Blog Archives

6/25/2013

Dump the anger, heal the pain - Podcast sneak-peak of part of new lecture

Here is a 5 minute podcast that shows you a bit of what I am working on for the "Angry no more" lecture that will be coming soon. Hope you find it helpful!

Also, if you would like to see/hear short clips from my other two lectures- "Finding God, finding health" and "Unending life within your reach" - they are now available on my LECTURES page.

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6/24/2013

Chasing gloomy clouds off a summer beach trip

On vacation in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, members of my family were at each others' throats. The sun and fun left us all pretty exhausted and irritable. My husband and daughter would not let up on fussing at each other. My patience with them both had reached its limit. At a certain point, when I had had enough, I informed them that we were going to attend the Wednesday evening testimony meeting at the local Christian Science church. I would not take "No" for an answer.

It was a first time visit to a Wednesday meeting for my husband, and a first time out of the children's room and into the pews for my 8-year-old daughter. As we listened to the inspired Word of the Bible and correlative passages read from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures - the complete exposition of Christian Science by its discoverer, Mary Baker Eddy - a change occurred in us all. My restless daughter quieted. The frown wrinkles on my husband's face - signaling fatigue, grumpiness and resistance to being in the church - ironed out. I began to feel more peaceful and relaxed.

We listened to readings, we sang hymns, we prayed for each other, and we heard examples, through personal testimony of the attendants, of God's law of harmony in action in their lives. There were accounts of lost articles found in amazing ways, physical cures through prayer, financial difficulties overcome. It was only an hour. But when we left the church, my husband said, "Thanks. I feel better." And the rest of the trip proved to be one of our happiest ever.

I am frequently asked, "What is Christian Science?" Like anyone engaged in the active practice of a science, I have several "go to" answers. For example, I might describe it as the scientific system of divine healing based on the teachings of Christ Jesus. But there is another simpler definition found in Science and Health. It is " the natural law of harmony which overcomes discord."

How simple and direct! The complete reference is found on page 134: "The true Logos is demonstrably Christian Science, the natural law of harmony which overcomes discord, - not because this Science is supernatural or preternatural, nor because it is an infraction of divine law, but because it is the immutable law of God, good."

Christian Science is the natural law of harmony which overcomes discord.

Thinking back to that Wednesday meeting during our summer vacation, there was nothing supernatural or even unusual about it. It was pretty typical of many I have attended over the years. But the meeting gave us a simple, straightforward opportunity to engage with the immutable - unchanging through time, unalterable, ageless - law of God, good: Christian Science.

Engagement, even for an hour, with the natural law of harmony, can blow away the gloomy clouds of discord. It certainly did for us.

Are you on vacation and looking for a local Christian Science church, society, informal group or Reading Room?
Search online.

6/22/2013

I would sing your song to you

Bernard Meltzer, radio host of the advice call-in program, "What's your problem?" (airing in NYC and Phillie from 1967-mid 90s) once said, "A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words." Are you that kind of friend? Do you tend to discern the good in others and help them see it in themselves? Do you need that kind of friend in your life?

On his rock album titled A way to see in the dark, Jason Gray's song "Remind me who I am" starts with these two verses:

When I lose my way
And I forget my name,
Remind me who I am.
In the mirror all I see
is who I don't want to be.
Remind me who I am.

In the loneliest places
When I can't remember what grace is
Tell me, once again, who I am to You.
Tell me, lest I forget
Who I am to You,
That I belong to You.

We have in God our best Friend. We reflect from God the unlimited capacity to be a best friend to each other. Someone in your path may be looking for a friend today. Will you listen for their song and sing it back to them? Will you see them as God does and tell them what you see?

6/17/2013

The time has come - a guest post by Kay Olson, CSB

Faith Bass Darling is a fascinating main character in a recent novel that I read (Faith Bass Darling's Last Garage Sale, Lynda Rutledge, Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam, 2012). She is a very wealthy woman who becomes convinced that God has told her that "her time has come". She decides to have a huge yard sale selling everything she owns, in order to be ready. Everything! Without a single bit of regret.

Imagine emptying your house of long-cherished belongings. Recently, I did just that. Not because I believed my "time has come." I don’t share Mrs. Darling's belief that God, who is Life, has anything to do with death. But the time had definitely come to accept my daughter’s invitation to live with her.

