Protect your identity

Reports of identity theft are too frequent today.  International banks and major retailers losing social security numbers to hackers, individuals having their computers hacked into, vital information lifted from papers getting into the wrong hands, and more – have led to a multitude of bad experiences for victims of these crimes.

The issue is so widespread that it is a call upon all Truth-warriors to gird arms and pray in earnest for humanity’s exemption from identity fraud and abuse.

One victim of malicious identity fraud said to me, “I can’t believe someone would do this to me!” She was a good person, working hard to live an honest life of integrity and responsibility, and to have someone abuse her in such an evil way made her incredulous.

But we must not be caught by surprise. Evil would work in tricky ways to catch the unwary off guard. Let us not be unwary!

“Be wise as serpents,” Jesus wisely counseled.

In my prayers for mankind’s protection, I’ve valued Mary Baker Eddy’s statement, “God is the Life, or intelligence, which forms and preserves the individuality and identity of animals as well as of men.” 

This statement tells me that there are laws of God in operation that protect our identity from theft.

Identity is not a government ID number. It is not on paper, exposed on the Internet, or up for grabs by whomever finds it. It is spiritual. It’s how God knows us in divine Mind, and it can never be robbed, stolen, abused, or taken away.

I also find peace in knowing that God’s laws of justice and equity foul up evildoers’ plans. Hackers do not have free license to do as they will. They might think they do, but there is a higher power of divine Principle at work on this planet that thwarts their efforts, exposes their intent, obstructs their efforts, defeats their purpose, and stops them cold.

I still have more to pray about this, but I am “on it!”

What about you? What have your prayers been?

A harmonica at Carnegie Hall

This short video will bring a big smile to your face and hearty joy to your day.

What fun…

The benefits of trials

Just had an AHA moment…

Trials and challenges do not leave us weaker and worse off for the experience when we deal with them through Christian Science. They make us stronger and leave us better off!

It is a common mistake to believe that trials weaken us. 

For instance, people trained in the medical way are frequently taught to believe that a major health problem can permanently weaken the body in some way for the rest of their life. Perhaps their immune system will be less tolerant, they are told, or their brain is damaged, or their vision impaired, and on and on…

Or, if someone experiences a catastrophic financial loss, they might be tempted to believe they will never recover.

Or, if a long marriage ends in divorce, the divorcee may be tempted to believe the love and companionship once cherished will never be found again.

And the list goes on…

But this should not be so!

Trials do not separate us from God. They should draw us closer to God. And if we’re going to God for the help we need during a trial, we will grow closer to God, find more of God’s goodness already at hand, and come out of the experience stronger, healthier, more supplied, and happier than ever before. It’s God’s law of progress at work.

So, don’t fear trials! They are filled with blessings. Look for the blessing. Grab on to that blessing and do not let go! It will take you to a better place than ever before.

“Trials are proofs of God’s care,” Mary Baker Eddy wrote. Why? Because they send us to God, and there we find divine Love’s care!

What is bigger?

Instead of talking to God about how big your problems are,

talk to your problems about how big your God is!

~ Joel and Victoria Osteen

A history of Christian Science you probably didn't know

Who started the first franchise? Ray Kroc? Not. It’s a woman, and Christian Science played a key role in getting her started. 

Learn an interesting story from this 5 minute TED video…

Are you a CAN DO or a CAN'T DO?

Someone was complaining to me about all the activities they couldn’t do in their life.

They couldn’t walk very well. They couldn’t find much hope for tomorrow. They couldn’t heal a pain in their body. They couldn’t do this, that and the other thing…and the list went on.

After a while, I thought, “They need to quit thinking of themselves as a CAN’T DO mortal and start seeing themselves as a CAN DO immortal!”

What a relief.

Have you ever gone down the depressing path of “I can’t do this and I can’t do that?” It’s a dark mental place to go, and extremely undesirable.

It’s a choice we make, to think either on the dark side or the side of light. So, it’s important to always make the right choice!

“With God, all things are possible,” Jesus told us. And he knew what he was talking about from experience.

