Divine Life Remains

It’s difficult to fathom. Nearly impossible to see or feel. But divine Life is cause and effect.

Life isn’t divided. Life isn’t half of anything. Life isn’t a causing spirit, eventually up against its effects of manifest truth or love.

If divine Life were divisible, we could believe that the spirit of Life caused the effect of creation, with infinite effects/beings that can evolve, devolve, or do everything in their power to submit to divine Life and live forever in heaven.

But divine Life remains cause and effect.

I am not cause or effect.

I am, you are, inclusive to, the one cause and effect of divine Life. As much as we don’t want to admit it sometimes, the spirit of life goes on, despite the happiness and horrors of human life, of birth, growth, decay, death.

Humility, perhaps humiliation, allows us to recognize this pattern of life as cause and effect, even when we want to insist on that which we can’t, human life as either cause or effect.

Creation remains, intelligence remains, love remains without human life or knowledge because it existed before human life.

It’s difficult to fathom one cause and effect when I’m giving power to causes other than divine Life. It’s nearly impossible to see or feel the effects of divine Life when I’m expecting effects that can’t possibly come from an indivisible divine Life.

I think it’s logically consistent, emotionally prudent, and spiritually sound to get to know and acknowledge one cause and effect. The cause and effect of divine Life, inclusive of us and all.

“Though the way is dark in mortal sense, divine Life and Love enlighten the way, and destroy the restless human thinking, the fear of death, and the supposed reality of [hopeless irrationality].”–21st Century Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: A modern version of Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health

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What I learn from others

Have you ever traveled to Marrakesh, Morocco? If it wasn’t for our eldest daughter, I probably wouldn’t have traveled to this imperial city, sometimes spelled Marrakech. But many years ago, our daughter wanted to visit Marrakesh. With me.

She was living in southern France at the time. I, in New York.

“After seeing some of France, we’ll fly to Morocco,” she emailed me.

Why not, I thought.

Before leaving New York, I went to the closet and pulled out the big green book. The World Atlas.

Thank goodness for indexes but searching and aligning cartography coordinates still required patience on my part to locate where I was going. France I could point to on the map but not Marrakesh. Not even Morocco. I learned its basically south of France, flying over the Alboran Sea.

Marrakesh sits west of the foothills of the Atlas Mountains. The description was vague. Words in my head. But off I went.

In southern France, we galivanted through historical spots for a few days then headed to the airport to catch a plane to Marrakesh. The particular airline we booked with didn’t bother to assign seats. It was a race of the fittest and the fittest got to the plane first and selected all the isle seats. The rest of us had to climb over them to get a seat. 

After arriving in Marrakesh, we took a cab but were dropped off in a tight spot and told we’d have to walk the rest of the way. A boy, looking about nine years old, confidently offered to lead us to our place of stay. We followed and gave him a tip.

I’ll add here that our daughters know how to travel affordably. We don’t go to touristy (read, expensive), places of stay. I’m the forty-, or fifty-year old staying at hostels with a bunch of young backpackers. Fortunately, they don’t give a hoot and we all eat macaroni and cheese together.

In Marrakesh, we stayed at a place in the medina, the older part of town with narrow, maze-like walkways paved in brick. The medina was built before cars. A long time before cars. Therefore, the reason the cab dropped us off outside the area.

During the week, we listened to prayers throughout the day, amplified over loudspeakers throughout the town. We admired gardens, palaces, mosques, and got lost while sharing walking space with donkeys and carts and vendors. We took a cooking class. The teacher made us go to the market to buy our ingredients and spices.

After forming bread dough, we carried it to the local baker. A man, situated down a few stairs, adeptly moving in front of a large stone oven. He wielded a long-handled paddle to put bread dough in the oven and twenty minutes later bring out baked loaves.

“Return in an hour, after cool, get loaf,” he said.

It was a community oven. One oven for surrounding neighbors.