My husband had passed. She and my other children, were eager for me to make the move. So I did. I sold my house, but I didn’t have a yard sale. Instead, I had a happy time giving away loved possessions to my children and grandchildren, without a single regret.

You might think that getting rid of absolutely everything would have been stressful. But it really wasn’t. Why? Because I wasn't trying to figure out my next steps by myself. I was convinced that I would know what to do and when to do it as I went along. I understood that God, in whom I live and move and have my being, is the divine Principle of divine good, unfolding good for me. God always knows the next step and when to take it in His revelation of good.

This was a lesson I learned from a youngster named Morrie. Unlike the fictional Faith Bass Darling, he was a real little boy who lived in Colorado in the 1890s. Morrie trusted God's perfect timing. He had lost his mother's coal shovel, and he knew she would need it the next morning. It couldn't be found anywhere. Later in the day his mother found him in his room, unusually quiet, and asked him what he was doing. He replied, "I'm praying.”

She asked: "How are you praying?"

"You said I must find that shovel so I'm praying for understanding," he replied.

"Will you pray out loud so I can hear it?" she asked.

This was his prayer: "God is my understanding. He knows all things, and whenever I quit trying to know for myself, then I will know, because God knows".

After his prayer, Morrie went outside to play. Later, his mother asked if he had found the shovel. He was surprised and said, "Why mama, you must wait till the time comes, and not try to know for yourself.”

Early the next morning he came running in to his mother, saying, "The time has come; here it is." He presented her with her the shovel. (Christian Science Journal, Jan. 1890)

I think Morrie’s story shows that he must have felt something of his life inseparable from divine Life, God. Christian Science teaches that God imparts His understanding to us at all times. Morrie expected to know what to do to find the shovel, and he waited for it to be made known. No stress or fuss or fear. And the shovel reappeared right on time for his mother to use it.

God is omniactive Life. His understanding, knowing. expressing, reflecting, manifesting, revealing of good – of all the good that God is – is present in the details of our daily lives.

The emptying of my house and sharing of its contents happened without a hitch in just a few short days. I learned in the process that ridding oneself of things and moving to another State does not imply an end of good. God's goodness continues to provide all that I need in just the right way for my present circumstances. My sense of home – and of being at home – is full and complete.

Best of all, I know that at any point as my journey continues, I can quietly pray for understanding and, like Morrie, I can "try not to know" for myself. God is a caring guide, leading us all into a fuller sense of divine Life and of all the good that life includes.

6/16/2013

Prodigious fathers and "The prodigal Father"

The Daily Lift for this weekend was inspired by the prodigious, loving men in my life (my dad, my first and second husbands, my brothers and many others) whose lives reflect such rich and generous love for others. Based on Christ Jesus' parable of the prodigal son, this two-minute podcast recounts a familiar story with a new twist.

Find the Lift in English and in French. And if you would like to read the full parable, here it is:

Luke 15:11-32 King James Version (or you can read it from the New International Version):

And he [Jesus] said, A certain man had two sons: And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.

And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.

And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father.

But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.

But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.

Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard musick and dancing. And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and intreated him. And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.

And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.

Happy Father's Day!

6/7/2013

Shaking loose from spider webs - a guest post by Kay Olson, CSB

What can you do when someone's unfair, unkind remarks cling to your thinking like a spider's web? Sticking like glue, unkind words can mess up one's peace of mind. Worse, they tend to give rise to indignant, defensive, self-righteous mental responses. They can keep us busy ruminating, making us miserable, solving nothing.

I spent some days just like that. I had all kinds of mental conversations with someone who had hurled hurtful remarks at me. I mentally told her off, making it clear that I was right and she was wrong. It didn't help. I was simply feeding the hurt feelings.

One day, while looking out my bedroom window, I noticed a dead leaf stuck to a spider web on one of the clapboards of my neighbor's house. Every time I passed by the window, I found myself checking to see if the heavy rain or strong wind had managed to dislodge that sad looking leaf. Nope. The strength of a single thread of spider web held it captive. Spider silk is widely regarded as the strongest natural fabric on earth, at least half as strong as a steel thread of the same thickness, and much more elastic. So it looked like, once caught in the web, that old dead leaf was really stuck. And so it would prove to be for a couple of months.

