"...I received a call from a friend living in North Carolina. Her town was in direct line to be hit by a Category 2 storm. She asked me to pray with her, not only for her safety, but for the protection of everyone concerned. While we were speaking, she lost phone service.

"I prayed immediately, considering the 91st Psalm. Then another scriptural image of omnipresent Love came to thought. It’s found in a description of the cherubim surrounding Ezekiel’s house with their protective wings. Cherubim is a biblical symbol of angelic presence. Ezekiel wrote, “And the sound of the cherubims’ wings was heard even to the outer court, as the voice of the Almighty God when he speaketh. . . . And there appeared in the cherubims the form of a man’s hand under their wings” (Ezekiel 10:5,8).

"Throughout the Bible, the word hand often symbolizes spiritual strength, and prophetic visions of men with angels frequently denote the Christ—the presence of the power of God."

This is an excerpt from an article that was published today in the Christian Science Journal online. Gotta love JSH online for excellent timing! This article (a post on this blog from last January) was put on the schedule weeks ago for publication today. It is a love and prayer offering for those concerned by the storm Isaac.

Click here to read the full article.

Have you ever tried to get your head around the concept of spiritual sense? Is spiritual sense a spiritualized version of the five material senses? Or is it something altogether unique? How do you get it? What does it do for you?

Break out of that shell! is an article that I wrote and published in the September 3, 2012 Christian Science Sentinel magazine. Long time blog readers may remember it as an update on a post from last year that takes on the subject of spiritual sense. In this updated version, you will find a recent healing that I had.  In fact, here is a taste of some of the new material:

"Recently, I dealt with severe pain in one foot when walking even short distances. The pain persisted for several months, sometimes waking me at night, until I became worn down by it, and accepted that perhaps it was a given, the new “normal.” I started to accommodate the pain by limiting or avoiding walking. 

Then one day as I was praying, an inspiration struck me. God didn’t limit His creation to invalidism and restriction. As the image of God, who is Spirit, I could no more be confined by a pained or deteriorating material body than light could be sealed up in a rusty barrel. I saw the present possibility of freely moving like an unrestricted beam of light. This spiritual sense of my true being, perceiving God as Spirit and myself as spiritual and unconfined, led to a decision. I would no longer treat myself as an invalid..."   To read the whole article

I am still off on vacation for another week and haven't done much blog reading.  Am trying to be offline as much as possible! However, a couple of posts caught my attention and I am sure glad they did.  I hope you will check them out. They are real winners.

Looking back over one’s lifetime, I imagine most of us can think of one or two people who have served as a role model – perhaps, whose courage, character, and compassion made a positive, lasting impression. Let me introduce you to a lady who stands out in my life.

Mrs. Toles was a forgiving person.  She was a Christian and a church-goer.  And, though the members of our church didn’t realize it at the time, as a black woman in the South, in a predominately white congregation, she was a role-model during the difficult days of segregation.

My husband and I got to know Mrs. Toles on our drives together to and from church.  She shared bits and pieces of her life-story with us.  Once, while passing by the Governor’s mansion in the middle of our large city, Mrs. Toles pointed to the building and said, very softly: “A governor owned my daddy.”  My heart melted.

Since there were no colleges for blacks in this Southern city she grew up in, she courageously left home as a young woman to attend college in Chicago. After college, she returned to our city and made her home and married.

She told us about a young man who once came to her for an apartment she had for rent.  During the interview, he collapsed on the floor in an epileptic seizure.  For Mrs. Toles, a Christian Scientist, it was natural for her to pray in an emergency. So she prayed for him. The response was immediate. He very quickly quieted, and then he sat up and was fine. In fact, he was completely healed.  The young man rented the apartment and they remained friends for years.  He called her “Grandma”.  And, in gratitude for his healing, he joined our church.

Our church was a traditional, white clapboard building with a steeple.  The interior was lovely, but it had one jarring element – a balcony installed for the blacks who attended services. Every Sunday and for every meeting, Mr. and Mrs. Toles were shown the stairs to the balcony.  In general, the members didn’t question the practice of segregation; it was just the way it was in the church at that time. However, Mr. Toles did object to this treatment and went up the street to the Baptist church where blacks were allowed to sit with everyone else.

Mrs. Toles stayed. We asked her why she never gave up and went to church with her husband.  “Because,” as she put it, “it was only in the Church of Christ, Scientist, that my Pastor preached.”  She loved her Pastor.

Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the Christian Science denomination, designated the Holy Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, as the impersonal Pastor of all the Churches of Christ, Scientist.  Mrs. Toles didn’t care where she sat, as long as she could hear her Pastor – the reading of those two books – that roused her to a deeper understanding of God. Her Pastor taught her how to pray. Her Pastor taught her how to heal. She felt the power of the spirit of God as Love embracing the entire congregation from her balcony perch.

Our home city eventually became integrated and the church members began to recognize the quality of this Christian woman.  She was never bitter. No one ever heard her complain.  No one ever heard her criticize.  To me, she was a follower of Jesus’ teaching and example of healing forgiveness.  (See Luke 23:34)

So, whenever I’ve been tempted to be critical or complain about “dust-ups” in my church, I think of Mrs. Toles. Whenever a church member wants to talk to me about church problems, I tell them about Mrs. Toles.

She loved her Pastor. She lived the true meaning of Church.  

Church. The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle.
The Church is that institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race,
rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas
and the demonstration of divine Science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick.
MARY BAKER EDDY

Have you heard of Your Daily Lift - and award winning audio podcast (and sometimes video podcast) inspiration series? If not, you may want to check it out!

Today's Lift, "Salt is good" is one of mine. You can also find a blog post that fills out the subject a bit more. I do hope you will listen and share if you find it helpful.

I was recently asked to write up a response the following question for Church Alive, a resource spot for blogs, audio chats, interviews, church experiences, church healings and videos all related to church:

“We have a regular attendee, who has never expressed an interest in joining church, but is always complaining about church activities (criticizing the readers, choice of solo, etc.). After devoting so much time and efforts to church, it’s so frustrating to hear the complaints–particularly from someone who hasn’t been willing to participate. How can we handle this?”       Find my response here.

I love reading the chapter “Prayer” in Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.  True to its title, prayer is described in its many forms, including, but not limited to:

• fervent desire - “Desire is prayer”
• petition - “We can do more for ourselves by humble fervent petitions”
• affirmation - “God is the same ‘yesterday, today and forever’”
• gratitude - “Put the finger on the lips and remember our blessings”
• expression of patience, meekness, love, good deeds  (This count as four)
• stuggle to be good - “The habitual struggle to be always good is unceasing prayer”
• longing, watching, and striving - “will mould and fashion us anew, until we awake in His likeness.” (That is three)

This adds up to 12 forms of prayer, and that is only looking at the first four pages. There are loads more. You might try reading the chapter to find how many more you can find. Read “Prayer” online.

Really, I don’t think anyone hates me. I should say, that if someone thinks they hate me, they don’t really know me. I am lovable.

But I remember one night, sitting outside of my teenage daughter’s locked bedroom door as she screamed “I hate you!” for hours.

I understood. I messed up and embarrassed her in front of her friends. I felt bad and apologized. But that didn’t seem to be enough, and the raging continued.

Finally I had to set aside the sting of those words. They didn’t really count. This was anger talking – anger and embarrassment disguised as hatred. There was only one thing I could do. Sit outside that door and silently love back. For every “I hate you,” I thought, “No, you don’t. You love. No one and nothing can take that love out of you.”

I prayed for hours that night and read hymns to remind me that God loves us all. Love doesn’t count the goof-ups, keeps no record of sins, forgives and opens our hearts to forgiveness. I loved back for every "I hate you" until the house grew quiet and we both slept.

With all the hateful, violent acts perpetrated in the name of some cause, some unhealed hurt, or embarrassment, or anger, or any other form of insanity – I keep thinking, No you don’t, hatred! You do not get to win. If I have to stay up many nights praying to really understand what it means to love those who hate – I will not accept that there is a spot in this universe or a place in a single heart that cannot be reached and healed by love.                      

Divine Love is already there. No one and nothing can take the love of God out of us. Hatred does not win. Not ever. Whatever hate’s mask, Love counters the lie. "And Love is reflected in love." (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, 17)

No matter what is said or done, we are all purpose-built to love and that can never, ever be taken away.

"Love is our refuge; only with mine eye
Can I behold the snare, the pit, the fall:
His habitation high is here, and nigh,
His arm encircles me, and mine, and all."
(from the poem, "Mother’s Evening Prayer", by Mary Baker Eddy, Poems, 3 )

"From the time John the Baptist began preaching until now, the Kingdom of Heaven has been forcefully advancing, and violent people are attacking it." (Matthew 11:12) So said Christ Jesus whose own experience proved that senseless violence cannot stop the advancing of the kingdom of heaven, the perpetual unfoldment of God's goodness and love on earth.

