What is this place?

This email has been making the rounds.  It poses some interesting questions.  Is heaven a place with gold streets and pearly gates?  What would heaven look like to you?

A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead.
  He remembered dying, and that the dog walking beside him had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them. 


After a while, they came to a high, stunning stone wall along one side of the road. It looked like fine marble.  At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the sunlight.
  Standing before the arch, he saw a magnificent gate that looked like mother-of-pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like pure gold.  

He and the dog walked toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side.  When he was close enough, he called out, 'Excuse me, where are we?'


Best buddies

Questions God won't ask

This is making the email rounds.  Some worthwhile thoughts here.

God won't ask what kind of car you drove, but He'll ask how many people you helped get where they needed to go.  



God won't ask the square footage of your house, but He'll ask how many people you welcomed into your home. 



God won't ask about the clothes you had in your closet, but He'll ask how many you helped to clothe.   



God won't ask how many friends you had, but He'll ask how many people you befriended.  



God won't ask in what neighborhood you lived, but He'll ask how you treated your neighbors.  



God won't ask about the color of your skin, but He'll ask about the content of your character.

She won’t ask whether you won or lost, but how you played the game of life.


The Carpenter

This email is making the rounds.  A message worth sharing.

Once upon a time, two brothers who lived on adjoining farms fell into conflict. It was the first serious rift in 40 years of farming side-by-side, sharing machinery and trading labor and goods as needed without a hitch.

Then the long collaboration fell apart. It began with a small misunderstanding, grew into a major difference and, finally, exploded into an exchange of bitter words followed by weeks of silence.

One morning there was a knock on John's door. He opened it to find a man with a carpenter's toolbox. "I 'm looking for a few days' work," he said. "Perhaps you would have a few small jobs here and there I could help with?  Could I help you?"



"Yes," said the older brother. "I do have a job for you.  Look across the creek at that farm. That's my neighbor. In fact, it's my younger brother! Last week there was a meadow between us. He recently took his bulldozer to the river levee and now there is a creek between us.  Well, he may have done this to spite me, but I'll do him one better. See that pile of lumber by the barn?

Can you love without an object?

There is a difference, you know.  Between "unselfish" and "unselfed."

Until recently, I’d pretty much considered those two terms synonymous. 

If you think about it, unselfish love can be ego-tinged.  “I am unselfishly giving up my day off to help my neighbor.”  “I am unselfishly doing this or that good deed.”  

Unselfed love is love without self.  It is divine Love expressing itself.

Unselfed love is having no will of my own, but always, ‘Thy will be done.”  Always, "What can I do next for you and your children, dear Father-Mother?”  

Mother love is unselfish, and this mom has several fuzzy
"objects" for her love!

Here are some observations from Mary Baker Eddy, 19th Century religious thinker and healer. 

• Unselfed love doesn’t take offense.
• Unselfed love lives the might of goodness for all mankind. 
• It builds in our hearts a temple to worship God
• Rejoices in the good of others
• It keeps us in the Christian life

Most amazingly, unselfed love doesn’t require an object.  It just loves.  As the sun just shines, genuine Love just loves.

A morning sacrifice

Sky after a baseball game

Ps 5:3  “In the morning you hear my voice, O Lord.  I prepare a prayer, a sacrifice, for You, and watch and wait for You to speak to my heart.”  (Amplified Bible)

The sacrifice I’ve prepared today is self-will -- in the spirit of the Lord’s Prayer which strongly suggests, “Thy will be done.”  

Trusting that God, divine Love, is good, all-knowing and everywhere present, I am happy to step aside and let the Love that is spiritual govern every detail of this day.  And to listen in my heart to know where and how I fit into Love’s wonderful plan.

Is resistance futile?

Who remembers "Star Trek, the Next Generation"?  Do you remember when Captain Picard was captured by the Borg?  He resisted being assimilated in every way he could, but the Borg drummed into him that "Resistance is futile."  No one escaped the Borg.  At each thwarted escape attempt, things looked increasingly hopeless for our hero.

That episode was the cliff-hanger for the end of the season.  The next fall, there was Picard, escaping the Borg, returning safely to his faithful crew.  So resistance had not been futile.

