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3/30/2014 Rats. Yes, rats. Even a rat can be seen in a spiritual light. Not just cute animated Disney rats, like Remy of Ratatouille fame, but real rats are intelligent, dexterous, and purposeful. The rat of God’s creating isn’t destructive or dangerous. Rats manifest the Life that is God. Life is being. It is that which continually unfolds, expressing spontaneity, activity, continuity, and the unlimited supply of good. Life is God – the eternal I am that can’t be extinguished. Life operates in complete wholeness and harmony. Life is Mind, infinite intelligence, not molecule. Life is imperishable Spirit, not matter. Life is joy, vigor, animation, purpose, and endless variety. Life is fun. And Life is expressed throughout creation. The divine idea of a rat expresses only the positive qualities of the Life that is God. My current favorite example of this is seen in the HeroRats that are being specially trained by a Belgian NGO to sweep prior warzones in Mozambique. Their sharp sense of smell allows them to sniff out the location of buried landmines faster and safer than humans, dogs, or machinery can do. These rats are life-savers. Here's a YouTube video that gives you a glimpse into their lives. You may never look at a rat the same way again. Not a subscriber and want to be?
It's easy! Just 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  There is a divine Principle in which we can have total confidence. It's an infallible, absolute, invariable, concrete and substantial Principle that provides security in life. In Christian Science, divine Principle is another way of describing God - not a man on a throne, a superhuman god - but that which is the cause and source of all that is true and good. If it doesn't meet the criteria of being true AND good, it doesn't correspond with the order of Principle. The divine Principle of life is powerful, strong, illuminating, liberating. Principle is real. It is a present help in any situation. Principle is just, impartial, available, universal, unconfined and glorious. Divine Principle is the fundamental basis of everything, the origin and ultimate of all that is real. Principle is stable, positive, precise and demonstrable. It commands obedience, integrity, health and harmony. Why? Because divine Principle reproduces its own characteristics. The divine Principle is perfectly reflected in its own creation. True law (that which under-girds human justice and is unassailable by variable opinions) is an attribute of this Principle. That is, the law that counts, the law that protects and enforces good is sourced in Principle. Two verses from the Bible shed light on this Principle: Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all. Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all; and in thine hand is power and might; and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all. (I Chronicles 29) Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. (James 1:17, 18)  The divine Principle of life is Love, universal and divine Love. If you feel the term Principle seems distant or cold, think of divine Love and you will have a good idea of it. One of my favorite things to think about is that Principle without Love would be like steel - cold, hard and unyielding. And Love without Principle would be like jam - lacking structure, stability or form. But Principle IS Love - perfectly balanced in strength and tenderness, in power and affection, in authority and support. Christian Science discoverer Mary Baker Eddy uses imagery that I think describes so well the tenderness of divine Principle, when she writes of the ocean, "able to carry navies, yet yielding to the touch of a finger." (The First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany, 121) With an understanding of God as divine Principle comes a sense of the omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence of the law of good. And with it we can begin to drop the sense of limitation in God or in his creation - the spiritual man and the spiritual universe. Divine Principle is expressed through its own laws, in its own kingdom - the kingdom of all that is real and permanent - the realm of Spirit. The concept of another realm or another control - ie matter or material law - is an illusion that a better understanding of the divine Principle erases. Christ Jesus walked on water in direct violation of material law, but in obedience to the spiritual law of Love. This gave him complete mastery over the wind and waves. Moses divided the Red Sea in disobedience to the laws of physics that would render the act impossible. But his obedience to Principle and His unswerving commitment to follow Love's leading out of Egyptian bondage opened the way to demonstrating the higher spiritual law that was in place and accessible to him. Matter and material law are not a real substance to be controlled, improved, healed, by turning to divine Principle in prayer. Prayer that reveals that there is only one true Principle or law, one true substance of life - Spirit - adjusts our reality view. Spirit is expressed in the spirituality that breaks the illusion of matter and its