My friends, the Zagwyns, are in Massachusetts this summer so they sent me photos of some Transcendentalist landmarks, including Walden Pond. They knew I’d love to see and hear all about this amazing spiritual vortex. This is the birthplace of the Transcendentalist movement and New Thought followed closely behind. I like to think of us as the New Transcendentalists.

 If you attend a Center for Spiritual Living Center or follow New Thought some other way, your lineage includes a group of distinguished American thinkers called Transcendentalists. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Bronson Alcott and Walt Whitman are among them. You have a very proud heritage.

The early New Thought writers all quoted Emerson and for many, many years, he was the best known, most quoted and most widely read of all American authors. For example, my mother could quote Emerson poems by heart.

It is difficult for us to imagine how much impact Emerson had because his ideas are all around us today and they don’t seem that original. However, he was a revolutionary influence in the fields of philosophy, religion, and literature. His ideas about finding God in Nature, self-reliance and trusting ourselves branded the character of this nation as democratic and self-reliant.

Emerson was trained as a Congregational minister but he did not believe in some of the rituals, including communion. He decided to become a writer and platform speaker instead. In 1836, he published an essay called Nature. It was not particularly well received but now it is a standard reading in college English classes.

The same year Nature was published, Emerson helped establish an informal group popularly called the Transcendentalists. This group originally gathered to discuss new ideas from Europe; instead, they became the birthplace of independent American thinking. The Transcendentalists were important founders of abolition, women’s suffrage, and authentic American literature as well as opening up traditional religious thinking.

Emerson was the central figure in the movement. During the next fifty years, Emerson wrote and spoke all over the nation and in parts of Europe. His essays included Self-Reliance, Compensation, Spiritual Laws and the Over Soul. Our CSL class on Emerson includes these and other essays as well as some history of the era.

So many of the ideas and attitudes that we think of as distinctly American come from the works of Emerson and the Transcendentalists. It is hard to imagine a world without them. It is also extremely difficult to imagine Religious Science without Transcendentalism.

Emerson found God everywhere and Ernest Holmes accepted the immanence of God as an absolute truth. Emerson said we should be self-reliant and listen to our hearts. Holmes believed that our intuition was a pathway to God’s wisdom. Emerson wrote, “To thine own self be true”. Holmes said, “Every man knows the truth.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born 1804 and died 1889. He was Harvard educated but he urged American intellectuals to take a self-reliant attitude and stop looking toward the European past. He consistently called for an authentic American voice in literature. Emerson said many wise things, including “Imitation is suicide.”

Ernest Holmes was born 1902 and died 1956. He was a self-educated thinker who combined Emerson’s idealism with mental healing techniques. The 1937 Science of Mind Textbook is one of the most influential books of the 20^th century.

The two men lived in entirely different worlds, even though they were New Englanders, because of the differences in life at their different times. Despite these material differences, Emerson and Holmes had much in common. Both were born into families with dominant mothers and absent fathers. Both had brothers, but no sisters. Both men were precocious, avid readers and showed amazing promise at an early age. Emerson entered Harvard at 14. Holmes dropped out of school because he was bored and studied independently.

Both were born in New England. Emerson lived his whole life around Boston – most of it in Concord, and that was the vortex of intellectual power in his time. His neighbors and friends were some of the most brilliant people in US history. Margaret Fuller, Bronson Alcott, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Theodore Parker and in New York City, Walt Whitman were all his good friends.

Holmes chose to move to the creative center of his time – Los Angeles. His congregation was filled with movie stars, and one of his main financial contributors was the man who subdivided Bel Aire. The Institute he established included Asian religious leaders, college professors and psychologists. Holmes’s open mind blew away any narrow idea of religion. The teaching was called Religious Science because he viewed life as a whole, with no split between science and religion or the visible and invisible worlds.

Emerson and Holmes shared a similarity in temperament which was instrumental in making them great leaders in thought and in life at the same time it was a result of their beliefs. They were both happy, well adjusted, loving men. In his day, Emerson was often described as sanguine, which means he was never ruffled, and always optimistic. Holmes was also sanguine.  A woman who attended my church used to go to hear him in earlier times. Once, I asked her, “What was he like?”  She thought quite a while and finally said, “He was a merry little man.”

Both men were generous. During Emerson’s lifetime, he supported his mother, brothers, friends, including the Alcott family for most of their life. He also very generously sponsored the publication of other writers works. Stories about generosity abound about Holmes’s as well. They both lived well and neither was interested in amassing a lot of money. They expected it to be there.

Emerson and Holmes shared many beliefs. They both believed in idealism – that is they believed that behind every material experience, there was a spiritual cause. They believed in abundance – that is they could share their wealth, give of themselves, circulate freely and there would be enough to go around. They believed in self-reliance, that is, that the final authority in our lives is within, that we must look within to find our unique and individualized truth.

They believed in the sacredness of life – all life. Neither man distinguished good and bad aspects of life, but they saw only good. They were both fascinated by Asian religions and incorporated compassion and detachment into in their teaching. Nevertheless, they remained Westerners. They believed in the innate value of all people. They recognized that all of us have a divine origin and nature.

This is your lineage. If you have studied Ernest Holmes, you have also studied Ralph Waldo Emerson. Their wisdom is available to you as a gift from the Universe. Say thank you and accept; happiness, peace, idealism, optimism, self-reliance, sacred life, and all the other components of their enlightenment.

Ask Yourself

What would I like to accept from Holmes or Emerson?

What would more self-reliance feel like?

What would more self-love feel like?

What would _____ feel like?

Where can I learn more?

Just for fun, our CSL ministers have been sharing the jobs they held before they became ministers. Since we tend to be “seekers” who came to the ministry later in life, we had great stories to tell about earlier jobs. Our email list is confidential, so you’ll just have to believe me, every pathway was unique.