I likened my situation to that stuck dead leaf. Glued to hurt by a gossamer thread of unkind words, I was caught and getting nowhere. But as one who practices Christian Science, I eventually realized I could do something about this. I didn't need to stay stuck. I remembered the message Jesus gave to his disciples at the crucifixion: "Forgive them, for they know not what they do". (Luke 23:34) As I prayed about Jesus' words, I considered that this dear one possibly had no idea that her words had so disturbed me. And even if she did know, there was no real power in the sticky thread of the hurtful words.

Christian Science teaches that the Christ, or God's spiritual influence, is the only true communicator. The real connection between God's children is through Christ-love. Nothing else sticks. It occurred to me that simply knowing this would allow me to forgive. And that is just what I did. I could then see the whole dispute was a sham. God's children aren't really in conflict. We were both innocent, loved, and loving in God's eyes. We are His own creation under His control.

The Discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, wrote of error as "deprived of its imaginary powers by Truth [God], which sweeps away the gossamer web of illusion" Science and Health, 403. That is what I had been suffering from - the sticky false belief, or error, that my friend and I could have anything but love pass between us.

That gossamer web of illusion was swept right out of my thinking. I was free. And the next time I looked, the leaf was gone. The spider web on the clapboard, too, had lost its hold.

Kay Olson is a Christian Science practitioner and teacher in the US. She welcomes your comments on her post below. If you would like to be in touch with her privately, she is happy to hear from you at [email protected].

6/6/2013

Spiritual sense: You are equipped

A number of years ago, I spoke to an association of atheists on Christian Science. I’ll admit, I was prepared for a debate. Instead, I encountered a thoughtful, respectful audience cherishing the universal desire to experience lasting good.

While the word “God” was loaded with too many unhelpful connotations for them, we could dialogue on intelligence, on Life, Principle, Truth, Love— all terms used in Christian Science to describe the universal Good that is God.

I learned from that encounter that we all have spiritual sense – the capacity to break through restrictive barriers and beliefs to discover and understand God as He really is. Mary Baker Eddy called this spiritual sense “a conscious, constant capacity to understand God.”

In the Glossary of Scriptural terms in the Key to the Scriptures part of Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy gives a definition for God that exposes the divine from many angles.

“God. The great I AM; the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal; Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love; all substance; intelligence." p.587

That one definition alone gives everyone a jumping-off point to understand God.

The Bible speaks of God as an unchanging power, or law, in whom is “neither variableness nor shadow of turning.” (James 1). In Christian Science, the term divine Principle describes the invariable law of Good that is God. Principle is always expressed in good. Good doesn’t end. Love never quits.

Scripture also identifies God as Spirit. So God that is Principle and Love, is also everpresent Spirit. This means that God’s creation – you and I and everyone, really - are spiritual – that is, we are made by, and of, the substance of Spirit. Love equates to unlimited goodness, Principle to invariable law, Spirit to true substance. Do you see the expansive nature of the God vocabulary of Christian Science? And it is practical, too.

The facts of God are like the facts of math. You just can’t know too much. The more math facts you know, the less of a problem you find in daily calculations. Who is afraid of a multiplication problem, when they have learned their multiplication tables? A kid who knows his 9’s table isn’t afraid of 9 x 9. Just the opposite. He can’t wait to use his 81 every chance he gets!

Considering the true nature of God from so many angles, can actually change the way one deals with life problems, because an expansive sense of God gives ready answers to any issue that may arise.

Now some may be tempted to think, “But I have always been bad at math!” Whether it is the truth of math or the Truth that is God, we are all equipped with the spiritual sense necessary to know what is true.

Christ Jesus used the term “kingdom of God” to describe spiritual sense.

"The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." Luke 17:20,21

"This kingdom of God 'is within you,' — is within reach of man's consciousness here... In divine Science, man possesses this recognition of harmony consciously in proportion to his understanding of God." Science and Health 576:21

The kingdom of God describes God’s revelation of good to His creation. Spiritual sense is a term used in Christian Science to convey our capacity as God’s children to understand what God is. Spiritual sense lets us experience the divine in everyday life. We all have it, but we don’t all use it. Why?

