sin-based concept of ourselves and others.”

What is true goodness?

While driving to my office today, it struck me how often people get upset with God because they don’t receive what they pray for.

“God is supposed to be good,” they protest. “Why didn’t God give me what I asked for?”

I remembered what James in the Bible wrote, “You ask, and receive not, because you ask amiss.” I interpret “to ask amiss” as asking for the wrong thing, or to request something that will not bring the right kind of benefit, at least not yet.

Two to three years after graduating from college and working on the family farm, I asked God to get me off the ranch into a different job. My request was not granted. I remained in place, and continued to fret, but also to grow spiritually. In later years, I realized my primary need at the time was not to get off the farm, but to learn larger lessons in life, for example to have more courage and confidence to stand up for what I knew was right. When I finally gained the confidence, and trust in God I needed, in this case, to leave the family business, I was able to exit with good effect. God was not going to let me leave the ranch unprepared for the next phase in my life, which was the Christian Science practice.

I’ve learned from similar experiences that the good we think we deserve may not be the good we most need. It pays to trust God’s plan.

God is a wise giver. The divine Provider gives what is in our best interest to receive at any given moment.

A trap many seekers fall into is identifying their good in a material way. For instance, in thinking they need a house, more money, a spouse, or a better skin condition. From surface glance, there is nothing wrong with having these things. But they are not the substance of good.

Good is God. God is Spirit. True goodness is spiritual.

It’s not a house that gives us home. It’s not money that makes us wealthy. It’s not another person that makes us complete. It’s not any condition on the body that makes us healthy. Divine Love provides the real substance of home, the riches of Life, a feeling of completeness, and enduring health.

All true goodness is spiritual coming from above and is first felt in the human experience as qualities of Love expressed. When our prayers are focused on seeking spiritual good, the sum and substance of God, rather than on material things, status or position, our prayers will be answered.

It’s a righteous prayer to seek spiritual mindedness and the things of Spirit.

The “prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”

The prayer of the person seeking genuine spirituality will not be left wanting.

Sight is mental

Would you like to improve your vision? Any sight issues you're grappling with?

I'd like to introduce a video that will rapidly expand your understanding of the mental nature of vision.

As a prelude, it's helpful to understand that a fundamental teaching of Christian Science is the truth that “All is Mind.” In this universe of Mind, faculties of sense are spiritual, not material. They are part of the eternal spiritual life the divine creator has given us. In the spiritual life which we possess now, sight and hearing are dependent upon Mind, not upon matter, for existence and continuity.

This may sound like a far-out concept to grasp to the mundane human mind believing that matter is the all-and-all of the universe. But indications of its truthfulness pop up in the most unexpected places. And this web-video a reader alerted me to, is one of those instances.

Check it out. It’s shy of 10 minutes in length, and reveals unmistakably the mental nature of sight.

This artist’s abilities prove that things are thoughts, and readily discerned by the mind that is receptive to them.


Extraordinary people – The artist with no eyes

How transient a sense is mortal sight, when a wound on the retina may end the power of light and lens! But the real sight or sense is not lost. Neither age nor accident can interfere with the senses of Soul, and there are no other real senses. Mary Baker Eddy

To understand that Mind is infinite, not bounded by corporeality, not dependent upon the ear and eye for sound or sight nor upon muscles and bones for locomotion, is a step towards the Mind-science by which we discern man's nature and existence. Mary Baker Eddy

A remarkable healing

I received the below account from a reader, and asked permission to share it with you.

A must read…


Here’s a sweet testimony I heard at Wednesday night testimony meeting.

Three young children had a kitten. Their garage door was defective and one day crashed down on the kitten. The evidence said, "This cat is dead." The mother called a practitioner, and he asked the children to declare, "God is the only Life," every time they thought about the kitten. They placed the kitty in a shoe box with a warm blanket. Every time any one of them thought about the kitty, they obediently insisted, "God is the only Life!"

When their father, who is not a Christian Scientist, came home, he declared, "This cat is dead." When they would not agree, he took her to the vet, and he declared, "This cat is dead."

On the way home, the father heard the cat sneeze and took her back to the vet who said it was a phenomenon that sometimes happened, but nevertheless, "This cat is dead." The cat sneezed again several times in a row, but when the father checked her, the evidence said, "This cat is dead."

When he got home, the children insisted on keeping the cat in the box in the garage no matter what anybody said. They were still declaring, "God is the only Life."

The morning of the third day, as they were having breakfast, they heard some loud mewing coming from the garage. When they opened the door, the cat came bounding into the kitchen perfectly well and strong.

The testifier said that she and her brothers had so lost sight of the furry evidence and were so filled with the truth they had been declaring that they SAW THE TRUTH THEY WERE CONSCIOUS OF. The cat did not have to get better. Their declarations for LIFE demonstrated LIFE never born, never dying, never hurt, never recuperating.

I reminded myself after hearing this story that God is our very own Mind. We can be conscious of Truth alone if God is our Mind, therefore we MUST SEE this Truth evidenced in our lives.

Retirement revised

I read an article titled, “No time to retire,” in the Washington Post National Weekly last week that stated, “Millions of boomers are headed not for endless vacation but for a new stage of work, driven both by the desire to remain productive and the need to make ends meet over longer life spans.”

The article pointed out that conditions and circumstances have changed for retirees. With longer life spans, people typically have 30 years of retirement now, whereas in past decades, it may have been only 10-15 years. To sustain one morally and financially for 30 years requires a new mindset than previous generations had adopted.

The author points out that we should look forward to retirement as a time to do work we really love to do, if we aren’t already. It should be seen as a time to step-up in life, so to speak, rather than retire from productive activity and then struggle from lack of purpose, and finances.