I worked as a camp counselor, ironed clothes, sold dresses, taught school, owned a folk art store, wrote for a newspaper, wrote books, wrote curriculum, sold real estate, was a marketing director for a development company and then I became a minister.

My work story is pretty dull compared to many of my colleagues but it helped me move upward to a place of trust and love. I had a lot to learn emotionally and journey into a few cull de sacs before I could be a minister.

I believe New Thought ministers are, as a group, wiser about life and better at working with people because we tend to come to our calling later in life. Late blooming spiritual leaders have an advantage because we’ve been around the block a few times. My grandmother would say, “We didn’t just fall off the turnip truck.”

We are fully grown adults, ready to be leaders in a grown up religion. We’ve made some mistakes ourselves. We know mistakes create an opportunity to learn.  Most important of all, we know it is never too late to learn.

Maturity is only one factor in the effectiveness of a spiritual leader, of course. You need knowledge, enthusiasm and energy as well. There is a lot to be said for youth and a whole lot to be said for maturity.

I have always felt sorry for young people who enter seminaries and convents at such young ages. Young and old can be genuine seekers but it is easier to for the slow starters to attain the wisdom and clarity necessary for the ministry.

I am writing about maturity in spiritual leadership today because I watched Karen Armstrong on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday. Armstrong wrote the best-selling book,  A History of God and many others. On Oprah, she  was pitching her spiritual memoir The Spiral Staircase.

Armstrong talked about going into an English Catholic convent at age 17. She said she wanted to know God and chose the vocation independently but she could never learn to meditate, lost focus in her prayers, and hated her mandatory three hours of sewing. She struggled for seven years before she finally made herself so ill she dropped out. Poor child!

She gave up on seeking God for a while but continued her Oxford studies. She also continued suffering from a mysterious illness. She was treated for mental illness until they finally found it was epilepsy. Despite these difficulties, she went on to become one of the world’s greatest religious scholars.

As I listened, I respected her perseverance and I was especially touched by her use of the spiral image for her own spiritual journey. She said she used it because of a poem by T.S. Eliot. It seems to me to a beautiful image for our spiritual journeys. We may feel as though we are stuck or going backward but we are always climbing higher toward the Light.

Armstrong talked about how our challenges can seem to be healed and then return again. She said that when these problems return, they come around again to be healed on a higher level. The return of an issue is not failure.

As she talked, I admired her courage, perseverance and intellect. I am glad she was able to create a successful life for herself after such a difficult beginning. Armstrong now holds a belief in God based on her studies of world religions. She says compassion is the most important similarity in all of them.

As she talks, she sounds to me like a very bright New Thought spiritual leader. She believes God is all Life, present everywhere. God is basically unknowable, except through Love, which she calls compassion.

I have certainly oversimplified her thoughts. But it was her story that story that struck me as the important thing to share. She is very honest and her story is certainly unique. She has come a long way and accomplished a great deal.

Like most people, her life did not follow her initial plan. When she entered that convent as a seventeen year old, she was a starry-eyed child with map that she believed would be a straight path to knowing God. Life led her on a quest that forced her to abandon her beginner’s map. She and the world are richer for the spiraling path.

I love the image of the spiral because I find it hopeful and true. The first time I heard growth described that way was a creative artist who showed it as an ever-expanding illustration. This artist helped me by saying we shouldn’t be discouraged if a problem showed up again and again. She insisted it wasn’t failure, but just the next step in the discovery process. What looked like a relapse is just the next step in the healing journey.

That concept helps me. I have been discouraged. Have you? It is fairly common to face the same issue in different circumstances. The point is to keep on moving upward, toward Love and Light.

You and I could not have predicted what our spiritual path would look like when we started out at 17, anymore than Karen Armstrong could. Her path included disappointments and difficulties, yet she grew into a phenomenal woman.

You and I are also phenomenal. Take a look backward at yourself when you were seventeen. Can you see how far you have come? Doesn’t it seem as though you can go even farther? Of course you can.

Everyone is on a quest toward greater spiritual wisdom, whether conscious of it or not. If you can see that you have greater wisdom and light than you did as a teenager, you will see you are spiraling upward, whether it feels like it today or not.

As we move through life, we gain wisdom and balance and there is always more to come. Change and growth develops in unique and wonderful ways. We gain compassion and a genuine belief in the goodness of life and God. There is no end to that learning because God is Infinite Wisdom and Infinite Love.

We learn to embrace our uniqueness and to love ourselves. We are then able to love others. Our honesty touches others and shows the way. Our spiritual wisdom is contagious in wonderful ways and we are overjoyed to be connected to others through love.

I thank Karen Armstrong for reminding me of the spiral staircase of life. It is a beautiful image of how Love grows and expresses in each of us.

Ask Yourself

What did I believe about God at 17?

What do I believe about God now?

What have I learned?

What pattern or patterns do I seen repeating?

What do I need to believe to release negative beliefs?

Made In Heaven,

I like the scenes in heaven because they are whimsical and fun. The Planet Earth plot is an average quest – “Will hero find heroine in time?” The stars have just enough déjà vu to keep them unconsciously seeking their true love.

They are lucky to be reborn into the United States, but there are plenty of complications. He is a low-class Westerner and she’s a high class Easterner. Like all good quests, success looks unlikely  - especially because they don’t know what they are seeking.

The scenes in heaven make it seem as though people create all the good stuff in heaven and then recreate it on earth when the returned as a new persona.

In the movie, as the hero stumbles toward true love, he sees a painting in a NYC art gallery that was first created in heaven. The painting is probably in the story to support the plot and prove some art works are so “heavenly” they must have been created in heaven.

It’s only a movie and I love the whimsical approach to metaphysics but I didn’t take it seriously. However, I have often wondered about nature of individual creative genius.

Why can two equally hard-working, well-trained students be so different in talent? How, exactly, do we explain the fine sonata Mozaart wrote at age eight? Is it reincarnation? If everything comes from God, is it just waiting for someone on earth to imagine it? That’s sort of what Made in Heaven is saying.

