 Hey, hey, hey! Look who has a Daily Lift for today. The title of this post gives you a sneak peak into the special message of this brief (2-minute) audio podcast. Want a thorough beauty treatment? Have a listen to "Your Majesty." Many of my Daily Lifts are shortened versions of earlier blog posts. You can read the full version of the original 6/25/12 post. Like it? Please share it. Let's work together to spread the love.
Also, if you aren't yet a subscriber and want to be, it's easy to sign up in the sidebar. You may also wish to: VISIT MY WEBSITE HOME PAGE FIND LINKS TO MY OTHER PUBLISHED CONTENT LISTEN TO A COLLECTION OF MY "YOUR DAILY LIFT" 2-MINUTE PODCASTS - 6/25/2012 Your majesty Christ Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21) To understand the implications of this requires a shift in our reality-view. Each one of God's children expresses the fullness, the majesty of the one divine Mind that is God. Whatever Mind includes, we all include by reflection. Think about it. Because God doesn’t have an outside, you as God’s likeness don’t have an outside. Everything exists within, within your reflected being. So, when you look at huge and majestic mountains or across the grand expanse of an ocean, don’t feel small. As grand as they may seem, they are mere infinitesimal hints of the mass and majesty of you! You include them. You are the greater and you express God’s dominion over them.  A man, looking out at a grand mountain range, once said, “What an amazing and beautiful body I have.” Again, think about it! What was he seeing? Did he understand that what he saw was not external or outside of his infinite being as reflection? He embraced the beauty of his wholeness and man's true body as majestic and fully spiritual. And yet even then, what he saw with his eyes reflected only faintly and minutely his infinite possibilities as God’s image and likeness. In an individual way, each of us reflects omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. This was the message in David's 8th Psalm. He sang, "O LORD our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth! who have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and infants have you ordained strength... "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained; What is man, that you are mindful of him? and the son of man, that you visit him? For you have made him a little lower than the angels, and have crowned him with glory and honor. You made him to have dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet." Christian Science Discoverer Mary Baker Eddy summed it up this way: 'The kingdom of God is within you.' Know, then, that you possess sovereign power to think and act rightly, and that nothing can dispossess you of this heritage and trespass on Love... Each of Christ’s little ones reflects the infinite One and therefore is the seer’s declaration true that 'one on God’s side is a majority.' (Pulpit and Press 3,4) Love it? Please share it. Let's work together to spread the love.
Also, if you aren't yet a subscriber, and would lke to be, it's easy to sign up in the sidebar. You may also wish to: VISIT MY WEBSITE HOME PAGE FIND A LIST OF MY OTHER PUBLISHED CONTENT  A blog reader sent me the link to this 10 minute sermon given last Sunday by Nadia Bolz-Weber at her church, House for All Sinners and Saints, in Denver, Colorado, where she is the founding pastor. She makes some really helpful points, so I am passing it along to you as the Prayer MOJO post for this week. I recommend that you listen to, rather than read, her message, because preaching is a spoken art form. To hear her sermon, be sure your speakers are on, and click the button: If you prefer to read the sermon, the following is the intro. A link at the end will take you to her full text.  "A couple hours ago on Facebook, Catherine posted that she had just seen a snake on her hike. As her pastor I thought it best to reply, “If it starts talking, don’t listen.” "This likely came to mind since I was editing this very sermon about Adam and Eve. The story of the Garden of Eden is what is called an origin story and every culture has theirs. Origin stories tell us how the world came about and where we came from and other important things like why snakes don’t have legs. We think we might know our origin story really well, but in the Genesis account of the Garden of Eden, there actually is no mention of sin, or a fall, or Satan, or temptation, and I hate to break it to you but there wasn’t even an apple involved. Which means the cultural understanding of the story of the Garden of Eden is slightly corrupted. This is due in part to the countless paintings throughout the history of Western art which for some reason portray a tree and a snake and an extremely white Adam and Eve holding a Red Delicious. "See, for generations folks have called the tale of Adam and Eve and the serpent and the forbidden fruit “The Fall from grace” or “The story of Original Sin." "That's a little weird to me. Like, God created the heavens and the Earth and animals and it was like, this awesome all-inclusive primeval club-med for Adam and Eve – they ran naked through the warm sunlight of an idyllic paradise and everything was theirs for the taking – except for that one tree that they were told to steer clear of. And this absolute paradise in the garden between God and Humanity lasted approximately 20 minutes. Until Eve had a chat with a talking snake and then disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit. And because Eve, ate some fruit she was told not to, now all of humanity is cursed and this so-called original sin of Eve’s became sort of like a sexually transmitted disease.  "Because now, according to this version of what the story is about, every person born after that inherited original sin from Eve. That’s right. Eve messed it up for everyone by eating some piece of fruit God told her not to. Which feels kinda unfair to her and kinda unfair to us. But this is what we are told the story is about. "See, religion has taught many of us that the story of Adam and Eve is a story primarily about their disobedience. And that the fracture in the relationship between God and humanity is caused by us breaking God’s arbitrary little rules. So it feels like maybe religion was established just so we could be certain about what rules we need to follow in order for our relationship with God to be a loving, peaceful one. "But this week, after reflecting on several conversations I’ve had with many of you about your lives and identities and the struggles we all have to hear the truth of who we are, well, I started to wonder if the real damage to the relationship between Adam and Eve and God wasn’t the rule breaking nearly as much as it was in allowing themselves to believe lies about themselves and God. See, the serpent lied to them about who they were and who God was and like all the most dangerous lies, these lies the serpent told were just close enough to the truth to be really destructive...." Find full sermon. You wouldn't believe how far your appreciation goes when shared.
