 Have you ever watched a baseball game and seen how the pitcher intently leans in toward the catcher to pick up the signal for the next pitch? Sometimes he gives a quick little head-shake that says: "No!" Then he leans in again looking for a different signal. If it still doesn’t feel right, for sure, he will give another authoritative "No!" Pitchers have to make immediate decisions about a catcher’s suggestions. Catchers will advise, but it’s always the pitcher’s call when it comes to deciding on which signal to act on. When a pitch finally comes that he can agree with, he will straighten up, set himself, and throw the baseball with all his might. Sometimes thoughts are presented to us a bit like those pitch recommendations. But how quick are we to shake off the bad ones and ready ourselves for a better idea? I've seen time and again in my practice of Christian Science that folks worry about why negative, unhealthy thoughts have come to them, instead of just simply dismissing them and moving on to a better thought. We do have a choice about the signals we respond to and the ones we simply shake off with a quick and definitive "No!"  I don’t imagine a pitcher scratches his head and asks, “Is it my fault you are calling for this pitch?” Neither does he stand up and take a moment to ruminate, “Why, that is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.” No. Pitchers know that not every signal is worth acting on, and it is a waste of time to engage with them in any way. Have you ever suddenly felt despondent, irritated, confused or sad? “No!” can be a powerful prayer. When saying “No!” to fear, to mulling, to owning negative feelings and behaviors, we can do more than simply go into a state of denial. Every “No!” opposing a negative suggestion can be a big, welcoming “Yes!” to the next better thought. A progressive “No!” includes expectancy that a right idea - a God-authored good idea – is available to be acted upon right away. This little scene of the catcher and pitcher came to me one afternoon when I was just about to let a silent, mental tirade get launched. I was irritated with someone who was interfering with a project, and I was getting all kinds of signals to react negatively. But instead of being clogged, stymied and sidelined by negative mental chatter, I realized I could say “No!” to the roiling thoughts, and listen for a better idea. And healing ideas came. Of course they did! And as they did, all the irritation and frustration stopped hounding me. The project was soon back on track and we were able to complete our work together with no further complications.  Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, says, “Truth is affirmative, and confers harmony.” (418) The Truth referred to here is God. A strong and clear “No!” to wrong can include the affirmation of the present and available good ideas that God gives us. This is the kind of All-Star thinking that brings harmony to any aspect of our lives.
No matter what the negative suggestions may be, you have the power to say “No!” God's ever-available help, love and care, are right there with you leading you to the best pitch, which is never any further than the next thought away. Our new guest blogger, Lois Herr, CSB, is a Christian Science practitioner and teacher in Virginia, USA. Feel free to give her your feedback in your comment below. You can also be in touch with her directly @ [email protected]. 5/28/2013 Stop the turbulence I love long flights. They give me time to think and pray... and nap! On one trip, high above the Atlantic, things rocked and rolled with heavy turbulence. I was shaken from sleep, not only by the movement but, by the murmurs of fellow passengers. For a few moments, fear seemed to be drawing all oxygen from the plane, taking my breath with it. But, instead of succumbing, I fought back with the only tool I had to defeat it. I prayed. I thought about God as my Life - That I am always safe in Life, never powerless or alone. That I am safely hid with Christ in God, the divine Life of all, where no evil or terror can reach me. Within seconds the crazy shaking stopped and calm returned. Was it luck? Chance? I can't tell you how many times I have observed this phenomenon of sudden peace resulting from prayer on airplanes and in other situations where big shake ups have threatened to take me out. Once the fear is faced and dismantled by an understanding of God and my relation to Him, turbulence in whatever form just stops cold. Just today, I was on my way to the airport when one problem after another seemed to shake me up. A bus driver was driving erratically