This week, I watched that movie on TV once again. Later, I was perusing the Science of Mind Textbook and found stuff on page 273 that takes all the starch out of my favorite metaphysical movie’s garters.

Dr. Ernest Holmes is talking about how affirmative prayer works. He says that the Divine Intelligence is Infinite Mind and when we use treatment, we give it to God to do the work and God creates in that moment. God specializes for us through Spiritual Law.

This is the paragraph that really woke me up: God is forever doing new things, and when we conceive new ideas, it is an act of the Divine projecting Itself into Creation. There were no flying machines until man made them. The Spirit did not have a lot of little flying machine models put away in a cosmic cupboard somewhere. But the mind that conceived the flying machine is God. The mind we use is the Mind of the Universe. This is God in man and it is only through this Mind that we understand anything. This mind is us, responding to us, the flight of the Alone to the Alone,” of “the One to Itself” is God speaking and God answering.

Even if you find that paragraph difficult to understand, it is clear that Holmes says that paintings are not first done in heaven and carried down to earth. God doesn’t invent until the individual has the vision and then God works through him or her. Humans are a necessary component to this creation.

The music, dance, painting or novel, is an expression of the Creative Mind in action but it must act through us. It takes individuals to begin to imagine inventions or creative expressions that we call art before God creates. We are part of the process and it particularizes through us.

The Creative Mind responds to the inventor or artist and creates in the moment. There is no warehouse of paintings or sonatas or stories stored anyplace because God creates in the moment.

Holmes’s statement might surprise some artists. Many artists feel as though their creations are a gift from God that  flows through them. Many writers, including this one, have good days when it feels as though the work “somehow” writes itself. We call that inspiration.

When inspiration flows as wonderful, easy creative expression, it flows like meditation or even a light trance but that artistic expression is always a combination of human being and God creating together.

No matter how talented we are, we all begin as novices. We need teachers and seek outside guidance as a part of our artistic process. Most artists keep ordinary habits and hours because they find that dedication is important so inspiration won’t go missing.

We are all creative and we are all influenced by our culture and outside factors. We all create in different forms and styles. We are influenced by our unique consciousness and because we are unique, our output is unique. Whether it is a Mona Lisa painting or a great new apple pie recipe it is true art, and filled with the Creative Energy of God. Inspiration is wonderful and more available to skilled people who allow the creative energy flow through them as they create.

Many artists have some sort of religious understanding of their work. One of the most famous woodcarvers in Oaxaca, Mexico, once explained to me that the Angels tell him what to sculpt. I don’t believe in Angels but I do believe Senor Jimenez believed.

We do better creative work when we clear our consciousness of self-defeating ideas and allow inspiration to flow. We need to find a path that allows us to be ourselves with our own unique desires and talents.  Just anyone can’t be a Senor Jimenez or a Diana Ross but they have allowed themselves to be themselves so their talent shines. A true artist aims to be his or her unique self.   We are all artists of our own lives.

When you take Science of Mind classes, you learn that you are a unique, individualized expression of God. If you look around, you can see that is true. Do you ever wonder how you came to be that unique, wonderful, person that you are?

Have you ever wondered why you are you? Do you remember when you were a teenager and wanted to be just like everyone else?  Somewhere along the path, all of us, especially artists, must begin to express their own beautiful, individual selves and forget about being like others.

We happier and healthier and more successful when we release the idea we should imitate anyone else. We need to discover our own blessed, individual selves. We need to accept ourselves and our individual talents and strengths.

Movies are fine but they are only stories. The relationship of the visible and invisible worlds or Spirit to matter or God to humans makes more sense in the Science of Mind Textbook than on the silver screen. Dr. Holmes states clearly that we are unique expressions of God and that we can each express in ways no one else can. We are unique and necessary to God.

Ask Yourself

How are you most creative?

What spiritual books do you read?

What are your talents?

Do you have an artistic hobbies?

What artistic expression would you like to try?

A good friend started taking Science of Mind classes. She wanted to make some changes, including a happy new marriage. After a few classes, she went shopping and purchased a beautiful wedding gown. She wasn’t dating anyone, but she prayed daily and thanked God for her great marriage daily. She knew it was a “done deal”. Soon after her dress purchase, she met her perfect right husband. They’ve lived happily ever after (more than twenty years and counting) .

One of the most unusual things about affirmative prayer is that we don’t wish, dream or beg, we know. Our prayers close when we give thanks to God for doing the work. We  know it works. 

That’s what makes our prayer different. We never plead, we simply claim our Divine Inheritance. We speak our word, and give our claim to God, knowing that God does the work.

We pray this way because we know that we are living in God and that our minds are connected to God’s mind. God says yes to any life-affirming goal that we can imagine, believe and accept.

Our job is to imagine, believe and accept our goal both with our minds and our emotions. We realize it is already done in the mind of God. At that point, God, which is Infinite Love, acting through Spiritual Law, must bring it into form or being. It comes into what we sometimes call the “real” world.

In our beginning Science of Mind classes, we learn that God is always saying yes to our prevailing belief system. So prayer is a message to God, and God is Infinite Power, Infinite Possibility and Infinite Love. What’s more, Infinite Mind must say yes when we have thoroughly imagined, believed and accepted it. That’s how the Creative Principle works. It’s the Law!

My friend bought her dress because she believed and she got what she expected. Next time you do a prayer, ask yourself if you really believe it. If not, spend a few more minutes. Even if it takes more than one prayer, aim for total trust. Keep doing the prayer work until you see results. Sometimes there is more to be known and released before you get to the point of total belief.

About twenty years ago, another friend called me for prayer to find a new job in the big city.  She’d been praying and nothing had worked  so she called me. I asked her if her bags were packed. Later, when she became a Religious Minister minister, it became her favorite story and talk. The title was, “Are your bags packed? Seems she literally packed her bags after  my question. Next day, the phone rang with a job offer.

