Musings

I said to my sister, “you know how in most of the testimonies of healing in the Christian Science periodicals, people say, ‘I had had many healings before in Christian Science, so I had every expectation that I would be healed this time’ - well, I want to get to the place where I say, I had very little hope of healing, in that I have had long years in the wilderness where it seemed my prayers for healing had no success. But for some reason the experiences of God that I had made me hold on for that much time, until I came to the understanding of what life really is, and experienced this healing.”

Writing this, I recall that my life has mostly not been without the experience of God. Through God I have had enduring comfort, a life compass, and a life characterized by true happiness and quite a bit of light. I have relationships that are continuing to grow more beautiful and dear. I shouldn’t let this be obscured by the fact that I have had several bouts with illness that didn’t seem to respond to my or to anyone else’s prayers, as have other members of my family. And I am grateful for the sense that these trials are simply pointing me, constantly, to an understanding of life that is the great prize, that obliterates any sense of having been in the wilderness for a long and weary time.

I had two contrasting feelings when I went to church Sunday. As the service started, I had a sort of a sad feeling - there weren’t that many people in the church, and they were, for the most part, the same people who had been there each year I’ve come visiting here, only some were missing, having died, and others had grown older. And I thought, what are they getting from this? What makes them come here year after year? And what makes so many other people not stay?

The answer to the second question seemed clear. People would not stay because, in the experience of their lives, the promises they had heard given in church had not been delivered to them. The services and the people who went to them had not been characterized by an overwhelming love that put to rest their anxieties and guided them in courageous standing for truth. Instead, people felt that the church held up an impossible standard and then judged all those, within and without, who failed to meet it. We would still hear of great healings and life transformations through Christian Science, but they were somewhere in the distance - read about in the periodicals, remembered from 40 years ago, belonging to some other place, people, or time.

At the same time, as the service began and we sang Mrs. Eddy’s hymn Christ my Refuge, and I sang it with my eyes closed, letting the words be a prayer, I felt the compelling power of the Word. It continued that way through the whole service - all the words spoke to me, and I started seeing unfold, as a visual image in my mind, the underlying sense of the whole thing. I felt if I could only sit awhile with this image, all the questions that had been unresolved would find their answers, and I would have something I could use to guide me through the moments of my life. I felt that everything I heard was true.

So I know why I stay, and I guess I can assume that the other people stay for the same reason.

Later that day, I went for a long walk on the beach with a friend from church. She told me of struggles she had with the care of her mother in the last days of her life - how the people at the care place for Christian Scientists had recommended that she not come back because they weren’t well equipped with the things someone would need in order to manage after the fracture of a hip. So my friend had ended up putting her mother in a hospital, which turned out to be a nightmare of treatments that produced by-products worse than the original ailment.

It seemed that, within the community of Christian Scientists, there should be a full hammock of practical care - an embrace that didn’t forsake people when they were in the most difficult challenges of their lives. And more important than an institutional network of care would be a strong community of love - not an exclusive, reclusive group, but something whose warmth would embrace everyone and radiate the practical comfort of relying on Christian Science for life care. Indeed, the institutional structure has been established with the provision of Christian Science nurses. But, like church, that structure’s success is in proportion to how much it is infused with the breath of love -love being its substance and filling out its shape.

I used to think (not long ago) that my voice might provide a needed wake up call for the church - a way of looking at things that would help people get beyond rigid structures to the essential essence. Now I think that there is only one thing for me to do - one thing I can do, and which perhaps many others are doing - and that is to be that love. Breathe it into my days and my church connections. Not say anything about what people would need to do to revitalize the cause, not bemoan or even hold a thought of what may be lost or missing. The thought that came to me was, “I’m not going to let Christian Science die.” But it wasn’t because I was going to launch some kind of a crusade - just that I would be true to myself and my love. I got a calm feeling then, that there is some kind of a niche for me here, that my particular efforts are needed - not because others are doing it wrong, but because everyone, including me, has a perfect part to play.

