Some things are better than winning

Rick Reilly's headline says, "There are some games when cheering for the other side feels better than winning."

This is a "feel good" story that happens to be good enough to be true.

I encourage you to Click Here for an uplift to your day.

Safe above the flood

Safe above the floods

Temperatures leaped yesterday from below freezing up into the 50s. There is a lot of ground water.

Neighbors struggle with basements flooding and toilets backing up. Newscasters announce that sewer systems have been overwhelmed with melting snow banks and falling rain. So I am praying for my community.

Does God know or care about our weather? My sense of nature is that God controls the weather, and the weather God creates has no destructive elements. God's weather is a climate of blessing.

God gave Noah plans for building an ark to withstand a great flood coming down the pike. Noah built the ark and safely rode out the storm. I believe this concept of ark is universally available.

We can build arks today, only they are more mental and spiritual. Mary Baker Eddy defines "Ark" in her glossary of Bible terms, in part: “ARK. Safety; the idea, or reflection, of Truth. . . God and man coexistent and eternal. . . ” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures)

My prayer centers on this concept of ark as keeping mankind safe and inseparable from, and guided by, God’s goodness and care.

He/She doesn't afflict or plan evil. Jesus expanded on Noah’s God of rescue by revealing more of His/Her nature as wholly good, a loving God who reveals solutions right where we are faced with problems.

This divine Love delivers us from the flood of bad news that sometimes feels overwhelming.

If there are practical steps we need to take, God will show us what these are, and how to take them.

This Love lifts us above the floods until they abate – much as Noah’s ark floated safely until the rains ended.

Just as the ark and everyone in it remained safe, so we can find our safety and security in God's active Love as well.

Unobtrusive prayer

Everyone has music within them

I have been praying to upgrade my relationship with my grandsons when we are together. If prayer is interactive, I figure my part in this prayer means being aware of the presence of one infinitely good Mind in charge of our day.

This has reaped great results. Last week, for instance, they built a fabulous snow fort – their idea and without my help.

This week the morning began with video games. Ugh. However, putting my prayers into practice, I did not launch into the adult "can't you find something better to do?" lecture; I backed off and thanked God that He/She was already giving the boys good ideas. And that it is their nature to listen to those good ideas.

After an hour or so, they turned the game off, and soon live music drifted down the staircase. The younger boy was plunking away on his keyboard, and the older boy was strumming his guitar. Never mind that neither one had any idea how to play, or how to write music. They were writing a song.

The boys conspired together on a macaroni concoction for dinner and were pleased with the results. “Don’t tell Dad it’s spicy!” they begged. “Let him find out!” (Dad likes “spicy,” so it would be a happy surprise.)

Afterwards the older boy wanted to play guitar again, but his brother was busy playing a computer game, so I sat down at the keyboard. Using the five notes to which the guitar strings are tuned, I played little melodies around those, while he strummed away.

Inspired, he reached over and touched a couple of preset buttons on the keyboard, and suddenly we had drum rhythms for my five notes. Soon his younger brother came in to see what all the fun was about, took my place at the keyboard, and by the time Dad came home, the boys were well into a musical evening.

God is so cool!

I should be grateful for this mess?

The joys of moving!

My friend Chris and her husband, Stash, bought a house earlier this year. Both are very skilled. Whatever they do, they do with caring attention to detail. Stash knows, for example, how to conduct the heat from the fireplace he built in the basement rec room to warm the living room on the other side of the house.

They completely gutted the place and started from scratch. After months of work, they have moved in, accompanied by many, many boxes.

I stop in this snowy evening to see how things are going. Chris has not exaggerated. Boxes fill the freshly painted living room and kitchen. Teen Christopher in the rec room is putting together a tall corner cabinet.

Immediately my generous friend gives me not one, but two Christmas presents. I hand her my bouquet of grocery store flowers, intended to cheer her unpacking. We find a place for them on her bedroom dresser, where the mirror behind enhances their simple beauty.

We three sit down for tea and talk – a welcome break I think for both of them. Since they are moving from a larger to a smaller space, it has been difficult for Chris to decide where to put things. Although she is very capable, today the task seems overwhelming.