If we try to solve our problems alone, we likely fall into the trap of “I can’t do it,” eventually, for it’s making ourselves into a god, and since there is only one God, the effort is doomed to fail.

But when we ensure God takes the lead and we faithfully follow, “I can’t,” turns into “I can.” Why?  Because God CAN do it! And you, as God’s immortal reflection, can do it too.

So, don’t be a CAN’T DO mortal. Be a CAN DO immortal! It’s more enjoyable.

Are you willing to specialize?

What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                ~ Theodore Roethke 

Impossible to the human mind, perhaps, but always possible with the divine!

Forgive yourself

At a recent tennis tournament, I lost a match I had my heart set on winning. It was the oddest experience for me, because typically I take match losses very well. But not this one! I internally fussed and fumed about what had gone wrong all night afterward.

Wanting the disappointment to cease, it occurred to me that I needed to forgive myself.

I had been condemning my performance, listing out all I had failed to do correctly, and wondering how I could do so poorly when I expected to do so much better.

“Forgive yourself!,” a voice of comfort counseled inside. “Let it go. The match was a temporal event. You have eternity to perfect your tennis game.”  LOL

Yes, I needed to forgive myself. 

To forgive is to not hold a grudge, complaint or resentment toward, and to love instead.

I remembered that my goal in playing tennis was not to beat competitors, but to improve my performance. It didn’t matter if I won or lost a match. The Big Question was “What did I learn that would make me a better tennis player next time?”

And that was my goal. To improve!

I listed out all the lessons I had learned. There were many. 

I expressed gratitude that I saw those lessons and was ready to benefit from them and remembered that there is always another match to play.

Then I forgave myself. I quit condemning myself for mistakes made. I quit complaining about my inadequate performance. I quit resenting the experience. And I looked forward to playing better next time.

And that was enough. A feeling of love and joy came back and the disappointment dissolved.

I realized later there were larger spiritual lessons to learn.

For instance, have you ever lost something important to you because of poor performance, and then condemned yourself unrelentingly for days, months, even years to come?

It could be something simple, like a sports competition, or something big like a job, a promotion, a date, a wife or a husband, or the trust of a child.

Whatever the loss, there comes a point when we need to forgive ourselves. Maybe we did make a mistake, but God does not hold it against us. Eternity does not store it in memory. It is temporal, and its effect is temporal.

We have eternal life to live, and that includes unlimited opportunities to experience all of God’s goodness, without exception. Any good we thought we lost in the past, we will still gain in the future as we grow spiritually and understand that real substance is never lost. It is spiritual, and always with us.

So, maybe there’s something you need to forgive yourself over today. Go ahead and do it. Forgive yourself. Let it go. God loves you and is sending everything your way necessary for you to move on and leave the past behind. This can be a new day.

Is violence history?

Have you heard?  Violence is on the decline!

Yep, that’s right, according to Steven Pinker, a professor of psychology at Harvard. He argues that the world is a much safer place to live than in the past.

He documents in his latest book, “Better Angels of our Nature,” a steady and long-term decline in violence over the history of mankind.

I haven’t read the book, but a reader tipped me off about the volume, so I looked up a book review in the New York Times. The first half of the review is the best part, with many views and facts that you’ll likely find new, refreshing and very encouraging for the future of humanity.

Here’s a link:

“Better Angels of our Nature”

An active practice

Some potential full-time practitioners of Christian Science have feared going into the practice because no patients or few patients were calling them for treatment.

In error, they let mortal mind calculate their financial prospects accordingly, and conclude that they cannot support themselves with so few patients. So they give up or don’t even try to practice for the public in the first place.

But interestingly, this is not how the practice works. It’s quite the contrary.

In the practice of Christian Science, activity is not the number of patients calling for help. It’s the amount of Truth being demonstrated every day. 

As a student of Christian Science increases his or her demonstration of Truth, activity increases. More people see their spiritual light shining and ask for some of that light to come their way. Patients call.

