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International speaker to give a talk in Tunbridge Wells after experiencing a crisis of faith following husband's sudden death - Kentonline.co.uk article 25 June, 2014

6/25/2014

Check out an article published today on kentonline.co.uk for tomorrow night's "Finding God" lecture. The writer did a great job capturing the details of our short telephone interview. My heart was in my throat as I read it. I expect the compelling writing will speak to others who are looking for a way forward after experiencing loss.

Also, find a post-lecture writeup by another paper, the West Sussex County Times, following the same talk two weeks ago. The UK press has been keeping me very busy these past three months.

Come early tomorrow night! We are expecting a full house! The title is "Finding God." It will start at 7:30 pm at First Church of Christ, Scientist, Linden Park Rd, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, UK.

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Angry no more - a one hour lecture (audio only) available online until July 31, 2014

6/24/2014

Here is a recent recording of a lecture on Christian Science - "Angry no more" -delivered in Altrincham, UK this spring. The following is a blurb from the press release:

Not a week goes by without some report of physical, emotional or sexual abuse making the headlines. People are looking for a way out of the anger that abuse leaves in its wake. International speaker Michelle Nanouche says, “For those who have been trailed by a sad past or marked by abuse, this lecture offers insights to neutralize the perpetual reaction and move on from anger to forgiveness.”

Need help?

6/19/2014

Is it possible to feel God’s presence—His care and Love—so profoundly that healing takes place? Is it possible to do this under any circumstance? Back in 2000, as a guest on Christian Science Sentinel Radio Edition, I and three others spoke on the subject of God's help in times of trouble. The week of June 28-July 4, Sentinel Radio will rebroadcast these conversations on radio stations around the world.

Find a complete list (PDF) of radio stations and airing times for Sentinel Radio Edition broadcasts.

If you are a subscriber to JSH-online, you may listen to this episode anytime: God's help in times of trouble - Program 006.

Am I material or am I spiritual?

6/17/2014

Physique isn’t what it seems to be. Because a physical body is so evident, we might reject spirituality or try to reconcile matter with spirituality as though they share space in us – as if we are material beings with a spiritual side. But this reasoning breaks down when the broader facts of Christian Science are considered and put to the test in healing.

A couple of years ago, severe pain developed in one of my feet making walking even short distances difficult. This went on for several months until I became so worn down by it that I began to think of myself only in terms of physical limitation. I started acting like pain was my new “normal,” and accommodated it by avoiding walking.

Then one day as I was praying, I knew I had a choice in what I experienced of myself. In the same way that I could choose whether or not I limit my knowledge of the solar system to a “sun moves and earth is still” perspective that seemed true from where I stood, I could consider a larger, proven body of knowledge and understand how things really work. I decided to consider Jesus’ perspective of man when he said, “The kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21) Jesus looked beyond physique to find the man God had made. He understood the nature of optical and physical illusions, demonstrating a divine Science of God and man; and this understanding healed the sick.

In one case, his disciples failed to heal a case of blindness. Using blindness as their starting point, the natural route to healing involved localizing a cause for the problem; but Jesus looked at the man and saw something other than diseased physique. He saw “the works of God made manifest in him.” (John 9:3) This same God he had also defined as “Spirit”, “perfect” and “good.” (See John 4:24, Matthew 5:48, Mark 10:18). These two contrasting views - one of a blind man, the other of man as the manifestation of Spirit - were as different as darkness and light. But only one could heal.

I decided to work in the same light as did Jesus. I considered that the kingdom of God, of divine Spirit, is within me, and that as Spirit’s likeness, I am spiritual. I realized that Spirit’s creation, the perfect and good manifestation of God, can’t be reduced to invalidism. Sourced in God, who is permanent Good, my spirituality could no more be confined by a pained or deteriorating physique than light could be sealed up in a rusty barrel. Glimpsing my true essence, my spirituality, I knew I wasn’t actually trapped, but could move as freely as a beam of light.

I was suddenly unrestricted and stopped acting like an invalid. I walked normally and even began to run. Quickly, the pain was gone and I was healed. It has been two years and it has never come back.

Science and Health explains, “A correct view of Christian Science and of its adaptation to healing includes vastly more than is at first seen. Works on metaphysics leave the grand point untouched. They never crown the power of Mind as the Messiah, nor do they carry the day against physical enemies, — even to the extinction of all belief in matter, evil, disease, and death, —nor insist upon the fact that God is all, therefore that matter is nothing beyond an image in mortal mind.” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, 116)

Thankfully, we have this vast body of knowledge - proven in practice - that can shift us from a narrow physical self-view to grasp our present spiritual being and freedom from physical limits.