while yelling at someone on his cellphone, making several people on the bus, including me, sick from the motion; a suspected bomb at the airport blocked the path between the train station and my terminal; several technical problems in my hotel room required four different maintenance workers to spend a long time fixing things. "I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?" NEHEMIAH 6:3  In the middle of the latest hoopla in my room, I opened the Bible to the story of Nehemiah and his team rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem. He was confronted by one problem after another that attempted to derail his project. The book of Nehemiah recounts that two opponents of the building plan sent a message to Nehemiah saying, "Come, let us meet together in some one of the villages in the plain of Ono." But Nehemiah recognized that the invitation was a trap. Four times they tried to get him to go to Ono, and each time Nehemiah refused. Then the fifth time, they tried an extra convincing argument, one they were certain he would fall for, and Nehemiah stood firm, knowing that God was strengthening him for his work and protecting the fulfillment of his good purpose. That was the last he heard from the troublemakers. The project was finished and the wall was built with success. (Nehemiah, Chapter 6) When I read the account, I had to chuckle at the play on words between Nehemiah's Ono and my "Oh, no!" - a place where I had been tempted to go several times today. As I read the account of how Nehemiah stood firm against the turbulence and upset of interruption, I realized that I, too, could turn from "Oh no!" to prayer. My prayer was a heartfelt protest: "Oh, no I will not be stopped from the peaceful period of preparation that I need for my lecture tonight. Oh, no I will not accept disruption and turmoil as acceptable or normal today. This is God's perfect day and both I and my lecture are safe and protected in it." Not five seconds after that prayer, the room full of maintenance men emptied. Everything works. Peace and order reigns. Mary Baker Eddy explained, "Evil has no power, no intelligence, for God is good, and therefore good is infinite, is All." (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, 398) Prayer that stands up to fear and fuss draws its authority from the fact that disturbances don't have real substance or power. Really, you gotta love what prayer can do. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee... LORD, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us. ISAIAH 26:3,12 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 2/25/2013 Up, like the eagle If a serpent works its way into an eagle's nest and begins to wrap itself around the feet and legs of the mighty bird, what should the eagle do? If he looks down and fights, he risks being bitten. But if he takes wing and flies up high above that nest, the serpent will ultimately drop away and fall by its own weight. Here is God's message to the children of Israel, explaining this very process: "Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you unto Myself." Exodus 19:4
The LORD his God be with him, and let him go up. II Chronicles 36:23 I hope you enjoy this blog. And if you do, please feel free to share it!
If having a new blog posts delivered to your email inbox would interest you, you can subscribe 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 11/22/2012 Grateful for Grace Grace is a long-ago friend who pushed me forward on my spiritual journey. At a mental lowpoint, with my life-prospects feeling awfully narrow, Grace insisted that I pray for myself for an hour each morning. Even better, she had me write down my prayer so that I could prove to her and to myself that I did it. Life-changing. Life-saving. That discipline of daily, thorough prayer for myself, established through her encouragement, has served me well. Shortly after, I lost track of Grace. I always wished we would meet up again so I could tell her what her help meant to me. As the decades passed, I contented myself to thank God for His grace and for His Grace. Then a week ago, thirty-one years later, we were at the same place at the same time. I finally got to thank Grace! Is there someone who has made a contribution to your life that you long to thank? The links in today's post will take you to other Thanksgiving blog messages around the web. I hope you will click on them and meet more inspired bloggers. Happy Thanksgiving to you! Pure humanity, friendship, home, the interchange of love, I hope you enjoy this blog. And if you do, I doubly hope you will share it!