so-called laws, restrictions and problems. A miracle fulfills God's law, but does not violate that law. (Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, 134 )  Miracles aren't really exceptional. What many term a miracle is the natural activity of the divine Principle that is understood to be God in Christian Science. In the beginning of my public practice I had a case that resulted in a resuscitation of life from death. As it turned out, it wasn't more or less difficult a case than any other. I was on my knees hand-washing the kitchen floor when the call came explaining that a person had died. I was asked to pray by the nurse in attendance. I did. I knelt back down and continued washing the tile as I prayed. My prayer was a gentle, yet firm, affirmation that the divine Life that is God is manifest normally and continually - that is, that neither God nor his creation can be interrupted in being. The normal activity of man, under the perpetual control of the Principle of life, only includes the expression of the Life that is God, not death. I was aware of the ease with which I returned to washing my floor after the call. I hadn't been shocked by the news. I then realized that this man, too, could continue with his day without being shocked by the belief that life could suddenly end, when it couldn't. Life really is eternal. My words, here, seem somewhat feeble to explain the deep significance of what I saw of spiritual reality in that prayer. My prayer wasn't difficult or complicated. It was completely logical and natural. I wasn't a bit afraid. I didn't feel I was engaged in a great battle with death. My prayer was a simple witness to the divine Principle of life that holds all creation in Life, God, without rupture, without interruption. The patient revived. Ten or so minutes after his sudden decease, he sat up - and not in a state of recovery, but in a better state of health than before he passed. And he continued on in good health. This kind of things happens more often than we may realize. To go deeper as you consider Principle, remember that:
The divine Principle that is God holds you completely secure in life. Like? Please share. Let's spread the good.
Not a subscriber and want to be? It's easy! Just 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  Is it possible for us to live without fear of deterioration, aging, disease and death? I take on this question in my lecture Unending Life Within Your Reach, now available online for the next few weeks. Sponsored by First Church of Christ, Scientist, Watford, Hertfordshire, UK, the lecture was recorded live at the Palace Theatre in Watford on January 21, 2014. This one hour lecture introduces a Christian Science perspective of life before birth, the human experience and immortality. It presents the life of Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science, in the context of the religious and scientific questioning of her time on the subject of life and the afterlife. It addresses common questions about Christian Science and its contemporary practice:
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The readership of this blog is growing by leaps and bounds due to readers like you - sharing, emailing, tweeting, and posting the link so that others can find it. If you wish to subscribe, simply scroll up and submit your email in the box shown 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  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. To be sure you don't miss something,
you can have new posts delivered to your email inbox. Simply subscribe in the sidebar. And if this post is meaningful to you, it may also help others. Please share! 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
Jesus made his first unique appearance as a baby born to a virgin. This indicated off the bat the special nature of his relationship to the Christ. He may have appeared to those around him to be a fragile infant, but he wasn’t weak. He came to this world with an already developing understanding of His nature as God’s Son. Where did this understanding come from? He later would explain what he knew of his eternity. He said, “Before Abraham was, I am.” See the switch? Where you and I might consider life as occurring on a limited human timeline – the was and will be line beginning with birth and ending in death – Christ Jesus lived on the is line of eternity, where existence isn’t broken down into was, is and will be, but simply always is. Jesus' well-developed spiritual sense allowed him to see his own eternity, and this gave him power and authority over fear, sin, disease and death. Christ Jesus experienced life - his and everyone's - as immortal. His sense of himself included the knowledge of life before human birth and the continuity of his forever life as God’s son. What Jesus explained about real life came from a personal knowledge of God, not only as his Source, his Father, but as the real Father and Mother of us all. Jesus was a revelator of the eternal Christ, the eternal expression of divine Life. The Christ-message to humanity, that life is eternal and that we had better get on with living our real life free of sin and sorrow and hate, is just as important to us today as it was when Jesus walked the earth. Jesus gave us an example to follow, through his words and life, that develops in us our innate spiritual sense and leads to the understanding of real life as eternal. "When mortal mind is silenced by the "still, small voice" of Truth that regenerates philosophy and logic; and Jesus, as the true idea of Him, is heard as of yore saying to sensitive ears and dark disciples, "I came from the Father," "Before Abraham was, I am," coexistent and coeternal with God, — and this idea is understood, — then will the earth be filled with the true knowledge of Christ." To be sure you don't miss something,