Twentieth century Christian, Mary Baker Eddy, once gave her response to the aggressive, destructive mentality, the evil or error that seeks to betray innocence and massacre life. She wrote, "I will love, if another hates. I will gain a balance on the side of good, my true being. This alone gives me the forces of God wherewith to overcome all error." (Miscellaneous Writings, 104)

As we wrap the wide, strong arms of prayer around the victims in Oak Creek, Wisconsin,  Aurora, Colorado - and of massacres, suicide bombings and violent conflicts occurring worldwide - we should remember two things:

• First, the kingdom of heaven, the universal reign of harmony on earth, has been and is forcefully advancing, no matter how aggressive the resistance to it may be.

• Second, the only effective response to hatred in any form is pure love.

Don't miss a single opportunity to love, no matter how small. Each individual expression of love brings the forces of God's love into play and reveals more of the kingdom of heaven on earth. Let's not overlook the power of love to erase the effects of hate and to comfort those that mourn.

What makes the healing prayer taught in Christian Science distinct from other types of prayer for healing? Mary Baker Eddy devotes an entire book - Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures - to this question. Specifically, page 12 clears up some of the fog and mystery surrounding Christian Science prayer. Interestingly, the discussion begins with a statement of what it is not. The healing prayer practiced in Christian Science is not a human “mind over matter” blind faith-cure method. 

Mrs. Eddy writes, “‘The prayer of faith shall save the sick,’ says the Scripture. What is this healing prayer?  A mere request that God will heal the sick has no power to gain more of the divine presence than is already at hand.” 

If we use prayer something like a balloon or emergency flare we send up, - “Hey, I could really use some help over here on my problem,” - where is God in this prayer?  Circling around somewhere outside the problem, needing our help through prayer to find it and fix it?

Holding sickness at the center of a case and bringing God to it indicates a misunderstanding of the Everpresent One. Spiritual healing involves correcting misperceptions of the who and what and where of God. God is the infinite All – the one reality, power, presence. If we are holding onto a problem, or a disease, to be one fixed reality, which we hope another reality, our God, will come to heal – this is a human “mind over matter" blind faith-cure attempt.

Sometimes faith-cures have positive physical results and sometimes very negative. It all depends on the strength of the human will of the healer acting through his blind belief. But whether the results are good are not, there is no guarantee they will be permanent. And if one’s spiritual understanding of the one reality as God, or Good, isn’t growing, the case can be left in a worse state than before, vulnerable to any new belief – regardless of the appearance of a physical improvement.

As Mrs. Eddy says, "The common custom of praying for the recovery of the sick finds help in blind belief, whereas help should come from enlightened understanding. Changes in belief may go on indefinitely, but they are the merchandise of human thought and not the outgrowth of divine Science."

When it comes to the healing prayer taught in Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy makes an important distinction between a blind belief - holding limited human thoughts about God - and the total yielding to divine Principle, to the Science of God and man, in the human understanding. Mrs. Eddy puts blind belief completely outside of the practice of Christian Science when she explains, “It is neither Science nor Truth which acts through blind belief, nor is it the human understanding of the divine healing Principle as manifested in Jesus, whose humble prayers were deep and conscientious protests of Truth, - of man’s likeness to God and of man’s unity with Truth and Love.”

There we have Mary Baker Eddy’s statement of what constitutes the Christian Science practice of healing prayer, “the human understanding of the divine healing Principle as manifested in Jesus, whose humble prayers were deep and conscientious protests of Truth, - of man’s likeness to God and of man’s unity with Truth and Love.” 

Jesus’ theology of the perfection and spirituality of man as the likeness to perfect Spirit who is God, and of man as inseparable from Truth and Love, heals. When one protests for, affirms with well-reasoned understanding, the truth of God and man, healing is the natural outcome. Health is the outward evidence of an inner truth. Prayer doesn’t change reality, or exchange one form of reality for another. It is the confirmation of Truth’s, God’s presence and the permanence of health in God’s creation. Healing prayer affirms what is real and true, and physical, mental, emotional and spiritual healing confirms the truth.

Jesus said, “To this end was I born… that I should bear witness unto the Truth.” (John 18:37)The same goes for each one of us. Healing is normal to the Christ. It is not a special talent or unique dispensation given to some and denied to others. Christian healing – Christian Science healing - is the natural confirmation of God’s presence and power – His Christ - here and now reflected in us.