If having a full-text version delivered to your email inbox would interest you, you can find the subscription box in the sidebar. You may also wish to: VISIT MY WEBSITE HOME PAGE FIND LINKS TO MY OTHER PUBLISHED CONTENT  What grandmother isn’t delighted to help care for her newborn grandson? When my daughter asked me to help her with her new baby, I was a delighted grandmother! I had visions of holding the little one in a rocking chair, singing lullabies, putting him over my shoulder and patting him on the back. There was just one wrinkle in this happy scenario. When I arrived at my daughter’s home, I was greeted by a very large, very black dog. And, as I soon discovered, a very ill dog. My daughter and I hugged each other and she introduced me to Eli, an adorable, plump little boy, and to her dog, Pneuma, a not so adorable, skinny dog. Very soon I had many opportunities to rock Eli in the rocking chair, pat him on the back, and change his diapers. It was fun! … but then there was that dog.  Since my daughter and son-in-law were taking some college courses during the day, it was up to me to care for baby and dog while they were away. Pnuema refused to eat. He also, I discovered, tended to spit up on the floor from time to time. I had not bargained for dog clean-up duty. So I just covered those spit-up places with paper towels for my son-in-law to deal with when he got home. I tried to get Pneuma to eat by putting some candy in his dog food. Maybe a little sweet taste would tempt him. Not so much. He walked away from his food dish. Then I woke up. I realized that the trouble was not in the dog. It was in me. Instead of loving the dog, I was resenting him. I had been deceptive, trying to trick him into eating. I had selfishly left the clean-up duty to my son-in-law. And I was leaving this loved pet out of my prayers. This had to change! I vowed to embrace him in my daily spiritual study and prayer, and I began changing my attitude.  While I rocked the baby, I patted Pneuma on the head and my compassion for him deepened. I filled his dog dish with his favorite food and left it up to him to eat or not. And, I cleaned up after him, much to my son-in-law’s relief. As I opened my spiritual guide-book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, I remembered it had something to say about the Bible term wind (pneuma in Greek). It is defined, in part, as that which indicates “the movements of God’s spiritual government, encompassing all things.” (p. 597). It was a nice, sunny, breezy day so I grabbed a blanket, Pneuma, and the baby, and went outside to sit under a tree. I wanted to feel the gentle breeze and to ponder the spiritual meaning of wind (pneuma). I thought, God’s government surely is harmonious, orderly and just. It is perpetual and uninterrupted. It embraces each of us, governs all of us. I thought of Pneuma the dog as God’s perfect, spiritual creation, completely in His control. I felt a wave of assurance that all was well.  The next morning, when I came downstairs, Pneuma was standing in front of the dining room window, the sunlight filling the room. He looked like one of those scrawny, dying cows that one sees in photos of drought or famine. I thought: “Humph, that’s just a picture of death. It is not dog!” In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ Jesus taught his disciples to heal with “Yes” and “No” thoughts – that is affirmations of God’s true creation, and firm and forthright denials of what has nothing to do with God’s good creative work (see Matthew 5:33-36). My prayers did just that. I recognized and affirmed the perfection of Pneuma as under the perfect control of God, and I saw perfectly clearly that disease had no part of God’s idea of a dog. Pneuma began to eat that very day. He quit spitting up and quickly returned to normal health. God loves every part of His spiritual creation. And when we reflect the love of the divine Love that is God, we become witnesses to pneuma, to the powerful healing government of God, that leaves no one and nothing out. Did this get you thinking? Please share it!
And for a full-text version delivered to your email inbox, you can find the subscription box in the sidebar. You may also wish to: VISIT MY WEBSITE HOME PAGE FIND LINKS TO MY OTHER PUBLISHED CONTENT 10/24/2012 How do I love me? A blog reader (and patient) who will remain anonymous has been encouraging me to write a post on the importance of loving oneself. A couple of days ago, she wrote me an email explaining how important this concept has been to her in recent days. I asked if she was willing for her thoughts to be shared on the blog. Her reply? "Of course." So here you go! From an email dated Saturday, October 20, 2012: The injunction "Love thy neighbor as thyself" has been popping into my mind for the last few days, and I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. I think most of us would find it not too hard - at least in most cases—to maybe not love, but at least like our neighbor. But us? Love ourselves? Even like ourselves? No way!  Once I asked a dear friend if she loved herself and she looked me in the eye and said, “I don’t even know what that means.” And she was love itself, a church-goer, generous to a fault, devoting all her time to helping others. How could she not know what that meant? I think lots of people would throw up their hands in horror if asked the same question. Yet all through the Bible, the subject is God’s great love for us. So I was asking myself, what's wrong? In the Bible there is a lot of talk about self-abnegation, self-sacrifice, and selfless love. Also, original sin. And to me, it’s this notion that we are basically sinners and worthless, therefore unworthy of love, that seems to have gotten the upper hand. So the idea of loving oneself has become twisted into being irrelevant or into seeming like an ego trip of self-absorption or self-indulgence, to be rejected entirely by anyone seeking salvation. And then appears the natural extension of this neglecting to love oneself - self-hatred. I think we have the wrong idea of love and of Love. And it is a better understanding of Love, of God as an unchanging Principle, teaching us to love even ourselves, that makes Christian Science revolutionary.  In Retrospection and Introspection, Mary Baker Eddy writes, “Art thou unacquainted with thyself? Then be introduced to this self. Know thyself!” Over these past several days when you have been working for me, I have begun to understand that knowing myself has to do with loving myself. That is, to know myself, and love my real self, I must see myself as Love sees me. And “love is patent, love is kind.” So a healing has come. I can see that because God says I am loved and loveable, it’s being said and done and can’t be contradicted. I can yield, accept. Understanding this has overturned all the bad I’d been told about myself ever since I was little. And the baseless anger that had been eating at me for several months has just dissolved. I have become more patient and kind. I have totally quit bashing myself for anything and everything. And I have decided to love no matter what. Me. Others. Often expressed in just a smile, or even merely a pleasant expression. And in return I’ve had such blessings. Love it? Please share it!