So, if you’re in the practice or contemplating the practice, don’t fear a lack of patients. Patients calling for help are the effect of your practice, not the source of it.

In the Christian Science practice, it’s activity first, patients second.

So be ACTIVE in Truth, and patients will be calling.

Refresh the heart first

In art, the hand can never execute anything higher

than the heart can inspire.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

This rule applies to all activities of life, whether painting, drawing, singing, or raising children, coaching employees, working at a computer, or speaking to audiences. The effect your hand, voice or example has on others is in direct proportion to how inspired you feel when doing your job. The inspiration has to come first for a good effect to follow.

So be sure to get your inspiration today!

God is the source of ideas that uplift, buoy and delight. 

Like lungs need oxygen, thought needs inspiration. And daily committed prayer can receive it in abundance.

Be sure to receive your inspiration today, and what follows will be pure joy.

Look for the good in others

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.

~ Mother Teresa

Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

~ Jesus Christ

  

Are you looking at your neighbor through the eyes of divine Love? Can you see what God put there? If not, perhaps cruel criticism, condemnation, and self-righteousness are getting in the way and obscuring the view. Eliminate the harsh and negative judgments of mortal mind, and the man of God’s creating will appear. You’ll find someone to love, rather than an object of hate, and the opportunity to get along with that person will greatly increase.

Who do you live to please?

So, who do you reason you have to please today? Is it a boss, a peer, your spouse, your kids, your neighbor, an IRS auditor, a customer, students, yourself?

Trying to please another person, especially an unhappy one, can be like trying to please a scrooge on a bad day. Nothing ever seems to work.

Fears loom like, what if they don’t like what I do? What if they think I’m doing it wrong? What if they get mad? What if they don’t care?

Getting along with other people and finding common ground to work together is a good thing, but spending one’s life in fear of whether your efforts will meet with disapproval or approval is unhealthy and debilitating.

There’s a better way.

Live to please God! 

When you please God, your efforts to help others are automatically approved. God just loves you and loves you and loves you for all the good you do, like the sun shines unconditionally over the earth.  When you offer the sacrifices of self to God, there is never rejection, criticism or disparagement. There is heavenly rejoicing. And that’s what is most important in the long run.

Your neighbor might not always appreciate the good you do, understand why you do it, or even like what you do. Jesus faced resistance to his good deeds everywhere he went. But their rejection is not your terror to fear. It’s their opportunity to grow. You might need to make adjustments in your approach to them and how you work with them, but the leading question will not be, “How can I please them?” It will be, “How can I please God in my relationship to them?”

To please God is to express wisdom and intelligence, understanding and patience, compassion and goodwill, generosity and unselfishness. God is always pleased with divine Love’s qualities expressed. And there is great reward is living true to your spiritual individuality. You will grow, and others will be blessed around you, whether they see it or not.

But the point being, others don’t always appreciate our spiritual individuality expressed! They might be under the influence of ego and pride, self-righteousness and prejudice, selfishness and stinginess, neglect and apathy. If we try to please these joy-sucking and hope-killing attitudes of the carnal mind, we’re doomed. We’ll never succeed. And we are naïve for even trying.

The better way is to please God first, take the love we gain from God to our relationships with others, and work for healing.

But let God be the final judge of how well you’re doing.

Thy soul, upborne on wisdom's wings,

In brighter morn will find

Life hath a higher recompense

Than just to please mankind.

~ Mary Baker Eddy

From her poem, “To my absent brother”

Quieting pride and ego...

He that would live in peace and at ease

must not speak all he knows or all he sees. 

~ Benjamin Franklin

Demonstrate success

One liberating aspect of Christian Science is that you don’t have to wait around for another person to act or a situation to develop before you can move ahead and demonstrate success.

A mortal mind view of the universe is that mortals are often helpless and stuck, out of control of events around them, and at the mercy of other mortals’ decision-making.

But thanks to reality, that mortal mind view is wrong.

All forms of rightful supply flow from God…ALL supply.  So, what is there to wait around for? 