Jesus answered that. He knew that we often become buried in, preoccupied with, material sense – what I call the “Eat, Drink, Clothing syndrome” of a focus on material comforts and discomforts.

Material sense pulls the attention to externals, instead of to seeking the kingdom of God within. Material sense is the backward, downward drag of the perpetual, mistaken belief:

that life is exclusively physical;
that intelligence is personal and limited;
that good is fragmented and temporary;
that identity is a transient flash of consciousness bounded by birth and death;
AND that this material sense of life is an inescapable drag on all human thoughts and acts.

Jesus challenged this:

"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? ... But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Matthew 6, King James Version

In The Message, I think Eugene Peterson has a helpful take on Jesus' words, showing the contrast between the masters of material sense and spiritual sense, when he paraphrases:

“You can’t worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you’ll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other...There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body...People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met." Matthew 6, The Message

And the rest of Jesus teachings show that when you put first things first, and exercise your spiritual sense, human needs are met without the drag of limitation, risk or fear.

“Take no thought” is not a Pollyanna approach to life that ignores problems. It’s work. Hard work! Christian Science makes strong moral and ethical demands on one. It’s not enough to know God’s law of good if you don’t obey it. It’s not enough to know math facts if you never work an equation. We must take what we learn of God and live it through honesty, purity, selflessness and love, even when it is difficult. This is the spiritual and moral sense that gave Jesus the power to heal sickness and sin and to supply human needs. It can do the same for us.

Mrs. Eddy once wrote – “The talent and genius of the centuries have wrongly reckoned. …They have not accepted the simple teaching and life of Jesus as the only true solution of the perplexing problem of human existence.” Unity of Good, Eddy, 9

Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is within us. God’s kingdom of health and harmony is with us, within all of us, already, right now. We all have the spiritual sense that allows us to understand and experience God and His marvelous creation.

6/4/2013

Coming soon: Angry no more

Blog readers are always the first to know. A new lecture is under development. Keep your eyes peeled for the announcement on my LECTURES page of when the new lecture "Angry no more" will be available.

Here is a synopsis:

From hurt to health through forgiveness.This one hour lecture introduces Christian Science and healing through prayer for emotional, mental and physical issues stemming from unhealed anger. For those who have felt victimized by their circumstances, trailed by a sad past, or who are marked by abuse, this lecture offers insights that neutralize perpetual reaction to pain and anger. The spiritual reasoning through prayer, taught in Christian Science unlocks ones potential for peace, forgiveness, restoration and progress.

This lecture presents the life of Mrs. Eddy in the context of her personal journey from grief and disappointment to the spiritual insight and healing that led to her becoming a world-renowned American religious reformer. It addresses common questions about Christian Science and its practice:

How does Christian Science deal with sin?
Is there any act so heinous that one cannot forgive?
Is Christian Science teaching on sin and forgiveness Bible-based?
Is Christian Science Christian?
Are Old Testament scriptures helpful in practicing mercy and forgiveness?
Is Christian Science treatment effective in healing emotional, mental and behavioral difficulties stemming from abuse?

6/3/2013

Light undimmed: Life as it really is

A year or so after my first husband passed on, I caught a glimpse of a white head and wrinkly face on the living room mantle. On closer look, it was the last photo taken of him. I had no recollection of him like that. He had been 34 years older than I. Yet even after fifteen years of marriage, I had never noticed an age difference. I showed my daughter the photo and asked if she remembered her dad as aging. She didn't, either.

A “Portrait of Dorian Gray” moment? I don’t think so. My husband just didn’t see himself as an aging mortal. He didn’t live like one. So, we didn’t see him that way either. I only remember him as strong, handsome, vibrant and active. The photo may have captured the world’s belief in aging mortals, but he never looked like that.

Some time later, I learned of a woman whose child had drowned at eighteen months. It was in the newspapers and became a very public event. She received letters from parents who had lost their children years earlier and hadn’t stopped grieving. She didn’t want that to be her experience.

She was new to the study of Christian Science but was learning that God could help with anything she had to face. So one night she prayed, “Please Father, lift this grief from me so that I can be a useful, cheerful presence in the world.” Later, she woke from sleep in the middle in the night and was free. She knew she would never grieve for her daughter again. It has been more than 30 years and she never has.