We have very different concepts of God, and I am not sure we will connect by talking about God’s supportive love. So, letting His/Her love support our conversation, we talk instead about gratitude.

“I should be grateful for this mess?” she half jokes. After a moment’s thought, she adds, “I am grateful for my mess. Yes, I am.”

Stash nods kindly. “Yes, a great many people would be happy to have these boxes as their biggest problem.”

As I head home, the defroster melting the ice on the windshield is an apt metaphor for the power of gratitude melting despair. And I thank God for His/Her love meeting every human need -- one way or another.

Using the power of the press for good

For everyone who cares about news – not the tabloid stuff, but what’s really going on in the world – it’s of some concern that print media is struggling to stay alive.

A couple of months ago, The Christian Science Monitor, announced its plan to shift from a daily print format to an online publication that is updated continuously each day. The Monitor is the first newspaper with a national audience to take this bold step, and the media world is watching. To read the original announcement Click Here.

And you can also watch a YouTube 100th anniversary Monitor mini-discussions below on the future of journalism. Of special interest if you care about integrity, research, and reliable news.

A Christmas Yearning

My friend, Duane, writes poetry. His ideas usually speak to the heart.

In the following poem, printed with permission, he sets the stage for making unusual requests of the scientists who create wonderful inventions, and send them out into the universe. Or perhaps the final request is to someone else?

How does this poem speak to you?

Tuning In 2
By Duane Christianson
© copyrighted

I don’t want much.
The science news has told me
that real soon now in cosmic time
they’ll be picking up “I love Lucy”
in the Vega System on their TV sets.
And from what I hear all vibrations
made on planet Earth are still around.

So get in the lab
and make me a receiver,
Call it what you will,
a Crono-Geo-Acoustic Localizer,
and crank the volume up
on wrap-around big speakers
so I can really hear.
Once you’ve got
locations and all the frequencies.
I’ve got a list for you.

How about the first words spoken.
They are way past
pre-proto Indo-European
with “Let there be light,”
but I’ll take them anyway.
And let me hear Abraham
telling his relations
just how and where he got
the message to beat it
out of what’s now Iraq
for the promised land.
I want to hear Moses
drop the First Commandment
on his people
when he comes down from Mt. Sinai
after he broke
his first set of stone tablets
on their flinty hearts.

A reprise of Psalms by David
set to music would be nice
and worth recording.
I’d just as soon skip
listening to Jeremiah’s Jeremiads.
But how about King Herod
trying to con three Wise Men
from the East
into telling him
where to find the child?
I’d go for that
and a chorus
of the heavenly host.
But let me get one other
loud and clear,
that message, “Lazarus
come forth.”
There had to be
a major audience reaction.

And, oh, yes. I want to hear
Jesus loves me too.

No. No.
I don’t mean the music.
I can get that anywhere
on vinyl, CD or the Net.
I want the words,
the words,
the real words.
I want them
from the man.

Oneness finds expression

Animals teach us so much. Dogs teach me to give God my whole heart, joyfully, unconditionally, trustingly. I can do this because God is good, and I can trust Him/Her with my heart.

The video below illustrates what’s called bridle-less reining. It means the horse has no hardware – no bridle, saddle, not even a loop around her neck.

It looks to me like horse and rider are working at a high level of teamness. Clearly the rider is not “controlling” the horse in the usual sense. She is communicating, giving Roxy cues to which she responds. Roxy anticipates her cues and executes the actions immediately. It looks to me like the horse twirls, canters, changes leads, gallops, and stops because she wants to, not because she has to.

Jesus said, “I and my Father are one.” I realize this is most often interpreted to say Jesus is God. But what if he meant – and this is a reasonable, though not literal, interpretation – one in quality, one in purpose, one in action?

This horse/rider team move as one. Everything they do is oneness. What she thinks, Roxy does. They remind me that giving our hearts to an infinitely good God without reservation allows us to learn how to move in perfect harmony with His/Her plan for us.

As we learn to recognize the cues, our responses are more timely.

I’m not there yet. Sometimes I discover reservations hiding in the background. These become opportunities for honest soul-searching, honest prayer-time with God.