The trick to effective prayer is developing a level of trust in the prayer process that enables you to move right along in the direction of your dreams. We call that opening our consciousness.  Sometimes we need to begin by praying for clarity and to deepen our trust before we can budge those old beliefs.

Once we learn the basics, it’s easy to unerstand why some prayers are more effective than others.  Even if we always  use the same procedure, our level of belief  and acceptance is quite different in different areas of our life. Some people find it easy to believe that prayer works in relationships and difficult in health or creativity. They think health is physical and “real” Or they think only “talented” people can write or sing or paint. Others discover they have layers of negative beliefs around  prosperity. The idea that money issues can be resolved by affirmative prayer seems OK to one person and nonsense to another.

It is important to have a daily spiritual practice that includes prayer and reading. Classes are also very important. Your spirit practice deepens your belief in the power of affirmtive prayer and helps you release  beliefs that stand in the way of success. The need for a good spiritual practice is always there. Long after you are in total agreement intellectually, you will discover some “emotional” resistance if you are honest.

If you  pray for a specific issue and get nowhere for a while, consider working with a New Thought minister, counselor or practitioner. That person can help you sort out your beliefs and help you plan to release them.

If you want to try working alone, here’s one way. List the beliefs that you suspect are standing in your way. Look at what you heard about money or love in your childhood. Some beliefs, like taking your doctor as  the ultimate authority or believing it is impossible to prosper in a negative economy are easy to spot.  You can begin to pray to release the sabotaging  negatives. You can also draw a line through your list of  harmful beliefs and write affirmations as replacements.

Perhaps you need to begin by praying to be willing to release the old  beliefs. Or pray for a deeper conviction of spiritual law. Don’t be afraid to start at the beginning. Be honest. There is no shame in learning something new. I used to believe I could not lose weight because I could not stay on a consistent food plan. I prayed to lose weight and discovered that I was speaking about my failure often.

I stopped saying, “I can’t”. in conversation. I didn’t talk about my weight but I prayed to lose weight. I knew my prayer was being answered when my intuition told me to work on self love. I kept praying and, one fine day, I stopped binge eating. I also stopped ordering small  amounts in public because I wasn’t fooling anyone. This was all a part of my self-love, releasing shame, and self-acceptance plan.

I also began to bless the fat people I saw. I stood nude in front of the mirror and blessed myself and said, “I love you.” One fine day, my intuition kicked in again and I decided since I hated diets, I would eat what I wanted and aim for healthy foods. I kept track and aimed for 1200 calories. If I went over, I made new choices tomorrow.

This is not weight loss advice. This is an example of how prayer helped me with a problem that began in the 7th grade. It was a deep seated issue and it took a long time to see results. I eventually released 110 pounds and I also released a carload of old ideas about self-worth. It took several years and I’ve kept it off for over three years. I’m not thin but I’m out of the doctor’s DANGER box on the chart.

Learning to pray effectively is all about learning to pay attention to what you are thinking and believing and learning to trust that this teaching works. When we get to the place where we can trust enough to thank God in advance and totally believe it, then life it smoother sailing. And, if we use affirmative prayer and pay attention to our prevailing belief system, we can all get there.

Ask Yourself

Do you have goals to reach?

Do you believe prayer is powerful enough to help you?

Is it time for classes? Books? Practitioner help?

What will be your first step?

I hang up on from a phone call with a very good friend and I feel full of gratitude that she is  well and happy, that I am well and happy, and that we are in each other’s lives. Over the past twenty years we have been through many changes but our friendship has always been there. We have supported each other through good and not so good times. There have been laughs and tears and lots of shared history. My life is richer because of my friend.

Good friends are really important and they must be nurtured in order to thrive. When I was a girl, switching “best friends” whenever we got a new hobby was common. So was  dropping our girlfriends when we got a new boyfriend and I can remember how that could hurt.

Growing up means treating friends as though they are appreciated. Our good, long lasting friendships are precious. If we are not careful, we forget to tell them how much they mean to us. We should also understand that there are times when we need to be there for a good friend when they are in need, even if it is inconvenient. Friendship is definitely reciprocal if it is to work over a long time.

Treasuring a good friend is a lot different from building a network for our business or social ambitions. It is also different from loving our family because they were born to be our connections. Making friends involves choices and choosing good friends is a consequence of knowing who we are. There are plenty of people on Facebook and they may be listed as friends but it takes time and common experiences to develop a real friendship.

Not all friends from the past need to be carried into your world of today. It is wonderful to keep your friends from high school or college but if you want a healthy balance you will have to develop some new ones along the way. Especially as we age, people’s lives and situations, as well as interests, change. Some move away, some change, some die, some simply take a different path in life. So if you only stick with your old friends, you can end up with a very narrow world as time marches on.

It seems to me that we should try to cultivate new friends and, at the same time, treasure the old ones. As always, balance is the key to intelligent living. No one can have an unlimited number of close friends but beware the person who insists that he or she must be your only friend. “Best friends” works better in 7^th grade than in adulthood.

One of the best ways to meet friends is to find a people you enjoy who have similar interests. These days, most of my friends are people I’ve met in my spiritual activities; once they nearly all came from my 12 Step program. Before that, most of them came from my writing activities. I still have a couple of friends from every one of those previous interests because they are a part of me and my history. Most of all, these treasured old friends have qualities that resonate in wonderful ways.

What kind of people make the best friends? I love the ones who are always there for you. They can be there in times of need and they are wonderful. On the other hand, the ones who make me laugh are fabulous. I also love the ones who are interested and excited about new ideas and activities. And then there are my deep thinker friends and my deep believer friends. It varies from day to day so I guess they are all my best friends.

Ask Yourself            

What old friend can I contact today?

What new person can I get to know better and maybe make a friend?