Waiting should never be on time or on others, but on God…patient expectancy and acknowledgement of good flowing abundantly and freely from God at every moment of existence. 

Any perceived delay has nothing to do with how fast God is sending aid. God’s help is always here. The sense of delay is the period in which we are learning to accept more of God’s goodness. We find it as fast as we’re willing to receive and accept it.

So, if feeling lonely, don’t wait for a friend to knock on your door for the loneliness to flee. That may or may not happen. Live the engaging presence of Love and demonstrate the omnipresence of friendship already with you. Be the friendship you desire manifest. The seeming void will vanish and new active expressions of friendship in your life will appear.

If you lack financially, don’t wait for money to appear. That may or may not happen. Demonstrate supply. Supply is spiritual: ideas, wisdom, intelligence, creativity, flowing from God and being expressed through you in useful and profitable forms of living.

To demonstrate means to show by doing. 

Each of us are whole complete beings made in God’s image. We have everything we need to fully reflect God in all the right ways built into our individuality. The privilege of life is to show, or demonstrate, this reality through the life we live.

You can demonstrate success right where you are. Mortal mind is not holding you back. Others are not standing in your way. Time is not a factor. You have everything you need coming from God to progress. So, go for it!

"Beating the odds" on the Titanic

Here’s a thought-provoking article printed in the New York Times last week, written by an author whose grandfather was a Christian Science practitioner and also a survivor of the Titanic.

“As hundreds of men perished…”

What tribe do you belong to?

I was studying an account of God delivering the children of Israel from the bondage of Pharaoh in Egypt, and was delighted to read this verse:

“He brought them forth also with silver and gold: and there was not one feeble person among their tribes.” Psalm 105:37

After I read, “…there was not one feeble person among their tribes,” I thought, “I want to be a member of that tribe!”

I don’t feel feeble, but the promise of never being feeble sounded very appealing to me. It certainly is an expectation a student of Christian Science gains as he or she learns more about immortal individuality and identity.

But then I asked, “What tribe do I have to be a member of to never be feeble?”

“The tribe of immortal man!” Truth echoed in my inner ear.

Yep, that’s right. The tribe of “mortal man,” is where feebleness abounds. Mortal mind teaches that weakness, lack, diminution of strength, detriments of aging, and more, are normal and to be expected. This is not a healthy tribe to join or be part of! And we don’t have to unite with it, or stay in it if we feel already stuck there.

God made man immortal! This is what Jesus taught, and Christian Science explains.

From God’s point of view, there is only one tribe—God’s immortal man.

Stay in the right tribe today, and enjoy feeble-free living.

Watch your ancestors

The ancestor of every action is a thought.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

We often blame our actions for the trouble that occurs in our lives, but it’s not the action that originated the trouble.  It’s the thought that led to the action.

So, watch those thoughts! If they’re not good, stop them before they transform into action. If they’re good, let them unfold and bloom in all their outward glory.

Quality or quantity?

A reader sent in the below extract from a book he read. The message is relevant to the Internet age we occupy, and thought-stopping for any author who contributes to the mass of messages pouring over the airwaves…(LOL)

“When telegraphs and trains brought in the idea that convenience was more important than content - and speedier means could make up for unimproved ends - Henry David Thoreau reminded us that ‘the man whose horse trots a mile in a minute does not carry the most important messages’.” ~ Pico Iyer, author of “The Man Within my Head.”

So, are you a horse who trots a mile a minute today, or a profound thinker who changes the world around you for the better with wise thoughts and deeds?

A prayer for peace

Send Thy Peace

Send Thy peace, O Lord, that we

May think and act harmoniously.

Send Thy peace, O Lord, that we

May be contented and thankful for

Thy bountiful gifts.

Send Thy peace, O Lord, that amidst

Our worldly strife, we may enjoy Thy bliss.

Send Thy peace, O Lord, that our lives

May become a divine vision and in Thy light,

All darkness may vanish.

Send Thy peace, O Lord, our Father and Mother,

That we Thy children on earth may all

Unite in one family.

