I know what you are thinking

We were in the car, my 12 year old and I. She had just finished telling me that I didn't control her life and she could do whatever she wanted when I wasn't watching. I replied, "Don't forget, Betsy, your mom knows what you are thinking when you are thinking it."

She replied, "Nunh unhh." That's kid code for "No, you can't." So I said, "Right now, you are thinking, 'My mom is the worst mom in the whole world.'"

Her jaw dropped and then she slunk down in her seat. It was all I could do to keep a straight face.

Actually, I didn't read her mind. I simply stated the obvious. But what if our thoughts could be seen and felt by those around us.  Would we feel the need to clean up our act?

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Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed
adultery with her already in his heart. - Christ Jesus

Years ago, I heard Garrison Keillor - an American author, storyteller and humorist, - musing over whether immoral thoughts can be felt by those whom we may not even know. He suggested the possibility of some connection between his occasional lustful thoughts about his secretary and some of the world's unexplained tragedies. Could one adulterous thought be the remote cause of a scoop of chocolate ice cream suddenly slipping off its cone and tumbling down the front of a little girl's white Sunday dress?        

When faced with opposition and resistance to his proposal to heal a case of palsy, the Bible tells us that "Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Why think ye evil in your hearts?" (Matthew 9:1-7) He gave them some better thoughts to consider and then he healed the man, showing that when undermining negative thoughts are exposed and dealt with, the real work of healing can proceed without disruption.

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This subject of the impact of thought on experience - even on the experience of others - is one that many spiritual thinkers, including Mary Baker Eddy, have given a lot of consideration. Eddy wrote, "Jesus declared that to look with desire on forbidden objects was to break a moral precept. He laid great stress on the action of the human mind, unseen to the senses." (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p.234)

Further along, she explained, "Mortal thought transmits its own images, and forms its offspring after human illusions...Sensualism evolves bad physical and moral conditions." (ibid. p.259-260) That is a pretty good explanation for the tragedies that pop up around us without any seeming explanation. But it also raises the question of what one can do to guard thought and defend oneself - not only from the effects of random negativity, but from unwittingly transmitting these thoughts out into the world.

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The world we have created is a product of our thinking;
it cannot be changed without changing our thinking. - Albert Einstein

Eddy wrote, "Selfishness and sensualism are educated in mortal mind by the thoughts ever recurring to one's self, by conversation about the body, and by the expectation of perpetual pleasure or pain from it; and this education is at the expense of spiritual growth. If we array thought in mortal vestures, it must lose its immortal nature.

"If we look to the body for pleasure, we find pain; for Life, we find death; for Truth, we find error; for Spirit, we find its opposite, matter. Now reverse this action. Look away from the body into Truth and Love, the Principle of all happiness, harmony, and immortality. Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts." (ibid. 260)

And not only will your own experience be benefited, but you will be doing others a service. Science and Health explains, "Evil thoughts, lusts, and malicious purposes cannot go forth, like wandering pollen, from one human mind to another, finding unsuspected lodgement, if virtue and truth build a strong defense." (ibid. p.234)

Paul considered this mental clean-up an essential part of the public ministry of Christianity. He wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians, "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." (10:5 NIV)

Like it or not, the world does read our thought. Lets consider it a public service to give it our highest and best.

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No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking. - Voltaire

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