If you like what you see in this blog, please pass it along to your friends, fans and followers. Every "like", tweet and share touches many, many people. A full-text version of the blog can be delivered to your email inbox. Please subscribe in the sidebar. You may also wish to: VISIT MY WEBSITE HOME PAGE READ MORE BLOG POSTS FIND A LIST OF MY OTHER PUBLISHED CONTENT 6/11/2012 Life without age or decay 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. I took a closer look at the last photo taken of him. I had no recollection of him like that. He had been 34 years older than me; and yet, even after fifteen years of marriage, I had never noticed the age difference. In my eyes, he never acted or looked older. 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 his life that way. So, we didn’t see him that way either. I can only remember him as strong and handsome, vibrant and active. The photo may have captured the world’s belief about age, but he never looked like that. Some months after the photo incident, I read an account of a woman whose child had drowned at about eighteen months. Seven or so years later, the mother still deeply grieved. Praying to have the heaviness lifted off her heart one afternoon, the mom fell asleep and dreamed. She saw a young woman, beautiful, who looked to be in her late twenties. The woman said to her, "I am happy, don't be sad." When she awakened, the grief was gone.  Had she seen her daughter in the dream? According to a mortal timeline, the child would have only been 8 or 9. But it occurred to the mom that she had seen her daughter – but not as a mortal or a ghost. She glimpsed the eternal idea of God, reflected by her daughter – beautiful, healthy and alive. She realized that while she, the mom, had believed her daughter had passed through mortal stages of infancy and toddlerhood, and that then her life had been brutally interrupted; that, in fact, she had only and always existed at her highest and best, as the mature and 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) Mary Baker Eddy wrote in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "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 and old age are simply mortal, limited views of a spiritual being that only ever exists at its highest and most beautiful?  A year or so after my husband passed on, I also 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 saw him – active, healthy, brimming with purpose. I didn’t see an age or stage. In fact, he seemed ageless. Pulling these pieces together in thinking about true being, I have a whole new sense of existence at “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). God’s creation exists right now at its highest and best. That is how God, as Mind, creates and reveals each one of us, His perfect ideas. We are neither dimmed by decline nor needing to grow brighter to reach our noon. We are always the brightest and best. Each one of us! And this day is about recognizing some yet undiscovered (but very present) aspect of our brilliance – true spiritual being at its eternal noon - and simply letting it shine.  Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. I have set the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because 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; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. (Psalm 16:5-11, NIV) If you like what you see in this blog, please share the link with your friends, fans and followers!
A full-text version of the blog can be delivered to your email inbox. Please subscribe in the sidebar. You may also wish to: VISIT MY WEBSITE HOME PAGE READ MORE BLOG POSTS FIND A LIST OF MY OTHER PUBLISHED CONTENT  “Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth and wipeth her mouth and saith, I have done no wickedness.” Proverbs 30:20
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy devotes a lot of attention to food and our relationship with it. I don’t think other conditions get quite as much attention in the book as do food-related problems, except maybe tuberculosis (referred to as consumption). Christ Jesus gave the subject a good airing in the Sermon on the Mount. He said, “Take no thought... saying, What shall we eat? Or, What shall we drink?” (Matthew 6:31) How many of us have used those words as a justification for overindulging, under-eating, or making unbalanced food choices? 1/26/2012 No peeking while seeking healing (The story in today's blog comes to me third-hand. It is the report of someone else who was told the story by someone directly involved, rather than from my own personal knowledge as a witness. But I have great confidence in the source.)
A mother asked for help through prayer for her baby who had been paralyzed from the waist down since birth. The mom prayed, too. But she became discouraged each day at bath time as her infant lay motionless in the tub. Demoralized, she called the Christian Science practitioner and explained how she would pray all morning to see the perfection of God's creation expressed in this child. Then at bath time she would be so disappointed to see that nothing had changed. 10/25/2011 A kinder, gentler approach to your body I am happy to say that this blog post has now been published by the Christian Science Journal and has been made available to read online. I have kept the keywords and links found in the original blog for your reference here. And the photos! because they really do make a post fun.
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I have practiced Christian Science professionally in some form since 1979. But my journey with Christian Science started in a Sunday school where as a young child I was taught the Scriptures and some simple basics of Jesus' method of scientific Christian healing. A significant experience at the age of twelve opened my eyes to the great potential of this practice. After impaling my foot on a nail, I prayed the way I had learned in Sunday school. Within moments the pain stopped and healing began. By the next morning the wound had disappeared completely. Having experienced the great potential of Christian Science, there would be no turning back. |
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