PLEASE NOTE: THE FORMER LINKS WERE NON-FUNCTIONING AND HAVE BEEN CHANGED. SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE. 

What does it really mean to be good?  Is good simply a median point on a human scale ranging between bad and great? If so, goodness equates with mediocrity.  If we consider ourselves no better than moderately good, we might also find our moral standard fluctuating in a perpetual struggle to behave better.

The goodness inherent in God’s creation isn’t merely a human value in a range of other values. Mary Baker Eddy recognized good as “the primitive Principle of man.”  (Miscellaneous Writings, p.14). 

The real source of our goodness is God, the universal Principle of divine Good.  Good is God, and God’s goodness is the foundational spiritual essence of who we are. Through consistent, daily prayer, expanding on an understanding of the immense subject of God as Good, we can discover our own true identity, and the goodness – the purity, meekness, receptivity, mercy - we are all capable of.

There is nothing mediocre about the good in you.

God is Spirit, all power, all presence, all active Good.  God is All, with no opposite, and thus no opposition. Because there is nothing to degenerate or attack God, His divine reflection, man, is safe and sealed - that is, incorruptible.

God is unlimited Good and His creation expresses unrestricted, flawless good. Have you ever identified yourself as unlimited, uninhibited, whole, flawless, and expressing divinity? If not, let prayer introduce you to God’s creation – to the real you.

Good isn’t what we strive to be. Good is who we really are. Divine Good is the only Cause, creating you - the perfect effect of Good.

Good is All; it has no opposite. Good has absolute control, total dominion, complete freedom. God didn’t create us to experience or express a part of His goodness.  We reflect all of it, the whole of infinite Good that is God, each in a particular, unique, wonderful, essential, powerful God-caused way. This wholeness constitutes true spiritual individuality.

The Psalmist said, “The LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.” (100:5)

God is Good! And God's goodness is everlasting and endures in His creation. Every one of your prayers to see more of God’s goodness is a lasting generation of truth. Let your prayers give witness to the goodness of God in you, and in all.

"You are never too young to start handling the problem of aging." I was about 18 when I first heard that. You might take it as a recommendation to wash your face and use a good moisturizer, but I knew this person was telling me I should pray to know my ageless, timeless being as a spiritual idea, a reflection of God.

I remember thinking it was a great idea. But I didn't do it.

So when I was in my thirties and developed arthitic symptoms in one of my hands, I felt guilty and scared. All the shoulda, woulda, coulda thoughts hit me like a falling anvil from the Coyote and the Roadrunner cartoons of my youth.

I berated myself with the question, Why didn't I deal with this sooner? Now that the problem had taken hold, it felt too late. Guilt and fear duped me into ignoring the problem for some time. Then the condition worsened and my knuckles became malformed.

Around this time I came across a prophecy in the Bible that reassured me that, no matter what, it is never too late to pray and be healed. Making reference to the power of God to meet the human need at any moment, even when it seems beyond all possible hope, Isaiah wrote, "He will not break off a damaged cattail. He will not even put out a smoking wick." (42:3)

I thought of a flower with a broken stem, and a candle that is snuffed out, with nothing but a plume of smoke to indicate the flame that had once been. Divine Spirit can restore life even where it seems to be completely over.

I stopped condemning myself and started to pray for healing. I can still remember certain elements of that prayer because they produced such memorable and quick results.

I considered a statement from Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "The measurement of life by solar years robs youth and gives ugliness to age. The radiant sun of virtue and truth coexists with being. Manhood is its eternal noon, undimmed by a declining sun." (246)

The leading thought that I took from this was that I was neither growing up to a perfect and eternal noon, neither was I declining from my highest and best. To stop disease from aging me, I had to see myself as eternally spiritual. Spirituality must be understood to be my permanent state and not merely the product of human development.

As I prayed about what it meant to be fully spiritual now, equiped to be and to do anything God prepared for me in life, I looked down at the painful, disfigured knuckles and said aloud to myself, "That has nothing to do with me."

I remember, upon awakening the next day, I discovered my knuckles to be smooth, supple, painless, and restored to their normal color and function - in a word, perfect.

In the years since, no such symptoms have ever recurred.

Sure, we are never too young to handle the problems of aging. Or too old, for that matter. It looks to me like understanding God as Spirit and what it means to be truly and fully spiritual as God's creation, is the key.