Two "Angry no More" BBC interviews

6/16/2014

“Angry No More” is the topic of a lecture I have given several times this Spring throughout the UK and US, most recently in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. I offered insights for overcoming anger with forgiveness, bringing restoration and progress for those who have been trailed by a sad past or marked by abuse. I also talked about how I overcame post-traumatic symptoms and anger following childhood sexual abuse.

The first essential to moving beyond anger is the admission to yourself that you can do it. Admitting to oneself that what the Bible says is true and provable – that man is made in the likeness of Spirit, of divine Love, and is spiritual and good, sets one free to live that spirituality and goodness without limits. Then we learn that no human circumstance is unredeemable or unhealable.

Before the lecture, I spoke with two radio personalities, Justine Green and Annie Othen, on their respective BBC Coventry and Warwickshire radio programs. Both were enormously interested in the subject and in my experiences because new cases of long ago sexual abuse by public figures has been making the news practically weekly in the UK for quite some time.

I am posting one of the two interviews here - a Sunday morning interview with Justine Green. In the interview I give an overview of my experiences and my motivation for forgiveness. The second interview occurred during the Thursday midday program. Due to the probing nature of Annie's questions which required more explicit answers than I usually give, I am not posting it on the blog. For most, more information is not necessary. Others however, may be helped by the "human interest" angle of the story and the fuller account. If you feel you would be helped by the second interview, you may contact me and request it to be sent to you directly.

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What you think... Click the link

6/6/2014

Back in March of 2013, I wrote a blog post titled, "What you think is not always what you think." It was picked up today by The Christian Science Monitor and published on their site. I hope you will have another look at it, and enjoy exploring the rest of the newspaper while you are there.

In fact, if you haven't seen it, I recommend that you read the article "Reporting the news with a mission to heal" by the Editor, Marshall Ingwerson. Here is an excerpt:

"We have a bias, and we’re owning it. It’s a bias for healing.

"The founder of the Monitor, Mary Baker Eddy, launched it as a daily newspaper with the object 'to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.' That 'all mankind' part doesn’t exclude anyone, anywhere...

"The fundamentally – but not exclusively – Christian aspect of the Monitor’s mission lies in caring about others. The Monitor assumes its readers are people who care, who want to care, regardless of their religious or political mindset. Nothing is more fundamental to Christianity than love, than caring. One of the two great commandments Jesus cited is to love our neighbors as ourselves. And he made clear that our neighbors were not just the people living next door. Our neighbors are everyone who crosses our path or enters our consciousness.

"And caring about our neighbors begins with knowing something about them – how they’re doing, what they need, what their challenges are..."

"Mrs. Eddy believed healing was possible. More than that, she believed it was inevitable. “[P]rogress is the law of God ... ,” she wrote in her seminal work, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” (p. 233).

Therein lies the Monitor’s fundamental optimism. That’s our other bias. It’s not about avoiding or playing down bad news. We believe bad news needs to be surfaced, addressed, and understood more deeply. But we’re looking for progress. We’re progress-minded. We believe that healing is inevitable and that eventually it will surface – in the news.;;"

I hope they forgive the long excerpt. I hope you will be moved to go read their full post. I am pretty proud to have a paper with such a mission ask to publish one of mine.

Summer lovin' (lecturing), havin' some fun - Michelle Nanouche's June schedule

6/5/2014

It's nice to sleep in my own bed, if only for a night or two. I am heading right back out for a few last lecture dates before I take a summer break. If you are in the area for any of these mostly UK dates, but also one in Washington, DC, I hope you will come and introduce yourself.

In addition to these events, calls for radio interviews are beginning to come in. So please check back on the blog from time to time to see if any of these lectures or interviews are recorded. When they are, I will be sure and post the latest for you.

Happy summer, and I hope to see you while on the road.

ANGRY NO MORE - 10 Jun 2014 at 7:30pm
Church, 14 Altyre Rd, Croydon England

ANGRY NO MORE - 12 Jun 2014 at 7:30pm
Church, 26 Ely St, Stratford-upon-Avon England

FINDING GOD - 14 Jun 2014 at 3:00pm
Church, Corner of Blackbridge Ln, Guildford Rd, Horsham England

UNENDING LIFE WITHIN YOUR REACH - 15 Jun 2014 at 2:30pm
Church, 7 Curzon St, London England

FINDING GOD, FINDING HEALTH - 21 June at 3:00pm
Church, 5510 16th St NW, Washington District of Columbia USA

FINDING GOD - 26 Jun 2014 at 7:30pm
Church, Linden Park Rd, Tunbridge Wells England

FINDING GOD - 28 June at 2:00pm
Church, 2 Dolcoath Rd, Camborne England

UNENDING LIFE WITHIN YOUR REACH - 29 Jun 2014 at 3:00pm
Church, 84a Longbrook St, Exeter England

What happens to Hitler?