Do I nurture my current friendships?

Terry Guilfoyle presented an excellent lesson on social networking to the ministerial class recently. As he talked, I got the image of powerful connections and unlimited information going to isolated humans. Is this the future of our churches?

Can it really be true that the average person spends so many hours on  Facebook every week? Does anyone meet at work or socially anymore? In the near future, will conversation between friends take place solely on Skype? Are Sunday services obsolete?

As I learned more about our future and current technology, I felt a bit like an dinosaur. I can’t use my cell phone in my house. I read hand-held books. I don’t have an MP3 player, and I’m told they are already obsolete. I don’t have a  twitter account.

I do have a blog and a website plus a pretty substantial presence on Google so that makes me an early adapter for my age group. However, my age group isn’t running the show anymore.

Certainly, technology is a blessing. I love getting immediate information and I believe governments will be less brutal because of instant world news. It is good for grandparents who live far away from their grandchildren. It has made my life as a writer easier. I’m hopeful because I’ve seen marvelous technological developments in my lifetime.

Also, I am interested in history and I know immigrants left their native lands to sail to America and were never heard from again. Now, my Korean grand daughter-in- law talks to her parents often and flies home about once a year.

Despite the obvious improvements, I have some questions about the impact of modern technology. My worries  may sound cranky but they real concerns. Does anyone major in philosophy, art or English anymore? Do you notice how short books are now? Do you know any youth who reads books? And, despite our laborsaving devices, where has our leisure time gone?

Mostly, I wonder how people will gain wisdom in this new world? You get many facts on Google but how will young people learn to reason? Facts do not make us wise. Where will we learn to think and draw conclusions? Will we be totally isolated from  wisdom teachers? No dialog?

Dr. Ernest Holmes, author of the Science of Mind Textbook says, “To learn how to think is to learn how to live.” While great wisdom comes from great literature and from great art and great philosophy, we need teachers to help us with discernment. Questions are very important in teaching.

Our parents teach us to love if we are lucky. They are our first wisdom teachers. Grandparents are great for transmitting unconditional love. Some classroom teachers have the ability to believe in their students and they can be a great gift. Think back to your earlier years. Where did you learn your wisdom? The most effective way to attain wisdom is by being with wisdom teachers and soaking up their mental atmosphere.

Transmission of consciousness from teacher to student or grandparent to grandchild doesn’t happen as effectively over Skype. While people like Oprah have made an impact on our culture, the flatness of the TV screen and distance of the teacher greatly lessens the impact. Commercials don’t help. Wisdom implies a transmission of Spiritual consciousness from a wise person to another.

TV is better than nothing, but we need community and union. I fear that online classes will not be the same as a classroom with human spirit. Without true dialog, the ability to ask questions and exchange ideas, our learning will be limited. Will future youth become more and more isolated from wiser humans? I hope not.

Some of my fear may be because the world has already changed so much during my lifetime. I’m grateful for inventions like; polio shots, penicillin, TV, computers, fax machines, microwaves, clothes dryers and automatic transmissions on cars.

Of course, there were also all those war weapons that have not served us well. Technology can be as terrifying as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein predicted. In my youth we feared nuclear war. Today, drones are terrifying because there is not even a human pilot to drop the bomb. Surely it is easier to sit in an isolated computer room and kill than to fly over and actually see the destruction.

We are dealing with lickety-split change and I am told that this is just the beginning. I can’t imagine watching a movie on my cell phone. I can’t imagine being an average person who spends so many hours  on Facebook either. But I do use more and more technology. And I am fascinated.

As a writer, I’ve worked at home, off and on, for many years. It is isolating and it makes me a bit peculiar. I find I need to balance my work with social activity. I am old and wise, so I take steps to stay balanced. Kids who hang out in the basement playing killer video games for hours and hours are not apt to be wise or well-balanced.

More and more people are living alone and working alone. Many are home schooling their children. We take classes on line and we meet our marriage partners on line. Will we be wise and stay balanced? Is Facebook enough social life?

Despite my doubts, social isolation is already here for many and more is coming to all of us soon. Some futurists predict that neighborhood churches are on their way out. They suggest our spiritual experiences will soon come from computers or smart phones. I don’t believe it!

There is no way to replace the love, wisdom, fun, and connection that Sunday church services provide. Every Sunday, I leave my home church feeling blessed by the wonderful community I find in my Center For Spiritual Living in Carlsbad.

I love having recent talks appear as podcasts on our website. I love listening during the week just for a pick-me-up. But I can’t imagine that just watching or listening on the website or UTube is the same as sitting in church surrounded by the warm auras of other humans.

It doesn’t surprise me that researchers say the happiest people are churchgoers. There is nothing that can replace the sense of loving union with God, with life, and with each other.  There is something about the feeling of connection on Sundays and in classes that is so heartwarming, so inspirational, and so loving, that I wouldn’t trade church services for anything on any machine.

A good spiritual experience changes us forever. It is actually the easiest way to get in touch with the Creative Energy that we call God. That interaction of love between us is important and holy. It is irreplaceable.

I look forward to seeing you next Sunday and be sure you turn off your cell phones.

Ask Yourself

Am I alone more than I want?

Do I need a new balance in my life?

Do I need to learn more about technology?

My blog readership is growing. That’s good! I have a goal I know I will reach because I am writing in integrity, love and joy. However, I sometimes think of “get popular quick schemes” and that means I’m pushing the river again. Addiction happens in peculiar ways!

No matter how much one loves a project, the joy will disappear when racing to an arbitrary goal becomes more important than the process itself. The whole point of this blog was to create something in freedom and offer it to anyone who wanted it. It is supposed to be fun.

So what does that have to do with counting numbers? I’m not working on commission or earning brownie points to get into heaven. Once again, I am reminding myself to let go and let God. I don’t ever need to struggle.