~Hazrat Khan

The Demand for Unselfishness

Do you realize the degree of unselfishness Jesus Christ expected out of his followers?

I was struck by how anti-Christian Science selfishness is when studying this passage from Science and Health.

Question. — What are the demands of the Science of Soul?

Answer. — The first demand of this Science is, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." This me is Spirit. Therefore the command means this: Thou shalt have no intelligence, no life, no substance, no truth, no love, but that which is spiritual. The second is like unto it, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."

I often interpret the above question to mean, “What is required out of a student of Christian Science to be successful?”

When you read the beginning of the answer, it’s all about dropping self-interest, self-focus, self-concern, self-righteousness, and replacing it with a God-focused, Spirit-focused, love-thy-neighbor-focused life. 

To have one God, is to not have other gods—like a love for money, fame, position, status, or power.

To love thy neighbor as thyself requires one to think about the consequences of his actions on others. Decisions can’t be one-sided, in self-interest only.

To obey the two Great Commandments is to have spiritual goals, spiritual desires, spiritual pursuits and spiritual priorities. It’s a letting go of the world and its selfish wants, and grabbing onto Spirit with its heavenly gain.

This is the life Jesus lived and left for his students to follow. There was not one selfish ambition in Jesus. He was purged of it all. His sole desire was to know and serve God, and he was richly rewarded with eternal life. 

Selfishness is the pathway to hell. Unselfishness is the pathway to heaven.

Do you see it?

For some reason, I just love to read the chapter on Creation in Science and Health.  I read it over and over and get more out of it every time. 

I like to read it because it’s a short chapter and I can catch more of an entire vision of a monumental truth in a few pages and in one reading. But even more, the theme of the chapter reminds me to check the premise of my everyday thinking. I’m reminded to ask, “Am I thinking out from a spiritual universe today, or a limited mortal mind universe?”

I was struck by this sentence recently.

“All things are created spiritually.” Mary Baker Eddy

“Whoa! Where did that come from?” I exclaimed when I last read it for the umpteenth time.

Everything is created spiritually. Period. No qualification. No condition. No explanation. Just a straightforward statement of absolute truth—“All things are created spiritually.”

I pondered.

Eddy obviously saw something I wasn’t seeing. It seems that a lot of things are not made spiritually at all. What about dirt, rocks, and iPhones? Are they created spiritually?

They didn’t look very spiritual to me.

But she said emphatically that all things are created spiritually.

Maybe it is my point of view that is the hold-up, I decided.

Matter is but a limited view of spiritual reality, I’ve always figured. What appears to be a material thing to the human mind is an idea in the Mind of God. For instance, the idea of house could be home; the idea of money, supply; the idea behind an iPhone, communication; and so forth.

I also knew that what appears to be real from a mortal point of view is not. It’s temporal, and inevitably passes into its native nothingness.

So what did Eddy see when she wrote those words?

She was writing out from a very high state of thought, a consciousness of Truth that recognized only spiritual reality, where all things are created and existent as spiritual. There is no matter in Spirit.

So, I took the statement of truth as a challenge to rise higher in thought, to quit wallowing around in mortal mind error where things appear to be material objects, and get up to the Mind of God where things are thoughts.

(I’m still working on it!  LOL)

 

But I love the challenge. 

“All things are created spiritually.” 

That is so incredibly liberating for the serious metaphysician. Matter is but a limited view of what exists in Spirit. It’s not another view. It’s a limited view, like gazing through unfocused binoculars. The view is obscured, lacking, undefined.  Get the clear view of God’s creation, and the vision is all spiritual, and created by Spirit.

When you get to that vantage point, you’re ready to write statements like, “All things are created spiritually.”  Very nice….

The Sculptor's Attitude

The Sculptor's Attitude

~ Author unknown

I woke up early today, excited over all I get to do before the clock strikes midnight.

I have responsibilities to fulfill today. I am important. My job is to choose what kind of day I am going to have.

Today I can complain because the weather is rainy or...

I can be thankful that the grass is getting watered for free.