Now this is what is interesting. After the healing, her sense of her daughter changed. Whenever she thought or spoke of her, a mental image would come of her, not as a baby, but as a grown and smiling young woman. The mother felt she was glimpsing the eternal expression of divine Life, reflected by her daughter – beautiful, healthy, and living fully her eternal life. Her life was not cut short.

"[W]hen our friends pass from our sight and we lament, that lamentation is needless and causeless. We shall perceive this to be true when we grow into the understanding of Life, and know that there is no death." Science and Health, 386

Christian Science explains certain fundamentals. It teaches that all true consciousness is Life and that Life is God. There is one Life, and this Life is reflected or expressed in God’s creation, in us. But we don’t live separate lives, independent from God. We reflect the one infinite Life, the infinite good of God in a unique God-caused way. That is why spiritual life is never boring!

As a manifestation of the divine Life, we are complete, beautiful, essential and unique in our expression of infinite good. I am not talking about a human perspective of life that is looking up to or leaning towards God. I am talking about immortal being, the perfect Life perspective, - God’s perfect perspective of us.

Christ Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection shows us that man can drop the mortal belief in death, and live on. Resurrection from the belief that we have died, or that we must die, is essential to human progress. Every time we drop the fear and embrace God’s perspective of life, we resurrect in some degree. But Jesus’ ascension shows the next and even purer lesson of Life, or God - that real life is 100 percent spiritual and that God’s view of us is the only reality of life. With ascension, the material sense of us falls away entirely. We need no matter, see no matter, and are limited by no matter, in our expression of endless, perfect life.

"In his resurrection and ascension, Jesus showed that a mortal man is not the real essence of manhood, and that this unreal material mortality disappears in presence of the reality." Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, MARY BAKER EDDY, 291

Christ Jesus demonstrated this. Of him, Mrs. Eddy wrote, “With our Master, life was not merely a sense of existence, but an accompanying sense of power that subdued matter and brought to light immortality... Life, as defined by Jesus, had no beginning; it was not the result of organization, or infused into matter; it was Spirit.” (Retrospection and Introspection, 58)

In fact, we all only have one true state of existence as the spiritual, mature, magnificent reflection of the divine, unending Life who is God. The Psalmist said of God, “You will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. You have made known to me the path of life.” (16:10,11) Mrs. Eddy wrote, "The radiant sun of virtue and truth coexists with being. Manhood is its eternal noon, undimmed by a declining sun." (246)

If manhood (including womanhood) is the eternal noon of virtue and truth, and if this is the “path of divine Life” that God makes known to us, could it be that babyhood, adolescence, middle age and old age are simply mortal, limited views of spiritual being that only ever truly exists at its highest and most beautiful?

After my husband passed on, I dreamed of him one night. In the dream, he was preparing to work on the roof. In a brief conversation we said how much we loved each other. Then he climbed the ladder and disappeared. In this dream he looked exactly as I always knew him – active, healthy, brimming with purpose. I didn’t see an age or stage. I saw him as ageless.

I am no dream interpreter. But pulling these pieces together in thinking about true being gives me a whole new sense of “eternal noon”. God’s man is not, and never has been, an immature mental, emotional or physical being. We are neither underdeveloped (babies), overdeveloped (aged), nor under a state of development (uncomfortable, agitated adolescents or crisis-stricken mid-agers). We each have perfect spiritual being right now. And this perspective is discernible through prayer and presently demonstrable. That is how God, as Mind, creates and sees each one of us, and we can see it, too.

Understanding that we are undimmed by decline, and that we never need to grow brighter to reach our best, we are open right now to experience real life without interruption – true spiritual being, reflecting the divine Life that is God - and we shine. WE SHINE!

"Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended." ISAIAH 60:20

6/1/2013

Heaven and hell - What the heck?

British author Susan Ertz wrote, “Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.”

Immortality, or eternal life, is often confused with prolonged mortality or endless humanhood. But immortality describes life without any mortal limits, not an extension of limited being. It’s the progression beyond mortal beliefs about life where immortal life, inseparable from Life as God, is fully understood.