After all these years, I know myself pretty well and I  know that one part of my personality part is accustomed and addicted to struggle.  I call her “The Strider”.  She says, “Not enough” or “It should be better,” quite often. The Strider can squeeze the fun out of any project if I am not aware of her tricks.

It is easy to slip into old ways if I am not watching. I struggled to get through college. I struggled to build a writing career. I struggled with alcohol and food and in many other things when I was younger. Truth is, I can use any goal as a piece of torture equipment if I’m not careful.

I have learned a lot about addiction and I have learned to watch out for the symptoms.  Writing, for me, is particularly addictive, but I need to remember that I undertook this blog as a service to others and as a retirement hobby. In this moment, I release the need to count readers and I simply return to writing for fun. I don’t have to prove anything.

I am not alone. Work addiction of one sort or another happens to wonderful people. It sneaks up on you, even in your retirement years. In fact, so many ministers “fail retirement” that is kind of a joke.

Addictive personalities will push themselves at work, at home, on the road or in the studio. I have a good friend who was practicing yoga at age 65. She was a marvel. She could do so much, so easily, that she constantly amazed us all. We were all proud of her and she never seemed to show off or be ego driven about her expertise. She did, however, really want to stand on her head. We prayed for that in church. When she got so she could do that well, she upped the ante and wanted to stand on her head longer.  One day her guru advised her, “Take the ambition out of your practice.”

When she shared that story with me, I thought, “I should take that advice myself.” Of course,  I failed exercise class in the 7^th grade and it didn’t bother me. I can’t bend over too well and I certainly don’t plan to stand on my head ever – at least in this lifetime. However, I do try to remember and take her teacher’s excellent advice. I do not want to be a slave to ambition. Do you?

We all know people who seem to be in a frenzy about how they are using their time and what they are or are not accomplishing. The idea of living in a frenzy doesn’t appeal to me. Does it appeal to you? Does the idea of taking the ambition out of your pursuits appeal to you? Sounds good to me.

Of course, ambition can be fine as long as we are making decisions that create a healthy, well-balanced life. But if you feel as though you are struggling to get it all done, you may want to make changes. One of the greatest gifts of our Religious Science teaching is knowing we always have a choice.

The question of how hard to work is one that touches all of us at some time or another. In our youth, our ambition may get us where we think we want to go but if we don’t balance it with loving connections to others, we become unhappy and distorted.

In our middle years, ambition takes many forms including working hard to persuade others, to train our children into our beliefs and to forge ahead in the workplace. Again, we get out of balance if we don’t take care of our bodies and our spiritual lives.

Retirement years are the biggest temptation for many of us. We have choices about how to spend our time and can very well end up staying so busy we neglect our spiritual practice and our bodies and minds. Inaction leads to disuse. Too much action leads to fatigue.

Throughout our lives, we face many questions about our goals and exactly how ambitious we should be. Should I persevere? Should I delay gratification until I get my goal? Should I pile up more money for the future? Should I keep exercising until I “feel the burn”? Should I stay in the marriage and find some way to make it work?

When you look at life’s big questions in the framework of whether or not to live for today or tomorrow, it seems as though life really is an art or dance. We each have to find our own balance. We have to make our own decisions. We have to decide how much energy to put into this or that project.

I talk to people all the time who are in a quandary about how to spend their time and money. I try to help them see they are always at choice, one way or another. There is always something we can choose to do and since balance is constant movement, there is always a need for adjustment.

Making new choices is easier than it looks. We can choose whatever is the apparent step in this moment to move us in the direction of our dreams and let God do the rest. We don’t need to torture ourselves with the past or try to control the future. We just move ahead a step at a time and enjoy life. We can feel good about what we are doing because God is good all the time.

When I get out of balance and start rushing, I remind myself to release the ambition and enjoy the process. The future will take care of itself. I have learned to envision a goal and believe in it and then give it to God to do the work. It is not necessary to struggle or worry about making it happen.

As of now, I am back in balance. This day I am simply writing what I know and sending it out with love. I know the perfect right readers will find it.

Ask Yourself

Am I struggling to make something happen?

Do I need a new balance?

What immediate choice am I able to make?

Do I want to release the ambition?

Do you watch TV shows like Judge Judy? Do you carry your own inner judge inside? What do you say to yourself when you look in the mirror? Or make a mistake?

We all have some sort of inner critic – a Judge Johnny or Janie that lives within. It is an aspect of personality that helps us be civilized but we need to keep it within boundaries. When the inner critic gets unruly, it judges too harshly, condemning us to a life of poverty, lack, and limitation.

The critic’s voice whispers sweet negatives  to us when our guard is down. This is the voice that keeps us from speaking out because we might make a mistake. This is the voice of constriction, of hopelessness, of fear and cowardice.

Here’s an example….Maisie dresses for a party in her red skirt, pink blouse and she wears a real carnation in her hair. As she looks in the mirror, her inner judge whispers, “You’re too old to wear flowers and you’re too fat to wear bright colors.” So Maisie obediently takes off her first choice and wears that tired old navy dress. At the party, she lingers a dark corner and Prince Charming goes home with a plump girl in a purple skirt – the one with the  big smile who laughs.

Another example…. Horace is a fine fellow with a great job, a big, fancy, car, and plenty of money. His problem is that he’s lonely. Then he meets a really nice woman and Horace likes her a lot but every time he starts to pop the question, his inner judge hits him over the head with fear. The judge spits out a long monolog that includes be careful, she’s after your money. Why would a good woman want you?

Horace and Groucho Marx must have the same inner critic because it was Groucho who said, “ I wouldn’t want to join a country club that would take me for a member”.

Certainly, we need judgment to keep us from possible danger and to stay safe. We also need it to help us make appropriate decisions. We rely on our inner critic to tell us we should not wear our mink to feed the homeless. But we don’t need much more from it. We certainly don’t need to hear it spew criticism all day long.