For a full-text version delivered to your email inbox, you can find the subscription box in the sidebar. You may also wish to: VISIT MY WEBSITE HOME PAGE FIND LINKS TO MY OTHER PUBLISHED CONTENT 10/13/2012 It's not too late to stop this disease Feeling cornered by disease? Is doubt or fear wearing away your confidence in being healthy again? Take a lesson from Isaiah's playbook. Called by Hezekiah when an enemy army was advancing with the intent to decimate his city, Isaiah prayed a prayer so significant, so powerful, that it merited two accounts in separate books of the Bible - II Kings and Isaiah - and with results so effective that they received a third mention in II Chronicles, chapter 32. Isaiah's prayer stopped the deadly enemy cold, thundering to its finale: "Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord. For I will defend this city, to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake." (II Kings 19:32-34, Isaiah 37:33-35) Let me break this down. In its spiritual signification, "the king of Assyria" represents any thought or condition that bullies or threatens to wipe us out. In his conclusion, Isaiah explains, point by point, the power of divine Love to protect us against four specific tactics of this enemy. It shall not:
 Well before any actual battle, Hezekiah faced aggressive threats from the enemy. The king of Assyria sent a messenger to announce his plans to destroy the city. The intent was, of course, to undermine Hezekiah's confidence and increase his fear. Hezekiah was afraid and felt defeated long before any actual fighting. So when Isaiah came to his side and declared that God wouldn't allow it - that evil would not, could not enter and take the city - his message was like a good rain to thirsty soil. The results were immediately evident. And graphic. "And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses." An undeniably effective outcome.  I learned about Isaiah's prayer when I was suffering from a case of pneumonia that was taking me down fast. I felt both invaded and pervaded by disease. The fact that I had been praying for healing for a considerable time, and yet the symptoms worsened, was eating away at my spiritual resolve. I didn't understand this resistance to healing and the persistence of my suffering. When I came across Isaiah's prayer, it almost seemed to arrive too late. The disease had already gotten in. The enemy was well entrenched. Or so I thought. The following explanations from pages 426 and 427 of Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, helped me identify the real nature of the enemy. They helped me understand how to apply Isaiah's prayer to my case. Eddy wrote, "When it is learned that disease cannot destroy life, and that mortals are not saved from sin or sickness by death, this understanding will quicken into newness of life. It will master either a desire to die or a dread of the grave, and thus destroy the great fear that besets mortal existence... [Emphasis added] "The human concepts named matter, death, disease, sickness, and sin are all that can be destroyed... "Death is but another phase of the dream that existence can be material. Nothing can interfere with the harmony of being nor end the existence of man in Science."  I realized that the disease symptoms were nothing more than the messages being sent ahead by the enemy, trying to intimidate me and wear down my confidence in God and my spiritual resolve. Neither my body, nor pneumonia were the enemy. Even death wasn't the actual enemy because it would eventually be proved that man doesn't live or die in matter. No. The enemy bearing down on me was the fear of death. And I could do something about that. It wasn't too late to work with Isaiah's prayer. Here is a look into some of my reasoning.
 As Isaiah saw regarding Hezekiah's enemy, so it was for mine. "By the way that he came" (from the nowhere of fear) "by the same shall he return" (to the nothingness of fear).
The pneumonia was stopped dead in its tracks. The black cloud of fear that had threatened me with aggressive symptoms dissipated completely. I was well. Don't be fooled into fighting an unreal enemy. The culprit is not disease. Your body doesn't hate you.The great enemy is always fear. It's never too late - NEVER TOO LATE - to stop fear and disease cold. This is an edited repost of an article that originally appeared on this blog on February 20, 2012.  Hey, hey! Today's Your Daily Lift (a two minute podcast by Christian Science lecturers, airing five days a week) tells the story of something amazing that happened on a road trip in the north of England.
