Is it Wholesome?

"Stand porter at the door of thought." 

(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 392:24)

Since your home (or dwelling) is really your consciousness, it's important to mind the thoughts you allow in. 

The internet is continually entering our home via every one of the family living here, be it something on YouTube, Netflix etc. 

We can still hold a standard for what is allowed 'in' our house/consciousness. 

A simple criteria, especially when it involves kids, should be "Is it wholesome?" 

I'm so grateful that this concept just came to mind one day recently. I find that it takes it out of the realm of personal opinions like "Dad says...." or "Mom says...".  The kids can apply it themselves and keep it in mind. 

Artificial vs Genuine

At what point does artificial become genuine? 

Never.

So it is with artificial intelligence.  

A.I. will always be a glorified calculator... a tool. 

'Guns don't kill people, people kill people'. There's nothing new here, just a more subtle method for error to multiply if unchecked. 

Lines That 'Pop'

With my guitar in hand I lead hymn sings at a Christian Science nursing facility.  We sing about 14-20 hymns for about 30 to 45 minutes.

I'm usually surrounded by small or medium group of mostly silver haired folks sitting comfortably in antique couches and in their wheelchairs. The setting is a homey and comfortable solarium lounge or in the high-ceiling library of the old heritage Victorian mansion that this facility was centered on and built around.

Everyone has their brown hard-covered Christian Science hymnals in hand as they sing along. But the singing is just one part of this weekly ritual. At the heart of these coming-together sessions are the Spirit-leading healing words found in the century old (and newer supplemental) Christian Science hymns.

A good many hymns in the classic hymnal had their origins as poems published in the religious periodicals of the Christian Science church in Boston during the formative years of the Christian Science movement.

Even after leading these hymn-sings for years, a few lines will always 'pop out' from the pages in my thought- providing comfort or presenting a solution to some concern preoccupying thought.

For example today, a line from a verse in hymn 178 stood out: "Love, the Golden Rule of living."

How great that would be, it prodded me to think, if this single line were placed prominently on the walls and in all the offices of the Pentagon, in the President's office...in all places of government and military installations in all nations around the world! And taken to heart?

If this powerful yet simple concept were placed above all others, what affect that would have on the world?

We don't need more bombs, more wars, more aggressive actions. It's Love that's the Golden Rule... In every plan and design, this should under-gird and support it. Any actions not derived from this rule should be scrapped and returned to the drawing board.

I also see it to be significant that one doesn't have to be religious to appreciate the practical power in this concept.

Maybe I'll call the Pentagon and offer to lead some hymn sings?! ;-)

Hymn 178 on guitar: https://youtu.be/Mvh6phuVSbA

photo credit: Photos by Angela, Singing Away

Praying for your Car?

Once years ago a raccoon showed up in the middle of the road.

I couldn't stop in time so I misapplied some advice my driver instructor once gave me: when encountering an obstacle like a pothole on the road, drive so that it passes underneath your car seat. That way, you won't run over it with your wheels.

Raccoons are definitely not potholes. I heard some rolling noise from under the car. It was awful. I felt very guilty.

For me this was an example of trying to do something other than praying first- which in previous experiences had served me quite well. Like the time I was driving too fast in the snow and my car started to fish tail. In that instance, with a passenger in the car, and another vehicle on-coming, I just reached out to God as Mind: acknowledging that He was in control.

With humility I sincerely put my trust in the divine to protect everyone involved. It had the effect of immediately arresting the fear and panic that would tend to immobilize.

Then I can only say that I steered like I've never done before, like a pro stunt driver, really: missing a row of mail box posts by an inch (I know because we looked at the tire ruts in the snow after the fact), missing the oncoming car, and gradually landing softly into a ditch- in fact downright gently...it was almost comical!

My passenger, when I told him I had felt completely helpless and so had reached out to God and at that point my arms just knew what to do- gratefully agreed that we'd witnessed something of an amazing save!

So back to my incident involving the raccoon: I had the thought to pray that never again could our car hurt anyone or anything.

From time to time over the years I continue to remind myself to pray this way, and it's worked. I knew that cars represent transportation and movement, and that is a useful and good thing, and that one good idea can't hurt another good idea.

So this brings us to today: I was driving extra fast as I was attempting to clear a cyclist that was at my right hand side. A little squirrel zoomed out in front of the car. I affirmed aloud (or maybe it was just in my thought, but quite forcefully): "this car will not kill any creature."