If you are like most people, there is a good chance you will benefit from opening up the briefcase of your inner judge and ruling some opinions out of order. Your judge probably holds some nasty beliefs that sting and burn just like the nonsense in Pandora’s box.

Look and listen for stuff like, “You shouldn’t laugh so loudly.” “You’re too tall.” “You’re too short.” “You’re too old.” “You’re lazy.” “You should be working.” “You’re too serious.” “You’re not serious enough.” “You should try harder.” “You hang on too long.” “You’ll never be able to catch up.” “You did something so wrong, it will never be right.” “You should be braver.” “You should be ashamed.” “You should start exercising.” “You should stop eating.” “You’re no good.” “You’ll always be poor.” “No one loves you.” “You’ll never amount to much.” “You are worthless.” “You’re unloved and unwanted.” “Nobody will help you.” “You don’t deserve much.”

The list is endless and each person’s list is personal. Rather than analyzing why we are the way we are or pitting one person’s list of  coulda’ shoulda’ woulda’ against another person’s, I offer three tips for controlling your critical voice.

Rule one – don’t get sidetracked into analyzing the contents of the briefcase. It was Clint Eastwood who said, “We should forge on and expect the sun to shine”. That’s good advice so just forge ahead.

Rule two – don’t get attached to your story, or your suffering, or keep any of those pesty opinions for pets. Let them go freely. It is not denial to move on.

I realize this requires a major change for many of us. If we are not going to analyze our problems, what in the world shall we talk about?  If Maisie and Mable have lunch and Maisie doesn’t want to feel bad about herself, she won’t order the baked potato with butter and sour cream and then confess she’s too fat. She’ll just eat the potato and have a good time.Or she’ll skip the potato and have a good time.

Then if Mable doesn’t get to complain about her husband, what will they talk about? How about world peace? Science of Mind? Their accomplishments? Favorite movies? New books? When we stop focusing on what’s wrong and start noticing what a big, wonderful world we live in, our lives will change.

Sometimes we hang onto opinions about ourselves that aren’t working just because we hate to admit we are wrong. Everyone changes all the time. You don’t have to admit you are wrong, you can just rescue yourself and move on.

Take Horace and his girlfriend, for instance. If Horace stops being attached to his story and decides to take a risk on marriage he’ll be moving on. He’ll also be making new decisions and living in the present instead of being paralyzed in fear. He’ll also have many more chances to deal with his lack of trust.

If he’s not attached to fear, and his wife wants money for new curtains he will just say yes or no. He won’t be thrown into a panic and think she’s trying to take him to the cleaners for everything he’s got. He’ll still have to make decisions and use his judgment but he won’t be frozen in fear. Horace gets to be born again on a daily basis.

Rule three  Use Love to deal with your inner critic. This is the most important thing to do. You can use love to bring everything into perfect right order.  Love yourself into health and happiness. If you look in the mirror and your judge whispers, “You look awful today.” Smile at your reflection in the mirror and said, “God loves you and so do I. Have a great day, Beautiful.”

When that judge whispers, “You didn’t get your work done today, you’re a lazy good for nothing.”  Say out loud, “I took the day off and it was fun. I deserve a good life.”  If your inner critic says no one loves you, tell yourself God loves you and you love yourself. Say, “I am love.” Say it until you mean it.

You can even love your judge in time.  Spray the inner critic with love and watch it shrink.  Next time the judge tells you that purple is not your best color, say, “Thank you for sharing. I hear your concern. But just for today, purple is my best color.” In other words, treat that inner judge the way you would treat someone you love but have no intention of letting run your life.  Acknowledge and move on. It’s an old trick but it works.

Ask Yourself

What am I telling myself that works for me?

What would I like to stop saying to myself?

How do I plan to do that?

*Note -This post is from 11/11/11 and it’s raining again today. I have so many more readers I thought I’d  rerun it and take a nap. I still  believe every word except the intro. My health is fine and I’m happy. …..  I wake before the alarm but I am not in great spirits. The weather has changed and it is cold. I’m worried about someone I love. My health isn’t as good as it was last year. I wish I had more money saved. Since these were my first thoughts of the morning, my first act is to make a gratitude list.

The first thing I learned in my first 12 Step program 38 years ago was to start my day with a gratitude list. It was a great spiritual practice and I still use it. Since I started, my life has truly turned around and I’ve found that a gratitude list works like magic. It will change my mood almost immediately and I have come to rely upon this simple practice.

Now that I’m a student of Science of Mind, I know that writing a gratitude list is a way of moving my mind as well as lifting my heart with the simple stroke of a pen or touch of the keyboard. It cheers me up to think about things I have instead of things I want. I am happier when I remember to focus on things I love instead of things I worry about.  It also sends a direct message to the Infinite Mind of God that I claim more of the good stuff in my life. I accept the best.

Expressing gratitude for the hundred dollars I have in the bank is a much more effective way to build prosperity than praying for the thousand dollars I think I need because the way spiritual laws work is that what I focus on is what I get. When I focus on lack, I get more lack. When I focus with love on the money I have, I will get more love and more money. Expressing gratitude is very effective way to work with the spiritual law of attraction.

The Universal Mind we call God functions on spiritual law. You attract what you are. If you are wrapped in a feeling of doom and gloom about money and your inner refrain is “Not enough” that is the message you are sending to the law of attraction. You are sowing scarcity and it is impossible for you to reap anything but more scarcity. While not everyone understands this, spiritual laws work exactly the same for us all. God does not take a vacation, play favorites or make exceptions.

Never mistake it, making a list of the things you love in your life is a direct prayer to claim more of that good. The best part of all when using gratitude lists is that you don’t have to believe in it or even be hopeful, you just need to make that list. This simple, straightforward spiritual practice does not require any deep intellectual conviction or religious faith. Just about everyone can find something he or she is grateful for, no matter how bleak things look.