Surely, it saves on air-conditioning personal spaces. Marrakesh became more than words in my head. It became a genuine place of interesting experiences, knowledge, and traditions. My souvenir? Images of hardworking, sincere people, willing to take stands for safety and understanding one another.

Trust in the Lord, and do good; so you will live in the land, and enjoy security.–Ps. 37:3

Adjusting Effectively

Thirty years ago, in Washington state, one week before harvesting our sweet cherries, it rained. And rained. The cherries drank in the water, causing their delicate skins to burst and crack. Open to mold. For the next three weeks, I watched our source of income rot and drop to the ground. I cried and had nightmares. Yet I didn’t want to wake up to my feelings of despair, anger, and hurt.

Positive thinking? Useless. And ineffective up against my feelings.

I wrestled with the need to adjust. Do I adjust to a new normal based on loss? Do I adjust to loss as the new normal?

Answers to those questions were blurring. So, I backed up. To find a more effective way to adjust. But maybe, it’s the very act of adjusting, that packs the punch?

Looking to history for insight, I sat down and read a bit of religious writings for input and happened upon a story about a forlorn, destitute mother who was asked by a wise guy, what do you have in your house?

The question jerked my mind. From thinking about what I lost, to thinking about what I have.

I’ll be honest here; my mind wasn’t too pliable at first. I was scared. I begrudged our downsized house and reduced buying habits. I resented having cherry trees that brought grief yet still required our care and borrowed money.

That’s all the further I got in the thought process before our young children demanded my attention. Up I got to go give it, but with my newly jerked mind, I glimpsed an adjustment had been made in mind.

Instead of answering the demands of loss, I answered the demand of family love.

We had in our house, family love, and I could hold it tight by sharing it.

After discussing it with my husband, I picked up the phone and called Social Services. We became licensed foster parents. Not for everyone but fostering for our family worked.

Three years later, the cherry crop brought in a gain. Large enough to pay off the debt and obtain a house with windows that didn’t let dirt inside (sandstorms are popular in southeastern Washington).

And guess what? The gain had as much power as the loss. Brief power.

Life makes sense when I adjust to the knowledge that gains and losses don’t define me.

But the good I have in my house does. Even if that good looks puny. And growing family love proves to be an effective adjustment.

World events stretch Easter

Easter stretches like Silly Putty as world events yank and squash our views. And the COVID-19 pandemic has me wondering, can I get new views of Easter from divine Mind, rather than from world events?

Arguably, Easter began before Christianity, to celebrate the world event of the beginning of spring, signifying new life.

Among many other amazing world events came Jesus and his story of resurrecting, three days after being crucified. About three-hundred years of yanking and squashing, in 325 the Council of Nicaea stretched Easter and people began observing the resurrection. Basically, Easter shaped into a Christian holiday.

When reviewing the story of Jesus up against the current pandemic, I’ve noticed Easter take on a new shape: Jesus’ resurrection can be my resurrection, defined as rebirth. In other words, my goal isn’t to avoid disease or death but to live the patience, integrity, and trust in Spirit that Jesus did.

We read in Matthew that before Jesus prayed alone in Gethsemane, he told a few of his disciples, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” Well, the disciples didn’t “watch” but that’s another story. “And going a little farther [Jesus] fell on his face and prayed, saying, ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.’”

Jesus was sorrowful, sad, a sadness that would lead to death, however Jesus didn’t go to death because he ultimately did the will of God, Life, and lived.

Rather than be obsessed with COVID-19, I can prayerfully contemplate divine Mind and thoughts.

Unseen ungodlike thoughts can be dangerous and they do die, whether it’s a virus or human vanity, however, I can not be sad and I can do the will of God with my heart, soul, and body by rebirthing patience, integrity, and a trust in divine Spirit. I can see and feel Easter being stretched into clearer views of a life worth living.

“The resurrection advances individual and collective consciousness, it moves thought out of spiritual dullness and blind belief into the perception of infinite possibilities.”—21^st Century Science and Health

Reviewing Christian Science, 5

From 21st Century Science and Health:

“Question. What are the requirements of the Science of Soul?