Eternity is the experience of total freedom in infinite good. Eternal mortality would be the hell that many, whose faith is rooted in Calvin's teachings, fear awaits us. But Eternal life is heaven, and heaven is the harmony of life that is ours to experience both now and forever.

Christian Science makes a distinction between human experience and mortality. Mortality is not a state of life moving towards death; it is belief in life as already material and therefore already at least partly dead from the start. Matter is lifeless, dead. Death is a consequence of materiality. It’s a product of mortal belief. If you believe yourself to be material, you believe yourself to be mortal. And a mortal can’t avoid death - that is, he experiences the limits of his own belief.

But what if man as God creates us– you and I – are not really material or mortal? What if real life never actually ends?

Take a deep breath. This is an important point: The human experience of death is a perspective of the observer. It is not the experience of the one believed to be passing through it. Death is the product of a mortal belief. It is a false perspective. Even if one believes himself to be mortal, this belief will only last so long as its limits are tested and life is proven to go on. Man is not for a minute actually mortal. And the sense of mortality will fade out as the false belief in it is swallowed up by the understanding that God’s man is spiritual and that real life was never mortal in the first place.

"Man is more than physical personality, or what we cognize through the material senses. Mind is more than matter, even as the infinite idea of Truth is beyond a finite belief. Man outlives finite mortal definitions of himself, according to a law of "the survival of the fittest." Man is the eternal idea of his divine Principle, or Father. He is neither matter nor a mode of mortal mind, for he is spiritual and eternal, an immortal mode of the divine Mind. Man is the image and likeness of God, coexistent and coeternal with Him." MARY BAKER EDDY, No and Yes, 25

The words mortal and human are not synonymous terms. Mortality is a misconception about life as material. Mortality is a belief in death and darkness as inevitable. Human experience is the testing ground for mortal beliefs where mortality yields to the truth about real life.

Whether human experience seems more like heaven or hell depends on the degree to which we cling to self-limiting mortal beliefs about life. But we can outgrow the confines of mortal and material beliefs. We are capable of yielding to a life free from limits.

How to do it involves spiritualizing thought and daily life through honesty, unselfishness and purity rooted in an understanding of God. And we can do it. We are all capable of growing spiritually. We can shake off false mortal concepts about life, and progress out of limitation, fear and hellish conditions.

At the age of 12 I had a healing that illustrated this.

I impaled my foot on a rusty nail and was in a lot of pain. But I prayed for a better sense of my life as God made me. I vigorously challenged the belief that I was even a pinky toe, or one foot’s worth, mortal or material. I had learned in the Christian Science Sunday School that “there is no life, truth, substance or intelligence in matter.” I reasoned, “But there is life, truth, intelligence and substance in me!” I accepted my being to be presently spiritual. I knew I could experience the heaven of healing. This wasn’t theory to me. It was fact.

Looking in the bucket of bloody water, I thought, “That is not me. My substance is spiritual and has never been hurt.” I bandaged up the foot and got on with my day. When I went to bed that night, the bandage fell off. The openings on the top and bottom of my foot were closed and were nearly healed. By the next morning there was no wound at all. All evidence of the accident yielded completely to the spiritual fact and my human body conformed in perfect health.

Whatever beliefs we may currently hold about heaven and hell, life and death, mortality and immortality - these beliefs can and will ultimately yield to spiritual understanding. No one will be left out of heaven. Christian Science discoverer Mary Baker Eddy wrote, "The admission to one's self that man is God's own likeness sets man free to master the infinite idea. This conviction shuts the door on death, and opens it wide towards immortality. The understanding and recognition of Spirit must finally come, and we may as well improve our time in solving the mysteries of being through an apprehension of divine Principle. At present we know not what man is, but we certainly shall know this when man reflects God." (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Eddy, 90)

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Dump the anger, heal the pain - Podcast sneak-peak of part of new lecture

Chasing gloomy clouds off a summer beach trip

I would sing your song to you

The time has come - a guest post by Kay Olson, CSB

Prodigious fathers and "The prodigal Father"

Shaking loose from spider webs - a guest post by Kay Olson, CSB

Spiritual sense: You are equipped

Coming soon: Angry no more

Light undimmed: Life as it really is

Heaven and hell - What the heck?

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