What really caught my attention was this passage, “We need an ideal that swaps the old notion of the freedom from work for a new freedom to work—in new ways, on new terms, to new ends.”

My parents taught me to live a life of purpose and value and not to accept drudgery or routine as part of the plan. And accordingly, I found work I love. The concept of “retiring,” from work I enjoy has always been hard for me to fathom.

“Why would I stop an activity I thoroughly love,” I’ve reasoned when contemplating prospects for retirement 20 years from now. I will see what time and experience bring.

But I appreciated the article because it challenged the long held assumption by many that years of inactivity labeled “retirement” is something to look forward to. Unfortunately, it seems that many people also retire from thinking, from being productive and sharing their talent and skill with a world in need.



Spiritually considered, retirement is an obsolete concept. Life never retires. Life is eternal, on-going good. It never stops, slackens, or withdraws. It is to be embraced, not run from.

Retirement from a particular career may give an individual more time to actively pursue spiritual understanding and the depths of immortal Life, and that is a good thing. But the old outworn concept of retiring into years of self-centered pursuit of leisure and days of mindless activity are quickly passing away. And that is probably a benefit for the long term health and well being of humanity.

If we aren’t doing work we really love to do now, maybe it’s time for a change. It’s not retirement that gets us out of drudgery, but an uplifted attitude about life in the first place. Life is good. Life is God. Life, lived rightly, is a joy.

You don’t have to wait until your 65 to experience the blessings of Life, the blessings of God that flow freely and abundantly to one and all, everyday. You can find these blessings through increased spiritual understanding of God and your relationship to God. There is no need to wait any longer.

Life of drudgery or joy

"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."

~ Albert Einstein

I believe there is ultimately one way to live our lives, and that is for God. But in the temporal human experience, many people often miss the joys of spiritual life along the way, and life becomes lackluster, dull and boring. This ought not to be.

Life, lived well, is a tremendously rich and full experience overflowing with awe-inspiring opportunity and possibility for increased improvement and spiritual growth.

To live the spiritual life God has given us to reflect, is to keep one’s eyes and ears wide open to the goodness of God happening all around. It’s a matter of perspective.

The dull uninspired thought is blind to God’s good at hand. The eager, expectant and grateful heart rapidly discerns the good, seizes upon it and ventures for more. Life becomes a miracle, rather than a holding pattern.

The potato cannon

My 14 year old son is taking a science course this year that requires each student to complete a major science project each quarter. Tyler, my son, has been fascinated with things that explode, make loud noises and go ka-boom! I hope this is a phase…

His most recent project was the potato cannon. You may have seen it on You-tube. I imagine about every 14 year old boy has. It’s quite impressive.

Well, dad is not so up on these things. Mom helped Tyler buy the parts at Home Depot, and Tyler, along with a friend, built the contraption that was supposed to shoot potatoes out into the wild beyond.

I was highly skeptical about how far a spud would fly out of a 4 foot long, 2 inch in diameter tube they built with a lighting chamber on one end.

The idea was to squirt a bit of flammable spray, like hairspray, into the lighting chamber, turn a flint inserted into the chamber to create a spark, and ka-boom, the pressure built was supposed to jet a potato jammed into the tube into outer space.

Since all this talk about explosions and fire and all coming from the kids sounded a bit precarious, the kids were required to have dad at hand to supervise decisions made during experimentation.

The boys finished up in the evening, and of course, the world had stopped until they got to try out their new creation.

So out to the back yard we went.

We aimed the spud-cannon into the empty desert behind our house. The boys were ribbing me because they could hear doubt in my voice about what would happen. I told them I’d eat the potato if they could get it past the fence around our yard. (This was not too wise on my part…) They laughed and howled and proclaimed I was having raw potato for dinner.

They got all set up and prepared for first launch. Tyler’s friend injected a bit of spray into the chamber, and they tried to ignite it. No luck. No ignition.

They tried 2 or 3 more times, and nothing happened.

I decided they were too timid about the amount of spray used and needed to put more in. They were being very cautious, and rightfully so. I had not seen the You-tube video, and they had, so they really had a much better idea of what to expect than I did.

Anyway, dad, knowing best, puts his finger on the boy's thumb and gets him to inject a healthy amount of spray. They tighten the cap, ignite the spark, and KA-BOOM, an explosion of fire blows out the end of the cannon like we were in artillery warfare. My son, who is holding the cannon, about lands on his behind, and that potato shot out to the other side of the county.

Talk about dancing and leaping for joy! The boys were giddy with excitement. Success they yelled!

Of course, they hadn’t forgotten about me eating the raw potato, but thank goodness, it was dark, it had flung out hundreds of feet, and there was no way they were going to find that spud.

They promised to be out looking the next day, though. Thankfully, they didn’t follow through…

I have to say, the exploding spud was quite an impressive display that night. I couldn’t believe a dinky squirt of hairspray combined with a prick of a spark could create such a powerful explosion.

I thought of James’ statement in reference to other types of explosions. He wrote,

“The tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!”

I can think of times when a word unthoughtfully spoken has caused a firestorm of protest and anger. We see it in politics frequently. And it happens in families too.

I think I witnessed a similar type of reaction in the spud cannon. A little flammable material, combined with an igniting spark, can turn into quite a blow-up.

Mortal mind would want to ignite resentment into full-blown anger, jealousy into revenge, greed into dishonesty, and hate into murder.

And the spiritual lesson I segued from the cannon experience was, that as we keep the chambers of our thought free of highly flammable material, we’ll be protected from unnecessary blow-ups. We’ll be immune from off-putting remarks or sparks of mortal mind coming from unexpected places that would trigger a harmful reaction.

A consciousness of Love is not ignitable!

P.S. Tyler and his friend got a 99% on their project. Good for them!

The infamous potato cannon in daylight.