How To Bounce Out Of Bed in the Morning

I awoke early this morning as usual on a 'work day'. But I didn't feel like getting out of my comfortable bed. Then I remembered: 'oh yah, I'm not mortal.'

All sense of tiredness and resistance disappeared into a poof of mist and out of bed I flew.

Why did this work for me? Because the day before I had been praying about several things and also praying for patients of my healing ministry- and part of what I had been affirming was what Mary Baker Eddy writes about in her amazing Christian healing textbook Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"Now I ask, Is there any more reality in the waking dream of mortal existence than in the sleeping dream? There cannot be, since whatever appears to be a mortal man is a mortal dream. Take away the mortal mind, and matter has no more sense as a man than it has as a tree. But the spiritual, real man is immortal."

Also I had been practicing this throughout my day. Whenever thoughts about being a mortal soul trapped in a body without my control or say in the matter I was rebelling and saying NO. I'm not going to indulge that concept. I acted out of knowing better than that.

And so out of bed I sprung. It could easily have been the other way around- and some mornings it is- that I give in to this concept unconsciously even- that i am just a mortal soul in a material body with limitations.

Why I Jog

This was the situation as I was entering 'mid-life' shall we say: I was feeling that my own body was getting away from me: almost like loosing grip on the harness of a horse you rely on to get you around.

I was needing more naps, lacking energy, getting tired more easily than i ever used to.

So in praying about this I was inspired to jog. And wear my iPod while I jogged (i find listening to music is the key for me).

I worked into a daily routine of jogging for 30 minutes- usually right after work.

Like Mary Baker Eddy wrote in her classic text on spirituality and healing Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

   "Inharmony of any kind involves weakness and suffering, — a loss of
control over the body."

When I jog I'm not working with the body so much: what's really being exercised are spiritual qualities like the dominion spoken of in Genesis chapter 1 in the Bible:  

   So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him;    male and female created he them.

   And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

On the flipside of all this, I try to keep a balanced thought as it concerns the body: that I don't give too much credit to exercise as the source of my harmony and health.

It's all about expressing dominion, discipline, joy, and to me what is normal activity.

(photo credit Drey Roque Jogging Buddies https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/)

Genuine Responsibilities

"Every function of the real man is governed by the divine Mind." 
~ Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with key to the Scriptures

The only genuine responsibilities you have to carry out are the ones governed by God.

Gratitude: the Great Magnifier

If gratitude could be 'materialized' it may look like a telescope, periscope or magnifying glass with a specific purpose of magnifying good, but only good. 

Think of it: what if you spent all day holding a magnifying glass up to friends and co-workers: magnifying every bad thing they say, every mistake they make, everything that you don't like about their behavior etc. etc. 

And contrast that with the one who spots the good that is ever-present all around them: the good qualities in a friend, the kindness or thoughtfulness of strangers, the beauty of a simple sunset or sunrise...anything at all that is good. 

It says in the Bible: Ps. 69: 30 

^"I will praise the name of God with a song and will magnify Him with thanksgiving"

(photo credit Brian Pennington, magnify, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)

What the Cross is About

The cross is about sacrifice- but not sacrificing what's good for us. It's the sacrifice of what we think is good for us,  but really isn't.



(photo credit Claudio Ungari, Jesus Cross, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)

The Gratitude & Happiness Connection

I just read an article by Oprah about her gratitude journal.

Early in her career she made it a daily priority to list 5 things she was grateful for. She managed to keep this up for ten years. But then her entries became sporadic.

A few years ago while re-reading some of her old daily gratitude lists she asked herself: 'why have I lost the joy of simple moments?'

I can just imagine how crazy busy she must have gotten- and still must be! Boy, I like to think I'm a busy person-- but what a laugh that is compared to her and her publishing entertainment empire! I can just imagine...

But she didn't blame the busy-ness because during those ten years of unbroken gratitude journaling she was just as busy.

She reflected how she had accumulated so much wealth, responsibility and possessions. But her happiness had not exponentially grown.  She felt she'd become too stretched and too busy doing things to feel much of anything- or to have the time to even feel delight.

She'd lost sight of the power of gratitude in her life, and was focussing instead on her have-nots.

She writes that she's back on track journaling -electronically now- whenever there's a grateful moment. And that this has caused new shiftings in her experience.

So after reading this article, I went and started my own gratitude journal.

How about you? Do you keep one? Want to start?

( *November 2012 Oprah magazine )

(photo credit; Antti Rahikka, connection, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/)

What is Health?

I've been asking myself: What is health, anyway?

I don't think it's about something that is absent- physical diseases, sickness or debilitation, -as much as it's about what needs to be present: wholeness, completeness and soundness both physical and spiritual.

Mary Baker Eddy, my favorite theologian thinker writes: "To be every whit whole, man must be better spiritually as well as physically."

Do all who work to help the sick get well have this important duality of wholeness in mind? I don't think so. Too often the mental and spiritual world are seen as two entirely independent spheres or realms of activity.

In considering wholeness it's needful to contemplate: What makes you feel whole?

Healthy friendships? Good relationships? Living an honest life? Feeling true to yourself? Feeling valued, appreciated and purposeful? Feeling loved? Don't all these things make you feel good inside and outside too?

Mary Baker Eddy wrote of medicine's historical advancements:  "Hippocrates turned from image-gods to vegetable and mineral drugs for healing. This was deemed progress in medicine; but what we need is the truth which heals both mind and body." (emphasis added)

Will material medicine ever reach the pinnacle of power to be able to remove all liability to be ill? According to Christian Science: never.  Not that people won't try, or that their efforts aren't noble and praiseworthy. But it's been demonstrated thousands of times over the last hundred and thirty years in the practice of Christian Science healing that illness of the body- to be permanently removed- needs to be healed at its source or origin: which is always in the mind or consciousness of the patient.

Healing the sick through spiritually based, God-centered prayer is an intrinsic part of Christian Science theology. Sometimes family or friends don't get why a student of these teachings is not merely seeking healing of a physical ailment when they are praying for an apparent physical health challenge. 'Why not just take medicine and be done with it" some might say- especially since medicine has proven to have a relatively reliable track record with certain ailments (though many create equally troublesome side-effects).

But for this student it's my own thoughts and concepts of myself as God's- divine Love's- creation- that are at the root of the challenge.

Would anyone take their car to the garage and merely silence the trouble-light indicator and drive off satisfied?  Or would they rather actually fix the problem that triggered the warning light in the first place? That's how I see my body. If something is wrong- by body is my dashboard telling me that my thinking has become unaligned with God, good.

When I look back at my own Christian Science healings- which are many- it's not so much the repaired matter-body that comes to mind. It's the Christ-thoughts that brought the healings in the first place- like light replacing darkness.

What I value most are the Christ thoughts that arrived like angels -mentally- that erased the disease-causing misconceptions of myself. I see moral improvements, fears overcome, increased faith and reliance on Spirit for my sustenance, growth in humility and order, as well as the resultant plantar warts and illnesses vanishing, or the damaged ligaments healing incredibly fast, or the infection clearing up, or the nausea or cancerous growths disappearing. And the list goes on.

(photo credit: Walter [flikr]  DSC 3953 pp; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)