You can click one the sheep below to find it in English or in French. Also available is an expanded text of the lift in this blog post.  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:
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. 8/7/2012 A faith that isn't blind 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. Helpful? Can you think of someone who could be helped by this blog? Please share.
Also, if you aren't yet a subscriber, a full-text version of the blog can be delivered to your email inbox. It's easy to sign up 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 7/30/2012 The simple theology that heals Christian Science has this beautiful, clear, pure, spiritual simplicity to it. The entire theology can be boiled down to a few basic points: 1) God exists. 2) God is good. 3) God is all. 4) The universe, including man, is the reflection of God. 5) There is no evil. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, explained that her work consisted of 2 parts: 1) Discovery of this Science – of these five basic points 2) Proof by present demonstration that this is the Principle by which Jesus healed. We can’t have the discovery without the proof. Mrs. Eddy discovered the action of the divine Mind on human minds and bodies. But limited mortal thought patterns have worn a groove in collective human consciousness, probing, diagnosing and picking apart matter as both cause and effect. Hence we are drawn into thinking that problems are material and thus complicated or difficult to heal. For Christ Jesus, theology and medicine were one. Jesus’ theology is simple and clear. God is all, Good. Evil is nothing, unreal. What we face in every case is a challenge to the simple theology of the Christ. Can we depend on the fact that God is good? Can we prove it? Is man really reflection – the image and likeness of God? Can we demonstrate it?  Every case touches on a theological question. The task of a Christian healer is to simply answer the question and watch the proof appear. The work should always be this simple. But it isn’t without opposition. That which Mrs Eddy named mortal mind – limited, matter-based reasoning that generates doubt and fear - would make the task of healing seem complicated, unclear and difficult. Fear and doubt impel us to overwork, or underwork the healing activity of prayer, to doubt our experience with the Christ, to change methods repeatedly and ultimately let the problem run the case. I received a phone call from a father whose child had jumped from a tree house and injured his calf. It appeared to be broken. I was asked to pray for him while the family sorted out the practical care. When I hung up the phone I immediately thought, Well, God, what do you have to say about this? I had Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures open on my desk. My eyes fell on a statement of Jesus found on page 45, “Spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” Looking up from the book, I thought, Don’t be fooled by the picture of flesh and bones. That is not who this child really is. His substance is Spirit. All that he is and has comes from the Spirit that is God. It seemed such a simple response to the theological question, Is this boy the image and likeness of God?  As I considered the implications in prayer – that he was in fact spiritual and that anything pro or con going on with flesh and bones didn’t touch him – a doubt cropped up. I wanted to be sure I was getting the message correctly. I wondered, But wasn’t Jesus just talking about himself? Then I turned the page and read, “The divine Spirit, which identified Jesus thus centuries ago, has spoken through the inspired Word and will speak through it in every age and clime. It is revealed to the receptive heart, and is again seen casting out evil and healing the sick.” (46) OK, I thought, so Spirit knows this child the same way it knew Jesus - as perfect, spiritual, whole, unbroken, invulnerable, unfallen. The same Spirit voicing truth through Jesus' words to his disciples was communicating to me in the inspired Word of Science and Health in this age. My receptive heart was accepting the message. Then up popped a fear. Can it be this easy? What about the broken bone? Don’t I have to do something about this in my prayer? I looked down once again at the book and read the next phrase as though it was being spoken with force, “The Master said plainly that physique was not Spirit…” I remembered Jesus’ instruction in the Sermon on the Mount and thought of it in relation to prayer, “Let your statement be, 'Yes, yes ' or 'No, no'; anything beyond these is of evil." Matthew 5:37 I needed to say Yes, Yes to the plain and simple reality of unbroken, uninterrupted spiritual being. And I needed to say a direct and clear No, No to the physical belief that the child was material and breakable.  That was it. I consented and said YES, YES. In fact, I was so taken by what I was saying YES to, that I forgot the case entirely and continued reading. The phone rang about 30 minutes later. It was the mother. She told me that two minutes after they placed the call, she was holding her son and praying to know what to do next. They had discussed calling an ambulance or driving him to the hospital. Then they heard a distinct sound coming from his leg “like the sound of a zipper.” And he was healed just like that. The pure simple theology of the Christ is revealed. And it heals. Love it? Please share it for others to enjoy.