The meaning of “the”

“Don’t mess with your Mom,” said my husband to our son. “She knows all about words.” My son said, “Oh yeah? Then what does ‘the’ mean?”

I said, “It means God.” And I went on to point out the word “Theos”, and the Spanish and Arabic for “the” - “el” and “al” respectively, and how they are like the Arabic “Allah” and the Hebrew “El”, which is also found in words like ”element”. Not that I had learned this anywhere - it had just come to mind and it seemed true enough to repeat.

I’ve been visiting Carlos (not his real name) in jail. Carlos has brown skin, two fore and aft creases on each side of his bald head, a Cuban accent, and a ready smile which, though showing true light, also illumines a sense of having lived in a faithless world long enough not to be taken in by much. We had been reading the Bible Lesson, and he had asked me about a passage in Science and Health that referred to “Elohim.” So I had started talking to him about “El” - God in Hebrew, “the” in Spanish; and “Al” and Allah, “The” and “God”, respectively, in Arabic. He showed me how, if you put your hands together in a certain way, the lines on it spell “Allah” in Arabic.

The next time I saw Carlos, he had just spent eight days “in the hole” - solitary confinement - because he had gotten into a fight with another inmate. He felt that the other guy had started the fight, but things in jail often go that way. After we did some reading in the Bible and Science and Health, he said, in a weary sort of a way, “well, maybe I’ll be saved.” He said that although he had been trying to pray, he didn’t have any confidence that it was doing any good.

So I told him about “the”. I told him “the” is the existential article, which means it is the sign that something is. And God is the only thing that is, and the only evidence of existence. I said, you can tell that God exists because you exist. And God is good, and you can tell that because inside, you desire goodness, and you know you are good. So you don’t have to wonder if God is here - you can tell God is here. I said, that knowledge inside that you are good gives you the map of how to be good. It is also a basis for your prayer for justice - since you can tell God is here, you can also be confident that God is in charge of everything, so nothing unjust gets to stand - it has to be wiped out by the understanding of Truth.

When I left the jail, out to the cool wind and the overcast day in downtown Seattle, the aliveness of the air caught me with a desperate poignancy. I thought, it’s not right for people to put other people in jail. It’s not right to deprive them of this air, and this ability to move down the hill and around the courthouse under the sycamore trees, with people and pigeons moving around, and seagulls in the distance. I know there is a need for some basis of rule by law, but I think many of the laws that put people in prison, and many of the allocations that provide for prisons, were made for political purposes. Let’s get tough on crime. Let’s make our streets safe. Things people can’t disagree with, but I think the laws that get passed and the facilities provided don’t actually fulfill the purpose for which they were ostensibly established, nor do they meet the needs of the people in there.

The following week I was back at the jail, waiting (in one of the many inevitable waits) for my next visitee to come out. I remembered the way the air felt the last time I left, and I suddenly had the sense that what I had felt was essential goodness, in other words, the presence of God. In that instant it became clear to me that no structure, however imposing, could keep God out. And in that instant, I felt the same enlivening, joy catching uplift that I associate with being outside when the air is fresh. I thought, no unjust systems get to stay. God is the establisher of all being. God’s present good is here and is the only thing that determines what is. No structures can stay if they’re not built according to the pattern of Truth, because Truth establishes everything.

Even if it looks as if many things are broken - people’s lives and the laws that try to regulate them, social and economic systems and the people trying to live in them - the truth that God is what is, as present and everpresent as “the”, can course through all experience and show goodness to be the necessary law for everything.

Heart to heart

I was talking to my daughter during her bedtime cuddle the other night. She was trying to figure out a way to more quickly decompress after school so she could get all her work done. I said, you know, I’ve been realizing lately that there’s a flaw in the way I’ve been raising you. I’ve had the tendency to always ask, what do you need in order to be able to do it - prompting you to look for conditions to be met so that all will be well. What I need to do is be aware that you are the creation of God - you have everything you need, and you don’t need any conditions to be met. Your capability, resourcefulness, readiness, and motivation are intact - they’re given to you by virtue of your being God’s child.