6/5/2014

Doesn't he look MEAN?

"Somewhere in the Bible it says "Vengeance is mine, says the Lord". And often people console themselves with that when a heinous crime has been committed, or when they think about the people who have done the worst possible evil, heads of state mainly. Top of the list is Hitler, or Bin Laden, or Pol Pot, Mao, Stalin, the North Korea gang, Pinochet and more.

"People like to think that they who do these things will wind up in hell, as divine punishment. Is there a divine retribution for them, or will God just let them keep on until they get it and repent, since the only power of evil is to self-destruct?"

This was posed to me following my recent "Angry no more" lecture. There are a couple of questions raised here - Is God a vengeful God? and, Does God know and punish sinners? Here is my response. Stay with me to the end. Don't let the first sentences fool you into thinking that God doesn't take on and take down evil.

God is divine Good, pure Spirit, infinite Love, resplendent Soul. Just as Light isn't vindictive toward the darkness it displaces, God, pure good, doesn't avenge evil. Light knows light and only light. God is conscious of Himself and all that He manifests. Nothing is real or permanent outside of God and the infinite manifestation of His goodness.

God is All, and that allness is the exterminator of anything unlike good. Just as light eliminates darkness through it's simple presence, eliminating moral and physical darkness isn't an act of destruction for divine Good; it's an act of simply being God.

So where did the darkness come from if it isn't part of God's allness? Darkness is a false perspective; it's not a thing, it's the suggestion of an absence of light.

Darkness is often self-imposed. Take my cat, for example. She loves light, even seeking it out. But she also closes her eyes tightly when the sun is shining on her. The light doesn't disappear, and she can't avoid its effects; but the darkness she experiences may seem very real to her with her eyes closed to it.

If one is duped into believing that God is distant, that good is far off, that good can be subverted and changed into its opposite, or that one is not good as God's image, he is holding a false view of the divine Light in and around him.

Sin is Bible vocabulary for negativity, for evil thoughts and deeds.The Bible teaches that sin is punished. It also teaches that man is redeemable from sin. Christ Jesus illustrated this redemption by forgiving and turning people's hearts from sin. Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures points out one of the basic tenets of Christian Science: "We acknowledge God’s forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin and the spiritual understanding that casts out evil as unreal. But the belief in sin is punished so long as the belief lasts." (Mary Baker Eddy, p. 497)

It is important to note that God doesn't do the punishing. A sin belief punishes itself. Sin is self-destructive. The belief punishes itself, induces suffering on itself, until the belief is released. "Vengeance is mine" is an attempt to to explain this phenomena of self-destructive evil by blaming the discomfort on a human-like and angry god.

To the question of "people like that," whether they will ultimately be redeemed, it is important to note that mortals don't become children of God. Mortality and its conditions of evil passions and appetites, depraved will, cruelty, hatred, revenge, have no life in them to redeem.

If there is not a single morsel of morality - some slight indication of humanity, honesty, affection, compassion, hope, faith, meekness or temperance in a Hitler, than that Hitler was never a man. (Man, in this sense, is the generic term for manifestation or child of God.) In such a case he would be classified, and would always remain, a figment of what Christian Science denotes as animal magnetism, the anti-Christ, generic evil, or complete darkness. However, If there is any slight indication of humanity there - whether we have personally ever seen it or not - that makes him redeemable.

Fortunately, we don't have to worry about if or how a Hitler is or isn't transformed or changed. Whether man or a figment of animal magnetism, the divine and irrevocable law of progress will sort out the true facts, redeem the real and wipe out entirely that which is unlike God.

Darkness never wins in a contest with Light. Light, and the good that constitutes God and His creation, conquers all.

For a beautiful illustration of how pure good overcame the darkness and evil of the Holocaust, check out my earlier post titled "I will love, if another hates."

International speaker to give a talk in Tunbridge Wells after experiencing a crisis of faith following husband's sudden death - Kentonline.co.uk article 25 June, 2014

Angry no more - a one hour lecture (audio only) available online until July 31, 2014

Need help?

Am I material or am I spiritual?

Two "Angry no More" BBC interviews

What you think... Click the link

Summer lovin' (lecturing), havin' some fun - Michelle Nanouche's June schedule

What happens to Hitler?

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