you can have new posts delivered to your email inbox. Simply subscribe in the sidebar. And if this post is meaningful to you, it may also help others. Please share! 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 6/11/2012 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  I was out on an early morning run. It was a tough one. I was huffing and puffing heavily, when I usually run with great ease. And I watched as my thought lapsed into a familiar pattern … 1) to blame myself or my training for a difficult run, “What did I do wrong?” 2) to start recalculating my training to avoid future bad runs. “What do I need to change or avoid the next time?” Then I realized that running, like all activity, is more than just a physical event. Life and its action aren’t brain, bone, muscle, and lung function. Life is God, omnipresent, powerful vitality. Life is expressed throughout God’s creation in the joy of being and doing. Running is an outlet, an outward expression of this joy. I was measuring my success as a runner by whether I was having an easy or a tough day. If it was easy, I attributed that to good training. If difficult, I must have been doing something wrong. The fact is, as a reflection of divine Life, I am a good runner – a full reflection of the vitality of divine Life – even if I don’t ever put my running shoes on. And so are you. But the joy of being an expression of Life impels us to demonstrate that joy and get up and move.  Tough days, whether in running or any other aspect of daily experience, aren’t a statement about one’s goodness. The degree of difficulty in doing something doesn’t tell us anything about divine Life. Tough days, like tough runs, simply reflect the general resistance on any given day to the fact that the God is Life and Life is Spirit and is reflected spiritually – not in matter. In running, for example, tough days are about resistance, not about the effectiveness (or goodness) of the runner. In other words, resistance (any backward, downward, material drag) is not personal. When meeting resistance, we can ask ourselves - Am I seeing myself as a a work in progress, as a mortal progressing towards spirituality? Or am I Spirit’s full reflection now, hence already spiritual? Because God’s children reflect God who is Spirit, the heat of resistance to our present spirituality isn’t personal. But it is our work to master that resistance through the understanding of what it means to be God’s reflection, on any given day. The true and simple theology of Christ is that we are spiritual and perfect as God himself is Spirit and perfect. And we are capable of expressing our spirituality, with the freedom and vitality it includes, every single day. Christ Jesus set the standard of how to properly identify ourselves as God’s image or reflection, when he said, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48) In fact, God’s creation reflects perfect Life every moment. Pain, discomfort or fear on any given day, are simply material resistance to that fact. It isn’t personal. The resistance isn’t yours or mine. But we do have to take up the case. Our job is to keep the focus on the real Life we are living - the joy and harmony and eternity that is being expressed in us right now.  Mary Baker Eddy explained, "Controlled by divine intelligence, man is harmonious and eternal." (Science and Health, 184) That isn’t something we have to make happen. We are already there. This is our spiritual foundation and starting point in prayer – perfect God and perfect man. It will be tested. But, so what? It isn’t personal. Challenges are just momentary resistance - a case to be treated and released. We can do all things through Christ – through the understanding Christ Jesus gave of God as perfect Life, divine Spirit, and harmonious Mind. This Christ is revealing our perfection, our natural divine intelligence, which is the real controller. The Christ is telling us that we are each God’s child, harmonious and eternal – now and always. If you like what you see in this blog, please share the link with your friends, fans and followers!
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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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© 2011-2024 Michelle Boccanfuso Nanouche, CSB. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy. Site updated November 25, 2024
© 2011-2024 Michelle Boccanfuso Nanouche, CSB. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy. Site updated November 25, 2024