She said, yes, and the flaw is bigger than that. You know, you really haven’t raised us as Christian Scientists. I said, I know. I didn’t get it.

She said, I noticed it because we met some other kids who have been being raised as Christian Scientists, and I’ve read about some other ones. I asked who, and she told me. I said, I know. I didn’t get it. And my parents - they tried to raise us in a Christian Science home, and I don’t think they got it either. I’m only starting to get it now.

She said, you have a ways to go, too, because when you talk about it, I sometimes find it annoying. I said, that’s OK, because I’m not the one that’s in charge of raising you anyway. Your Father Mother is God, and God knows how to tell you everything you need to know. And it’s not too late, either, because God has always been your Father Mother and is always telling you what to do.

Later, after sharing this with my husband, I said, I want to be a Christian Scientist in this family.

What this means to me is to put aside all the tendencies to think that there’s something not quite right - that there are things to worry about, things to try to correct. Instead, I must notice when I’m being presented with a lie, and refuse to believe it. But this doesn’t really get at the heart of the matter.

What’s necessary is for me to be in a state of noticing how lovely all of God’s creation is - how wonderful it is that Love is the fundamental creative force, the operating Principle, in everything there is, and that Love chooses loveliness as our state of being. Love delights in setting up perfect experiences, perfect relationships, perfect paths of learning and growth. I shouldn’t be surprised to see that perfection working out, and I shouldn’t accept it as true when it doesn’t seem to be. I don’t have to figure out what would be perfect and then try to attain it. I just have to hold out for the truth that Love sets it up perfect, and refuse to settle for anything less.

There’s more. The one thing that I need to do is to prove the existence of radical Love by loving - by shining that light forth. Short of that, explanations about what is are just stories. People can arrange their lives around stories, but stories can’t heal them. I sometimes get glimpses of what radical love is. I think as these glimpses become longer and more frequent, they will communicate their own logic. Their power and reliability will totally displace any fear or belief that a flawed existence is our lot.

That’s how I’ll be a Christian Scientist in this family. Step by step, in each moment, listening and following in awe and humility.

Answering by Fire

There’s a story in the Bible where the prophet Elijah goes head to head with the prophets of Baal. He challenges them to make an offering to their gods, while he makes an offering to God. He says, the one who answers by fire, let him be God.

So the prophets of Baal do their offering first, and though they pray all day, they get no answer. Then Elijah prays to God and, even though he’s had the people pour twelve barrels full of water all over the offering and the wood, fire comes down and consumes the whole thing. So all the people fall on their faces and say, “The Lord, he is the God, the Lord, he is the God.”

In the past I’ve been somewhat incredulous about this story, even to the point of wondering if Elijah could have tricked the people somehow (like maybe it was mineral spirits instead of water they poured on the fire). But when I was reading the story last week I realized - this was then, and still is, a very accurate measure of the presence of God, and it’s a test that I do all the time. I look for the god that answers by fire. I look for what it is in my life that ignites me and makes me feel alive.

God is everywhere, so it’s not surprising that there are so many ways to get the feeling of aliveness. And feeling alive comes so often that I don’t always remember that it is how I know the presence of God. But from the perspective of darker times I’ve noticed that this answer by fire is even more essential and convincing than physical fire. It is impossible to conjure it up or construct it from any materials other than itself. It is the quality that makes me want to live, the desire without which it would be impossible to explain the presence of life.

Preparing the soil (more)

Jesus tells a parable about a sower, casting seed. Some of it falls by the wayside, and it gets walked on and the crows eat it; some falls on rocky ground, where it springs up quickly but soon dies; some falls among thorns, where it’s choked by them; and some falls on good ground, where it springs up and bears fruit. Jesus explains that the soil is the Word of God. Those by the wayside are the ones who hear the Word but the devil comes and takes it out of their hearts. Those on rocky ground receive the Word with joy, but have no root within themselves, and soon are offended. Those among the thorns have the Word choked by the “cares and riches and pleasures of this life.” Those on good soil bring forth fruit.