Always there is the sparkling example of Jesus’ oneness with His Father – the life of “him who went about the Syrian hillsides doing good and casting demons out.” John Greenleaf Whittier.

And the contemporary example, below, of how oneness can look.

The real thing - better than experiments

In “Science NOW Daily News,” December 8, an experiment revealed to researchers that domestic dogs, as well as primates, are aware of unfairness. The dogs understood when they both shook paws with their trainer, and only one received a treat, that this was unjust. The unrewarded dog refused to participate in further paw shaking. He was not a happy camper.

To those of us who have been blessed by growing up with pets, what’s startling is that researchers didn’t already know this. When it comes to food, a horse, for example, is not quiet or patient if his buddy gets a scoop of grain, and he doesn’t. Likewise with multiple dogs and cats, you need to feed them at the same time to keep the peace.

Yes, if you have a city dog, you have to walk it; yes, if you have a city cat, you need to clean a litter box. But you are rewarded with basic lessons in common sense, friendship and affection from a creature who doesn’t speak in our words. As you learn to read an animal’s body language, you can relate to him/her on several levels: basic needs, affection, games.

Where is God in all this? I believe God gives us creatures to help us learn compassion and responsibility, and especially to improve our sense of humor.

Here’s a sweet video – one of a series of Nora, who enjoys accompanying kids taking their piano lessons.

Heart to Heart

Chicago - site of annual

Leadership Prayer Breakfast

Rabbi Sherre Hirsch, author of "We plan, God laughs," was the keynote speaker at the Chicago Leadership Prayer Breakfast last Friday. She’s a young rabbi, wife, and mom. Speaking from the heart is a good way to connect with your listeners, and Rabbi Hirsch succeeded.

Here are some significant conclusions she shared:

What happened after 9/11 was magical: to see people bring their divine light to the world… was absolutely extraordinary… regular people doing what they do... to repair a broken world is the way that we are supposed to partner with God.

Our job is to light up the world and to help other people realize how much they matter, how much they are integral to being a partner in God’s creation – regardless of your title or your pocket
book.

As a young child, I thought to be in God’s image means that I look just like God. Not the case. Being in God’s image means to carry that spark, to hold that spark and to know that it is my task in life to light and repair the world.

She made delicate reference to the terrorist killings a couple of days earlier in Mumbai, India where two rabbis and their wives were among the victims.

For a compassionate and informed comment on that tragedy, I refer you to the following link. Here Eboo Patel, whose Interfaith Youth Core also made a presentation at the Prayer Breakfast, opens his heart.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97981229

So our prayers too can embrace the families of those whose lives have been forever changed.

Recommissioned

Nancy, Olene, and friend Katie

in Bet She'an

Our trip to the Holy Land was an amazing education. Our tour hostesses, Nancy and Olene, plied us with information whenever Mishi stopped for breath. Their pericopes (pronounced similarly to calliope) provided insight into Bible stories. Each pericope condensed several Bible commentaries. When telling us about Rahab, Olene balanced on her knees facing backward on the front seat of the bus, the scarf on her head definitely making her story more authentic.

At the biblical Sea of Galilee Olene reminded us of the second time the disciples went fishing – after Jesus’ crucifixion, when they were depressed and discouraged. Their whole world had collapsed, so they returned to what was familiar – fishing. Only their nets were empty.

Olene portraying Rahab, the harlot,
prior to the fall of Jericho

A stranger on the shore called to them, asked whether they had caught anything. Nope. He told them to cast on the other side of the boat, in fact to cast on the right side. So they cast, and voila, a net overflowing with fish!

Déjà vu. Suddenly the disciples realized this whole fishing scenario had happened before – about three years previous. Then their net had broken. This time it didn’t. Suddenly they knew who was watching them from the shore.

Olene pointed out they were reconnecting with the Christ they thought they had lost. They were rediscovering their spiritual purpose. They had learned something about the destructiveness of self-will, competitiveness, self-love. Get this – the negatives were not in the net to break it!

The disciples were recommissioned. They were no longer fishermen; they were to become shepherds.