Today I can feel sad that I don't have more money or...

I can be glad that my finances encourage me to plan my purchases wisely and guide me away from waste.

Today I can grumble about my health or...

I can rejoice that I am alive.

Today I can lament over all that my parents didn't give me when I was growing up or ...

I can feel grateful that they allowed me to be born. 

Today I can cry because roses have thorns or... 

I can celebrate that thorns have roses.

Today I can mourn my lack of friends or ...

I can excitedly embark upon a quest to discover new relationships.

Today I can whine because I have to go to work or...

I can shout for joy because I have a job to do.

Today I can complain because I have to go to school or...

eagerly open my mind and fill it with rich new tidbits of knowledge.

Today I can murmur dejectedly because I have to do housework or... I can feel honored because the Lord has provided shelter for my mind, body and soul.

Today stretches ahead of me, waiting to be shaped.

And here I am, the sculptor who gets to do the shaping.

What today will be like is up to me.

I get to choose what kind of day I will have!

Have a GREAT DAY... unless you have other plans.

Don't let mortal mind limit you

I learned a lesson about worry and doubt. Don’t do it!! It causes you to question your capacities when you ought to know your capacities.

Before I flew to Australia for a month of lecturing I worried a bit about my tennis game falling apart while away.

I captain a USTA 3.5 Men’s Senior Team, and we had our first major tournament a few days after I was scheduled to return to the United States after a long time away.

Tennis is a relatively new sport for me, and I did not have strong faith that I could play at my usual level after a month of no practice. I didn’t want to be a drag on my team. What was I to do?

I did play once in Perth while Down Under. That helped! I proved to myself that I could still hit the ball fine, even though on grass courts. LOL

While away, to keep peace of mind, I accepted that God gave my team whatever it needed to excel, that my skills were permanently embedded in my being and could not be lost, that I could quickly rebound from a month away, and that there was nothing to worry or fear over.

When I landed in Pasco, Monday afternoon at 4 p.m., after a 25 hour flight, I headed to the tennis courts and played for three hours. What’s jet lag? It was grand fun! I was a little rusty, but improved rapidly.

I played twice the next day, had a lesson on Wednesday, and was playing tournament level on Thursday. My team excelled, oh my goodness…

Out of 21 matches we played that weekend, we won 19 of them. I won 5 out of 6 matches I played. We were the champions in our division, #1, and are headed to sectionals in June.

And I learned a valuable lesson about worrying ahead of time. It wasn’t necessary. I “broke the rules,” per conventional wisdom in many ways, but God’s rules superseded them and gave me the capacity and ability I needed to do well anyway.

Reject negative stereotypes

It was astutely pointed out to me by a reader recently that in debates about the new healthcare law in the US, participants in the program are commonly referred to as young and healthy, or old and sick; the idea being that the young and healthy need to subsidize the old and sick to ensure adequate insurance coverage.

Aside from political expediency to talk about big ideas in short sound bites, the assumption that old equates with sick is a stereotype that should not be accepted into the common psyche, or by any of us.

We often live out what we expect. So, it’s important not to accept a condition we don’t want to live out.

I know lots of people in mature years that are healthy and well. It is not a given that more birthdays equates with sickness. Far from it! 

Yes, it does seem from outward appraisal that people in senior years tend to have more health issues than youngsters. But there is no law that says it has to stay that way, or that another person’s experience has to be our experience.

Paul commanded, “Come out and be separate!” Healthcare is so frequently and vehemently debated in the public arena these days that it is vital to not be naïve about stereotypes hammered into public consciousness that negatively characterize you and me. 

Rise up and rebel! We are not either young and healthy or old and sick. We are immortal children of God, divinely endowed with the capacity to stay healthy regardless of how many years mortal mind identifies us with.

We are ageless spiritual beings.  And healthy ones too! 

“Life is eternal. We should find this out, and begin the demonstration thereof. Life and goodness are immortal. Let us then shape our views of existence into loveliness, freshness, and continuity, rather than into age and blight.” ~Mary Baker Eddy