One way I’ve looked at this is to sort of hope that I’m one of the ones with good soil. The sentence from Mary Baker Eddy that I quoted at the top of my last post leads to deeper consideration. She talks about God preparing the soil for the seed. This awakens my awareness that my consciousness is liable to all the conditions in the parable, and that it’s good to be open to receive God’s preparation, because I can sure use it.

The wayside, in my consciousness, is the place whereon the traffic of the world moves - the place where I consider my relative accomplishments and failures, where I try to make a name for myself or at least, within myself, to justify my actions and failures to act. The devil that steals the Word from me is that old paradigm that tries to interpret my experience along a scale of winners and losers, in which worth is a relative commodity which may be earned by some, while others must languish, worthless, in the dust. If I try to interpret any glimpse of the Word within that paradigm, I have lost it. If I think my gains in understanding will help make me better than other people, or better than the person I was before, they won’t be able to do anything - no growth, no fruit.

I have a couple of different thoughts about the rocky ground. One is about when I feel my intention has sprung up fast and then withered. It’s often been when I’ve made a resolution to do something better next time. Then when the next time comes, I find myself in the same struggle. It occurs to me that those resolutions are planted in the belief of temporal life - a state of imperfection that has the possibility of improving along the path through time. Doing well can’t take root in that belief, because doing well needs to be rooted in the fertile knowledge of timeless perfection. If, instead of making a resolution to be better, I find and take in the truth that my being comes from the One sustaining infinite, then my roots can drink and send that truth through everything I do.

I also thought about rocks in terms of what in my consciousness is hard and impermeable. Judgments about others, resentments, self-consciousness, fear. When these are in my thought, I can’t let anything tender in. If I want to bear fruit, I need to let Love prepare the soil by breaking up those hard thoughts with tenderness towards me, melting them away.

As for the thorns - I note that cares and riches and the pleasures of this world can all choke the Word. Cares are not any more virtuous than riches - both of them are material. That is, they act as if certain material conditions determine whether goodness is present or not. The pleasures of the world are the same way. Pleasure is the natural state of being at one with God, but the pleasures of the world say that this good feeling is the result of certain conditions being met. So if I’m following the pleasures of the world, I’m looking for those conditions instead of finding joy here and now.

So I remind myself: God prepares my soil. Love draws my attention to the true things, the ones that absorb the water of Life and nurture sweet seeds. Love compels me to leave the wayside and kneel on the soft ground. Love sends grass and dandelions to break up the rock - experiences that force me to question my assumptions and opinions. Love teaches me to stop spending time among the thorns - stop looking for happiness-engendering conditions and look at present happiness. I am willing to have this be done to me. Which is good, because ultimately I have no other choice.

It Matters Not ...

There’s a place in Science and Health where Mrs. Eddy says, “A germ of infinite Truth, though least in the kingdom of heaven, is the higher hope on earth, but it will be rejected and reviled until God prepares the soil for the seed.”

At times I have wondered what about Truth would be rejected and reviled. After all, it’s all good stuff - it’s all about goodness, so why should it be rejected? More recently I asked myself, like what? What germ of infinite Truth would be reviled before the soil was made ready for it? - And then I knew. This one, for example: It doesn’t matter what your material circumstance is (or, as Mrs. Eddy says, “It matters not what be thy lot”).

What does that mean? That it doesn’t matter whether I got what I wanted, it doesn’t matter whether I’m cold and wet or dry and warm, whether I’m rich or poor, whether I have any friends, whether I have succeeded or failed in my life pursuits, or even whether I have failed to try?

Yeah. It really doesn’t matter. But God has to prepare the soil for the seed. What is that? How does God do that?

God prepares the soil of consciousness by so infusing it with the sense of goodness that all sense of material requirements for goodness is overwhelmed. Material things can no longer say that they are needed for goodness to be here, since goodness is so obviously the very substance of being.