I said it and felt it with conviction, knowing that when we turn to God for protection, help is at hand. I felt a spiritual clarity knowing that God gives man dominion over the foibles of human mortal experience. That squirrel was going to be just fine! I applied the brake based on a sense of intuition, slowing down but not stopping (traffic was approaching from behind).

I glanced back to be sure, and saw in my rear-view mirror he had made it, in true high-tail fashion, scrambling into a bush at the side of the street.

"The divine Mind maintains all identities, from a blade of grass to a star, as distinct and eternal." 

pg 70, Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy

Photo credit: Tony Fischer, Urban living for Sadie the Squirrel 

A Quick Healing of a Cold

I'd been praying about contagion. About half or more of illnesses and sicknesses are attributed to contagion.

What seems scary about the concept of contagion it is that it happens on a micro scale- so tiny you can't see it- like a ghost or specter of illness that hides on a door knobs or floats in the air. 

In my life as a practicing Christian Scientist I've had to deal with contagious illness. I've learned to trust Christian Science as an effective form of treatment. 

My first healing of a cold happened years ago when I was as a young man newly putting Christian Science first in my daily life. I was praying 'hard' about aggressive cold symptoms. It was a sluggish struggle, mentally and physically, and it happened when I was an apprentice chef working in a hotel kitchen.

I'll never forget the special moment of realization that came to me as I leaned on the stainless steel counter. It was a freeing and simple thought: Christian Science will heal me.

This realization was... a revelation. It was such a relief because I was feeling like I, personally, had to bear the heavy burden of healing this cold through my own mental wranglings and wrestling, almost like moving heavy furniture around in my mind!  

The cold left me that night! And I know it was because of that angel message. It was what I needed to know right at that time. It was powerful enough to clear out any fear that I was going to have to put up with incapacitating physical suffering and misery.

The realization had the effect of unburdening my thought. The ideas and truths of Christian Science, revealed so clearly in Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy, were what would free me, and they did.

Like Jesus said, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:32)

photo credit: Hernan Pinera 'free' 

Lov Mor

I saw this cool licence plate on a car up here in Canada: 'LovMor'.

Doesn't sound like it, but that's actually a spiritual demand being made on all of us each day.

All problems boil down to this need: to love more...to develop a deeper and more spiritual love for both your fellow man and God as well.

Spiritual progress is intricately entwined with this requirement.

I know in my Christian Science nurse practice over the years I've tangibly felt that what contributed most to a feeling of success working with patients was to yield to and obey this command.

You might even say, what is needed most in a case is not to nurse more, but to love more- and I suppose that is the essence of any healing practice.

photo credit: Mike Seyfang 'love' 

Instantaneous Healing

I came across a blog by an ex-Christian Scientist whom posited that if a Christian Science practitioner can't heal instantly, then they aren't practicing the same thing Jesus practiced, then citing Jesus' and his disciples quick healing record.

And this blogger felt that if modern day Christian Science practitioners don't heal instantly they are demonstrably not practicing the same Science that Jesus practiced. 

My initial response as one having experienced healing from the treatments of Christian Science practitioners is: 1). I've had instant full healings, and 2). I've been daily treated for one month and had a complete medical-science-defying healing,  and 3). I've had ongoing treatments costing me well over a thousand dollars with zero resultant evidence of healing (though i will argue there has to be some healing going on below the visible surface, and I have not given up on eventually cracking that nut).

The successful instantaneous healings felt similar to the month-long ones: tangible mental spiritual progress which was then reflected on a body restored to normalcy. I don't feel that the Christian Science practitioners in either case were practicing a different Science per se.

Mary Baker Eddy answers this question very nicely in her "Miscellaneous Writings" on page 40:

   "It is often asked, “If Christian Science is the same method of healing that Jesus and the apostles used,why do not its students perform as instantaneous cures as did those in the first century of the Christian era?”

    In some instances the students of Christian Science equal the ancient prophets as healers. All true healing is governed by, and demonstrated on, the same Principle as theirs; namely, the action of the divine Spirit,through the power of Truth to destroy error, discord of whatever sort. The reason that the same results follow not in every case, is that the student does not in every case possess sufficiently the Christ-spirit and its power to cast out the disease. The Founder of Christian Science teaches her students that they must possess the spirit of Truth and Love, must gain the power over sin in themselves, or they cannot be instantaneous healers."


photo credit: Daniel Gonzalez Fuster through my window 149