Let's work together to share the love. Also, if you aren't yet a subscriber, a full-text version of the blog can be delivered to your email inbox. It's easy to sign up 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 2/15/2012 Cancer healed On Wednesdays throughout the world, people gather in churches and in groups to share what they have seen and experienced of God's, Truth's, healing power. You hear some pretty amazing things at a Wednesday evening testimony meeting in a Christian Science church. It's not who is speaking or even how the story is told that makes this sharing so special. One feels the power and presence and love of God, through Christ, that heals. In the Church Manual, Mary Baker Eddy wrote, "More than a mere rehearsal of blessings, it scales the pinnacle of praise and illustrates the demonstration of Christ, "who healeth all thy diseases" (Psalm 103:3)." Here is my testimony.
In 2001 I began exhibiting symptoms of breast cancer. My mother had a mastectomy a few years earlier. My aunt also had a mastectomy, but she passed away from the disease. I had a young daughter. I had no intention of going anywhere, nor did I wish to see her become a victim of this disease. So when I began developing symptoms, I felt I had no choice but to stop this epidemic of fear and disease in the family. 2/9/2012 Seven Ways to Find your Prayer Mojo MOJO. I love that word. I hope it doesn't get put on the passé list of overused words before I get a chance to own it for awhile. I only just looked up its meaning and added it to my cool expressions for confidence, assuredness, talent and resilience. At least that is what mojo means to me.
Today's post is the first in a new Thursday Series focusing on Finding your Prayer Mojo and praying with inspiration and effectiveness. I often hear "I don't know how to pray or what to think about when I pray." This series is designed to keep the subject of the how and what of prayer front and center and to nourish your confidence. In the words of a hymn, "Prayer is the simplest form of speech that infant lips can try." (Christian Science Hymnal, #284) It's that idea of simply thinking about God that you will find in these "Seven Ways to Find your Prayer Mojo." 1/18/2012 One, two, three - One parent's prayer My daughter, at 10 years old, was pushing boundaries. I resorted to a time- tested method to get her attention: I started counting to three. As I rounded two and was expecting a quick restoration of order, she piped up with, "You know, Mommy, my friends' parents count to ten."
Retorting quickly in all sincerity, I said, "Oh, Betsy, you don't realize what you are asking. Three is for your protection. If you made me count all the way to ten, I just don't know what I might do!" 1/10/2012 Why "prayer"? A blog reader recently asked, "Why can we only glimpse God through prayer?" Actually, we glimpse God in everything that expresses pure good. Prayer isn't key to glimpsing God. Prayer is key to moving on from glimpses, to really understanding and experiencing God's goodness (to enjoying it) in a larger way.
Prayer is a word loaded with different connotations for different people. When I speak of prayer, it involves a mental and spiritual looking up and turning away from a material sense of things. It means engaging one's spiritual sense to be open to an infinite God-perspective - a divine Love-perspective, a radiant Soul-perspective, an eternal Life-perspective - on reality. 12/14/2011 Are you looking for the right gift? One needs only look at the Cabbage Patch doll phenomenon of 1984, the Talking Elmos of the 1990’s, the Pokemon craze of 2000 and today’s hot search for the LeapFrog LeapPad Explorer Learning Tablet, to see that parents and children are often carried away on pressure-driven marketing currents as Christmas approaches. There’s nothing like shopping at the last minute for a popular gift that is only available in limited quantities. Fear of disappointing a child, or even an adult, can leave one vulnerable to all kinds of desperate tactics (even pepper spray, as in recent cases!)
No matter how extreme the pressure may be, there is a spiritual perspective that can broaden what look like limited options and can ultimately meet any need. In fact, unless we step back and get this better perspective, we won’t really accomplish what we so much desire: to bring joy to someone we love. Instead, we’ll end up worn down and empty-handed. 11/29/2011 Prayer and pest control Our house was completely overrun with fleas one year. I tried everything I could think of to handle the problem. Sprays, bombs, powders, baths, liquid products, collars, and finally a professional exterminator... nothing helped. Funny thing was, neither the dog nor the cats seemed too bothered. It was my family that was being bitten.