“Answer. The first requirement of this Science is, “You shall have no other gods before me.”[1] This me is Spirit. Therefore, the command means this: You shall have no intelligence, no life, no substance, no truth, and no love, except the unlimited. The second command, you shall “love your neighbor as yourself”[2] is like the first.

“It should be thoroughly understood that all people have one Mind, one God and Parent, one Life, Truth, and Love. The fulfillment of real identities will be realized as that fact is understood. War will cease and true sisterhood and brotherhood will be established. When we have no other gods and turn to no other but the one perfect Mind to guide us, we then experience our God-likeness, pure and eternal, having that Mind which was also in Christ.

“Science reveals Spirit, Soul, as reflected by spiritual beings. Soul is not in a body, but is reflected by spiritual beings. The belief that the eternal reality can be constrained in relative matter is an error that creates problems. A leading point in the Science of Soul is that Principle is not controlled by its idea. Spirit, Soul, has never been confined to human beings. If we reason from effect to cause, we will believe God created mortal humans, and sure enough, physical existence and God becomes a mystery. We cannot interpret Spirit, Mind, through inconsistent perceptions, different for different people. So, improve the thought process; reason from cause to effect and Spirit will be found giving the true mental perception.

“Reasoning from cause to effect in the Science of Mind, we begin with Mind, which must be understood through the idea which expresses it and cannot be learned from changeable ideas. We arrive at Truth or intelligence, which evolves its own complete idea, when we don’t equate reality with human illusions. If Soul sinned, it would be mortal. Sin is mortal because it kills itself. If Truth is immortal, error must be mortal, because error is unlike Truth. Because Soul is immortal, Soul cannot sin, for sin is not the reality of being.

In thinking about this…

A definition for science is knowledge. The knowledge of Soul or Spirit has one intelligence, life, substance, truth, and love. It is content in circular love.

Up against the common images of separate bodies and beings, the knowledge of Soul presents images of one Mind, getting along with constructive purpose. The body of Soul reflects essence and spirit, liveliness.

The body of Spirit has no boundaries. It doesn’t droop. The body of Soul embraces sinless cause and effect. The knowledge of Soul naturally eliminates human illusions and emotions because Soul’s ideas are substantial.

[1] Ex. 20:3; Deut. 5:7

[2] Matt. 19:19, 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Rom. 13:9; Gal. 5:14; James 2:8

Writing conference, part three

At the Writing for Your Life conference in Raleigh, North Carolina, I attended a workshop led by Jeff Chu, author of  ”Does Jesus Really Love Me? A Gay Christian’s Pilgrimage in Search of God in America” It was top notch. An excellent speaker, Chu was honest and humble and helpful. He strove to take away fears that come with writing and to instill hope.

By this time, we attendees started opening up and getting acquainted with one another during “free time.” I discovered that although most of the attendees were pastors or preachers, they did not carry dogmatic attitudes. It was supremely refreshing. They left behind ministries and churches focused only on the opinions of leaders and outdated concepts and practices. They were willing to face their fears to learn how to write and join the conversations today meant to embrace diversity and unite and heal, rather than convert and make a homogenous society of believers, who ultimately portray an us versus them.

There was no us versus them at this conference, that I noticed. We didn’t use our differences as a means for demanding better treatment. The diversity was appreciated and combined to show a big bright picture of an infinite good God.

I barely could get to sleep that night. I was exhausted and riveted at the same time. Sleep finally came about 9 p.m. I woke at 12:45.

A.M.

12:45 a.m., awake and compliant to get out of bed and start driving home.

Nighttime traffic was much easier than daytime traffic.

Five hours later, I was driving out of Washington D.C. and could see on the other side of the highway lane incoming traffic. I’d just missed morning rush hour.