Then none of the circumstances of life that I’ve deemed so crucial to my well-being matter, because the good they promised to withhold or deliver is already here.

I’ve visited this concept before. I asked myself, so what would be the incentive for doing anything at all, if I don’t stand to gain anything by it? And I answered, I do things because I’m the expression of Life, and Life is active. I do things because goodness directs me to do them, and I am joyfully humble enough to listen and follow. I do things because I love, and I love to express Love.

It doesn’t matter what my material situation is, but it does matter that I know God is here, and owns each moment. It matters that I notice goodness, and its constancy, and that all my actions proceed from the awareness of goodness. It matters that I keep myself from being deceived into thinking that any picture of someone else being less than good is true.

If my soil isn’t prepared for the seed, I will think it callous to hear that my material circumstances don’t matter. It will sound to me like I don’t matter, or that the standard of goodness demands that I deny goodness for myself. So when I speak to others, I must be very clear in my message that they matter, and this will include careful attention to their creature comforts and to their sense of self-worth. It will include honoring of their stories and their circumstances. It will include compassion for them in whatever difficulties face them.

It is with myself that I have the opportunity to consider that none of these things matter, to be unfazed by cold-and-wetness or lack of sleep, or inattention to my story or disregard of my point of view. And God must prepare my soil for the seed, too. I can only do it as it feels joyfully right, as I move in the consciousness of God’s ever present goodness. I, too, deserve compassion from myself when my consciousness is tangled up in a story. God’s story is always about goodness, and it’s able to reach into any story I might be running and turn me to the consciousness of good.

Traveling Lighter

I was talking with the mother of the friend with whom my daughter did her search and rescue training. She said, I'm so happy that Kelsi accomplished this, because it means I know she can go anywhere. She knows how to make shelter, and she knows how to find her way. It has been an important part of the whole process of letting go and having her move out on her own.

I think it's true. The two things I need to know how to do are find my way and make shelter. I can think of that these days as I practice traveling lighter.

I'm traveling lighter by leaving behind a couple of big things that used to define me to myself. One of them is idealism. Growing up, I felt being idealistic was heady and lofty - it gave me a feeling of deep purpose. I couldn't imagine not wanting to be that way - it gave me something to think about, and a way of feeling good about myself, at least some of the time. I think people told me at times that being idealistic maybe wasn't such a great idea, but I didn't understand them. Now I'm looking at it differently.

As I parse out what it is to be idealistic, I define it as having a picture of the way things should be, and then trying to live out my life as close to that picture as possible. The problem with it is the assumption that any picture I could have in my head would do any kind of justice to the wonderful, convoluted, earth-smelling intricacy that is life. Holding a picture like that as my first reality would lead me to miss most of the crucial and alive things that make up each moment, the surprise bumps and the secret hollows, and all the things that ask to be noticed and responded to in the moment they present themselves to me. It was highly presumptuous for me to think I could predict any of that before the moment, and it prevented me from having the humble and supple readiness to meet life as it came.

So I've left my idealism behind - left it behind in favor of faith in the goodness of life as it presents itself in this moment; left it so I can expect to be surprised, and expect to find, in the present-moment-giving of life, everything I need to navigate the moment with grace.

The other thing I'm working on traveling without these days is criticism. It's actually a related thing: criticism is about thinking that I have a picture of how things should be done or how people should be, and then measuring them according to my picture and complaining about the things that don't match. Now I remind myself that God is the Mind of other people, and I am not. Primal goodness tells them how to be, compellingly. I can't, both because I can't know what's right for them from the inside, and because I'm not the voice inside them which speaks from their center and moves them with poise and balance. But God is that voice, and God is here. My job is to be humble enough to notice what God is doing, in me and in everyone.

The two things I need to know how to do are to find my way and to make shelter. I find my way by noticing what's here and how the law of goodness is manifest here and now. I make shelter by welcoming everyone I see into the warmth of being loved.