I appreciated the spirit of TNG, as the series was affectionately called.  Evil doesn't have the last word, even when it insists otherwise.  Good will somehow prevail.

My faith tradition, Christian Science, teaches that evil has no authority in the presence of ever-present good.  Even when evil insists otherwise, the Creator of the universe is supreme, is in charge.  As we learn to align our choices and our lives with Her good purpose, we see more often the success of universal good over evil.  

It is important to resist evil.  Acquiescence is approval.  Left to itself, whatever isn't from God's goodness presumptuously suggests itself as powerful as good and as legitimate.  And gets away with this fraud if no one interferes.

Jesus interfered big time -- sickness, sin, lunacy, death, not enough food, killer storms.  He resisted and overcame every one of these "natural" evils with divine authority which, he said, came to him from God.

So is this a comparison between Captain Picard and Jesus?  Well, no.  But both had the courage to resist what they believed was not right.  Picard's courage was moral; Jesus' was spiritual.

Meanwhile, some nostalgic Star Trek fan put a smile on my face with this church sign.

Mother's Day rap

Mothering. While honoring our moms is important, dads do, or should do, a lot of mothering too. Nurturing, supporting, encouraging, cheering. There are no gender qualifications for doing the things normally associated with a mom.  The whole world needs our mothering.  Everybody qualifies for this opportunity.

Having said that, here is a thoughtful rap from Mr. T. (which dates to the 1980s TV and movie era) honoring his own mom. He grew up in a family of 12 children in the Chicago housing projects. He credits his success to his mother's love undergirding his own desire to do well.  He understands the significance of a mom's role in a child's life.

For kids all over, I pray for God's mothering to protect, comfort, guide, and uplift every right desire, and to refine and lead those desires into fulfillment.

Museum or Hospital? or something else?

What is Church for anyway?  Who meets the standards to join my church?  Is it better if they dress, think, and speak just like me?  What if they smoke, and my church frowns on smoking?   What if somebody walks through the door who is homeless?

What if they bring kids who are noisy and run up and down the aisles? 

How genuine is my welcome to the smoker?  the homeless?  the kid who shatters the quiet of the sanctuary?

If Church is designed to elevate the race, how can we make the "race" feel more welcome?   

What's your role?

We aren't always chosen for the spotlight, for the important part, for those much touted 15 minutes of fame.  That's OK.  There are other roles, perhaps lower key and perhaps more important.  

This story has been making the email rounds lately and deserves a wider audience.

Whenever I'm disappointed with my spot in life, I stop and think about little Jamie Scott.  Jamie was trying out for a part in the school play.  His mother told me that he'd set his heart on being in it, though she feared he would not be chosen.
 
On the day the parts were awarded, I went with her to collect him after school.  Jamie rushed up to her, eyes shining with pride and excitement.  "Guess what, Mom," he shouted, and then said those words that will remain a lesson to me...."I've been chosen to clap and cheer!"

There are many ways to clap and cheer for one another.

Has justice been served?

So Bin Laden is gone.  America, and perhaps others, celebrates.  He was a symbol of unseen hate, a kind of hidden volcano that could erupt any time, anywhere, causing destruction, loss and grief.  That particular symbol is gone.  Yet, until we find how to make peace work, others will replace him. 

So what is the Christian demand?  As difficult as it may seem, it's individual forgiveness.  Not forgiving the hate or the destruction of innocents, but forgiving my own belief that there is something other than the man that God conceived, created, and loved.

Thanks to Facebook friends for their thoughtful reminders, gathered below.

"Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness.And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness, any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives along with the command, the love itself." — Corrie Ten Boom

Each day I pray: 
"God bless my enemies; 
make them Thy friends;
give them to know the joy 
and the peace of love."
- Mary Baker Eddy

“Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, 
and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble.”
- Proverbs

"I have decided to stick with love. 
Hate is too great a burden to bear." 
— Martin Luther King Jr.

"If we have no peace, 
it is because we have forgotten
that we belong to each other." 
— Mother Teresa

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives,
but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy." 
- Anonymous



"Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." 
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

And here is another idea for practical prayer shared by Christian Science lecturer, Dave Stevens.