I struggled for months trying different approaches to eliminate the problem, only to have the situation worsen. Then it occurred to me that I had tried everything except prayer to solve this problem. I turned to the Bible to find some direction for my prayer and came across an interesting story. It involved a snake infestation.  A blog reader asked, "How does someone move forward, or set goals to achieve something, while allowing life to unfold according to God's direction? I have often found myself doing nothing, because I am waiting to let God do His work."
With her sweet story-telling and clear metaphysics, guest blogger Kay Olson, CSB illustrates that pausing AND moving forward are both important aspects of achieving our goals! It was just a little problem. But I figured if God really is a “very present help in trouble” (Psalms 46), He is where I am and helps in matters large and small! The problem? My young son couldn’t find his new shoes. I had asked all the children to bring their shoes to the kitchen for polishing in readiness for Sunday School the next day. Where could those shoes be? We decided to look everywhere in the house, but no shoes. It was a sunny Saturday, so I sent him outside where he had been playing barefooted. He came back empty-handed. 11/16/2011 Arrest effects of abuse NOW Great news! This blog is now adapted for wider distribution through the Christian Science Monitor. It appears on csmonitor.com November 18-20, 2011. You will be able to link to it in the archives after that.
Please find the links to spirituality.com articles that appeared in the original blog post. yesterday's blog post molestation case have been abused redeem lives indelible black mark 11/2/2011 Aflame with divine Love Passion. Whether it is for a special person, a valued project or a life goal – who doesn’t adore that feeling of heightened purpose and breathless, eager anticipation that we call passion? I am not talking about a mere physical reaction or emotional bond. Passion, in its spiritual sense, is the fire of inspiration and pure love for its subject. Many go to great lengths to capture true passion. When they find it, they hope to sustain it as long as possible. But when the initial fire of one's passion seems to fade into embers, does this mean that the love and inspiration is coming to an end? Is there something we can do to fan the flame and rekindle the ardor of inspired commitment to that special something or someone we love?
The Bible offers some insight into what happens in long relationships or steady unchanging career paths when habitual patterns of thinking and acting sometimes take over. Duty replaces joyful activity, spontaneous acts of attention begin to suffocate under the daily grind, and what we once fiercely loved can become a trial of our patience and an endurance test. 11/1/2011 Are you taking good care of yourself? That is what a friend asked me when I was feeling completely overwhelmed in my work. I was just starting out as a Christian Science practitioner and every call for help felt like a heavyweight responsibility. (Practitioners are dedicated to helping others through prayer. It involves a 24/7 commitment to be ready and available to pray.) On the day I called my friend, I had received two early morning requests for prayer within minutes of each other and I freaked out. I hadn't really gotten down to praying for the first one before the second call came in. I have to admit that when the friend asked me, "Michelle, are you taking good care of yourself?" I wanted to clock her with the phone. Who was she kidding? Take care of myself? I had people to pray for, beds to make, clothes to wash, and I hadn't even had time to brush my teeth!
 Retitled as "If the weight of the world seems overwhelming", this post appeared in the Christian Science Monitor on February 9, 2012. Here are the links from the original post
problems, out of control. little prayers  Sunday is my day to pray about immigration. I believe that it is in the heart of prayer that dormant potential is awakened, prejudices are softened, and genuine change begins. What to do about the "stranger within thy gates" (Exodus 20:8-10) is an age-old question. The Ten Commandments were initially addressed to a growing, migrating Jewish tribe. "The stranger within thy gates" was mentioned in the Fourth Commandment, which instructs that everyone within our territorial midst - from our families and those under our roof, to the face in the crowd - would now receive a blessing under the new law. “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates” (ibid.)
10/21/2011 One word prayer It was my turn to drive when a friend and I were passing through a high hilly area on a road trip in Great Britain. Let me set the scene: I was a new driver, driving on the left side (that is the wrong side of the road for an American), on what could only be considered a one lane passage way with a sheer drop-off to nowhere and no shoulder in this section for pulling over. Rounding a blind curve, probably driving too fast for the road conditions, we were confronted with a flock of sheep crossing the road and a large truck barreling head on towards us. There was nowhere to go and no way to stop to avoid a collision...
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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