I made it home just before noon. Dog-tired but delighted to see and hug my cats. Worn but calmed to see my chickens. Drained but filled with the desire to keep living that which has no end, creativity and the sense of belonging to an expanding and generous mind.

Brick walls

I don’t know about you, but I sometimes feel like I run up against brick walls. PHAP. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I can even do something, if I did know what to do.

It’s not a bad place to be when I realize it is the opportunity to return to the now, to know God NOW.

Brick walls seem to come about when my mind is in the future, when I’m really busy aiming for some future goal. Say a trip. A trip that will bring me closer to a job that will help me in my career.

Another “future” issue that can get stuck in the head is an avoidance of death. We do everything possible to keep our life pattern today the same. But, death isn’t what we make it out to be. Death isn’t the stoppage of life, but the end of false beliefs, fears, and desires.

The desire to push for advancement in my career is not that good. It can actually keep me from doing the job I need to do today. Advancement will come, it’s the law of God, but it comes by God, a good Spirit.

The brick walls fall when I, this is funny, when I go back into the past and recall truthful convictions, finished embraces. I remember a time when I was alone and couldn’t get up my driveway, after a long day of work, because of eight inches of new fallen snow. I have a long driveway. A truck pulled up behind me and it was our neighbor, who never comes home at that time. He said, “Cheryl, I felt like I needed to come home right now. I even drove my bosses truck. It has a lift in the back and I will go get our snowblower and come back and clear your driveway.”

I wonder, Are there really brick walls? Or, opportunities to see more of our infinite God, Love?

 

Rest is relevant

My house was a mess. I didn’t know where to start cleaning. I felt tired.

Then I woke up. Heeh, I was cozy in bed. I had rested.

My house was still a mess, but the “tired” feeling was only a dream, so I didn’t buy into it. I stood firm with the truth that I have the consciousness of being rested because that is surely what a good God has expressed through me.

I cleaned the house.

“He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”- Psalms 23:3

Shaking the mind

Yesterday, I was compelled to call a friend. Her voice was so shaken, I asked, “Is everything okay?”

I then received shocking news. Completely unexpected and undreamed of.

She said, “No, I’m not okay. Eddie (her husband) died two days ago. It’s odd you called, because I wanted to call and ask you to do something for me.”

I said I was sorry, shook my mind free of getting into the sadness of it and asked how I could help. I was able to help. Death is always a trying time, and we shared out gratitude that she will get back on her feet.

Matt. 5:4: Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Psalm. 30:11: You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness

Cautious open mindedness

I try to be open-minded without absorbing useless information.

Why?

Because I don’t know everything. And, there is a lot of useless information available.

We human beings tread on forces of incomplete knowledge; new knowledge is being revealed each day.

The knowledge in my head is incomplete, so to speak. It’s like a mathematics student who learns the principle of addition. The student gets addition correct but isn’t yet aware of subtraction, division and so on.

Or, the knowledge about my physical body is incomplete. I learn something new each day about the body and even though the body is impressive, it’s still an incomplete, immature idea in knowledge.

So, I need to be open-minded. I need to be open to receiving the knowledge I need for each moment. I can do this with an all-knowing divine Mind, ever revealing useful ideas.

The all-knowing isn’t defined as a mind that knows all at once, all data and statistics and truths. It’s defined more so as a mind always knowing true ideas exactly when needed.

Divine Mind doesn’t know or create incomplete ideas. Therefore, the all-knowing Mind didn’t create physical bodies. Mind created all the right ideas about a body, but not the physical body in and of itself because it always includes an unknown.

We were created to embody complete, spiritual, harmonious, beautiful ideas.

This eliminates the stress that comes with trying to make an imperfect body into a perfect body. We can instead know, and act on, what the all-knowing Mind is knowing, holy, just, purposeful, humble, grateful, honest ideas.

Have you ever experienced a time when you did something unexpected and later discovered it kept you safe? The idea came from divine Mind. Those ideas are present and powerful all the time.

  And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.–Isaiah 30:21, ESV