Christian Living

How I live:
The “straight and narrow way” is not defined by a list of prohibitions. Rather, it is the exquisite precision of Life – how the bee and the flower, the root and the rhizobia, exactly meet one another’s needs. It is the perfect tuning of a chord, the exact slap of a polyrhythmic beat, the supple balance of a gymnast. It is that alive feeling of something cleaner than fear that steps, with a catch in the breath, out onto the living edge.

To walk the straight and narrow way is to be continually committed to being as true as possible, in every moment, to the inner compass that shows me when I am most alive. Jesus says, “strait is the gate, and narrow the way, that leads to life.” The way that leads to life is defined by aliveness – that vigorous force that defines itself. My practice of the straight and narrow way is to stay on the fresh growing tip of being – to do things based on who I am, not on what I fear. In other words, to be based on Spirit, not on the trajectory of expectations from birth to death.

What does it mean to be spiritual?
The first mention of Spirit in the Bible is Genesis 1; 2: “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” To me, this identifies Spirit with volition – with that which moves according to its own desire. So being spiritual means being governed entirely by volition, instead of by outside influences. As a Christian Scientist, I identify Spirit with God, and man as God’s image and likeness (as stated in Gen 1; 26, 27). So my practice of being spiritual is to feel Spirit as the present, governing force of my life – to be guided by it, to be defined by it. To do so is a continual act of courage, in which no blaming is permitted or even possible. There is no resting on definitions of myself based on past activities or behaviors, no lazy projecting of the future as being set in motion by the past. There is an ongoing release of what I have, up till this moment, considered myself to be.

What does it feel like?
I often feel washed clean like a bright morning after a rain. I often feel like a water droplet trembled by the wind. I often feel a central stillness, with a sphere of open space around me. I feel that my life is precious to God, that the Cause of the universe includes what I am, that the unfolding of all I am is something God is delighted to give me. I feel the power of home. At other times, I feel like the page upon which was written all that I thought I was keeps being ripped off, scrumpled up, and thrown away, and I have to remind myself that I am not that page, I am still here. And I have to wait, again, for the writing on my page to come clear to me, revealed, once again, by the eternal Mind.