I challenge you to make a list of 10 or more things every morning for a month and see how your life improves. You will obviously be more cheerful. That is a psychological fix that will help but a consistent practice of gratitude will do more than cheer you up, it will bring more of what you enjoy into your life. Keep your list simple and honest and it will work well.

My ten things for this morning? 1. The money I currently have in the bank. 2. The distance my loved one has already come. 3. The weather here in San Diego (even on the bad days). 4. My grandson visits today. 5. My coffee is good. 6. My beautiful home. 7. My new novel to read. 8. I’m going to a museum today. 9. My Science of Mind teaching. 10. My prayer partner. … Now that I’ve made that list I’m in a new place of heart and mind and could go on to list another 90, for sure.

Ask Yourself

How many things can you list that you are grateful for in the next fifteen minutes?

Will you try making a list of ten things you are grateful for every day this week?

I’m amazed! I thought we won these battles a long time ago, yet I see on the evening news that state after state is closing in on women’s freedom to choose. A woman should have a choice about what to do with her own body.  Is this a time warp and it is 1960?…Otherwise there is no excuse for this nonsense.  

For a while, I was a home teacher and one of my students was a shy, lovely young woman who had been told she couldn’t come to school because she was pregnant and might “contaminate” other girls.

She got caught in an unwanted pregnancy and chose to carry the child to full term. No matter what her choices were after the child was born, this was a setback for her and her life plans. It was a long time ago.

We all face setbacks in life and she had the intelligence to manage better than most unwed mothers. If it was her decision to keep her child, she was headed toward poverty, according to the statistics. If she chose to have her child adopted, that was fine although there could be psychological issues. She had some difficult choices to make.

I didn’t know her well and we didn’t talk personally. She was a good student and I tried to teach her well. I remember I thought it was very unfair to kick her out of school but life was very unfair for women. It’s a sure bet that the baby’s father didn’t have to leave.

Abortions were still not legal and I have no idea if she would have wanted one but the point is, she didn’t have a safe choice. Every woman deserves a choice!

That was a long time ago and times have changed. Teens now are usually allowed to finish school and some of the girls are allowed to choose a special school where they also get parenting classes.

I wrote a book called Young Parents once and I learned from the research. If the girls choose to keep their kids, they were statistically doomed to poverty for the remainder of their lives. Of course there are exceptions but most teen parents struggle for years. Almost none have a baby’s father who stays in the picture.

When I taught high school, back in the Sixties, I heard kids say you couldn’t get pregnant the first time. Some of those kids also believed that you had to “really enjoy it” before you could get pregnant.

Those kids  were sixteen years old and it was more than fifty years ago.  United States Congressmen and State Representatives are a long way from  high school. Some of them spouted ideas on the news that were more nonsensical ideas than any I have ever heard from a teenager.

Why are they really against Planned Parenthood? Why are they attempting to whittle away at abortion clinics? I can’t believe they are motivated by religion or they’d be more religious about helping the children who are already here.  I think they must believe that their views will bring them more votes from people who fear change.

These fearful voters are the same ones who are routinely trying to keep poor people from voting. They also want more guns and they are anti-immigration and the list goes on. If dinosaurs ran for office, the change-adverse voters would rush to vote for them. Oops! Dinosaurs do run.

Resistance to change concerns me but I really get hot about the shutting down of abortion centers and the persecution of Planned Parenthood organizations because I have a great long term memory.

In my day, girls were routinely blamed for getting pregnant. We were supposed to know better and understand that boys had “needs” that would drive them to distraction. It was up to us girls, when we went on a date, to keep our wits about us and our knees shut.

During this last election, I heard several political figures spouting the same nonsense. I even heard one candidate claiming that women cannot get pregnant if they are “legitimately” raped. That is probably based on my 1960’s students’ belief that you had to enjoy it before it worked to make babies.

If my news station is to be believed, that is a fairly common belief today. I had never heard that particular canard until recently, but apparently it has been around a long time in the right-to-life circles. Do they old guys still chuckle and say, “If rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it?”

All of this is just another alarming sign of the age-old prejudice against women. Whether it is a judge who blames the rape victim because she wear the wrong clothes or the neighbor who blames the teenage girl for going out with that wild boy, it always centers on the idea that it is all her fault.

How about your family? If you have children and grandchildren, what are you teaching them? Do you tell the girls to be careful and the boys to have fun? I hope not.

As a retired Religious Science minister, I’m supposed to look on the positive side and I usually do. The positive side here is that it will all change despite some people’s attempts to block progress. And I’m positively glad to know that New Thought arose, to make progress and accepting women as equals was part of that forward movement.

Many feminists deny all the traditional teachings as being anti-female and patriarchal. Their interest is in ancient teachings featuring goddesses and that is an interesting development. I’m glad they are doing it but I’m happy to see there are other attempts to the nonsense in the dominant religions.

Some people see the Bible as an old fashioned book that promotes men into leadership positions of power. They say blaming the woman is a common theme in the Old Testament.

True – there are a lot of stories about women enticing men to sin, probably because men wrote the book. Whether it is Eve, Delilah or Jezabel, these Biblical characters are nasty ladies. Some of the traditional churches seem to hang on to those attitudes, stating that women cannot be priests or ministers and the man is head of the household.

But most of the traditional churches are moving away from those beliefs based on stories written thousands of years ago. Protestant seminaries are crammed with women studying to be ministers. We are living in more enlightened times.

I don’t worry so much about what the churches say anyway. If someone chooses to believe that sex without a desire to conceive is a sin and not use birth control, that is personal business. It becomes impersonal when freedom of choice for every woman is threatened.

I think this is a good time to take a good look at the issue of women’s rights in general and check out your own attitudes about sexual behavior. Is it all the woman’s fault in your world?

Ask Yourself

Do I want to change any of my personal attitudes?

Do I want to investigate this issue?

Do I want to tell my legislators how I feel?