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.

Sometimes you don't know the rest of the story

It was a cold December afternoon as Mom and I drove home from an errand run.  Both northbound lanes were stopping and starting erratically.   Suddenly the cars in front of us sped away revealing the cause of the slowdown -- a medium-sized, brown dog stood bewildered in the gutter on our side of the highway.

She was stockily built and wore a chain collar dragging a leather leash.  You could see at a glance that she had recently had puppies.  She had apparently been wandering in the road and the drivers had stopped while she tried to figure out where to go. 

“We need to stop,” Mom and I said almost together, pulling into a handy forest preserve parking area.  “Father, what is your plan?”  I asked, getting out of the car.  That quick prayer set the tone for the next five minutes. 

I ran along the grassy shoulder after the dog who was already headed south, fortunately still on the side of the highway.  “Here Girl!”  I called louder and louder till she heard and turned around.  She waited.  I kept talking to her.

“Thank you, Father, she’s waiting!”  I said.  She let me pick up the end of her leash, and agreed to step on the grassy shoulder.  But she didn’t want to walk in the direction of my car.  She felt she needed to go the other way.  My mom approached and talked to her.  She came with us a few steps and stopped.  This girl was too heavy to pick up and carry.

“Father?” I quietly asked.  Just then a woman pulled up and rolled down her window.  Amazingly, there was almost no traffic behind her, so we could have this conversation.
“Do you need help?” she asked.  “I saw the dog in the road and turned around and came back.”  I said I wasn’t sure, that the dog didn’t want to come.

Checking for traffic in her rearview mirror, the woman swept clutter off the front passenger seat and said, “See if she’ll get into the car.”   This was someone who was familiar with dogs.

I opened the door, patted the seat, and the dog jumped in.  “Good girl!”  the woman said as I flipped her the leash and closed the door.  “Sit,” she said.  The dog sat.  I waved as she rolled up the window and drove off with the dog on the front seat.

Part of our job was done.  The dog out of traffic.  This next stranger had appeared and was taking the her on the next part of her journey.  The woman could ask any vet to see whether the dog had an identification chip, in which case they could try to contact the owner.

Cynics could offer criticism at this point.  But Mom and I had to trust our initial prayer, “Father, what is your plan?”  And this was the second part of our job: to continue our prayers for the dog, and to expand them to including all who were homeless, to find their right home.  That was perhaps the most important part of the episode.

God doesn't make junk

Ever felt you've let God down?

In this well-done little skit, God points out that we cannot possibly let God down, because it is God who holds us up. Not the other way around.

How willing are we to let God chisel away the stuff that isn't us?

God's chisel

Have you ever wanted something really, really badly, and thought, "I'd do anything to have... whatever."

Or have you ever been at the end of your rope and prayed, "Tell me what you want me to do, God," or "Just tell me what I need to change, and I'll do it!" or "My life is really a mess, dear Lord. If you can use me, take my life; do anything you want."

This fun skit is about a guy who thinks he wants a spiritual re-make.

Moving forward

This witty piece of advice arrived in an email today:

Don’t ask God to guide your footsteps –

unless you’re willing to move your feet!

Is this my conversation?

Kids =

creativity and...

wisdom

An old hymn offers a prayer for help in speaking only kind and right words:
"Take my lips and let them be
Filled with messages from Thee…”

– And keep them closed the rest of the time!
The third line is my personal addition.

One of the graces that blesses relationships is knowing when to speak and when to keep silent. Recently my third-grade grandson helped me figure this out.

He and I were working at one end of the kitchen. At the other end of the room, his brother and his other grandmother were doing homework. Voices rose, and I chimed in, all the way across the room, with an opinion.

My grandson, standing beside me, quietly pointed out, “Grandma, that isn’t your conversation.”

My know-it-all comment jolted to a halt. “You’re right!” I said to the little guy. “What you just said is so helpful!”

I have since been pondering what is my conversation and what is not. I realized the answer to this question has to do with respect. Respecting others’ conversations means not jumping in uninvited. How totally simple.

In fact it’s so easy, I think I can do it. Apparently what’s required is breaking an old habit.

I like what Mary Baker Eddy says about struggling to do the right thing – that it’s a prayer in action. “The habitual struggle to be always good is unceasing prayer.”

I’m sure I will have plenty of opportunity this coming week to live that prayer!

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!

Is it our nature to do good?

I believe it is man's nature to be and do good.

Sometimes that goodness has to be sought and nurtured for it to find its expression.

I just read a first-hand account written by one who, as a young man, served in the Air Force during the Vietnam and Cold War years. His post was in Japan at an understaffed air defense missile site and, as a lowly Specialist, he was also the senior enlisted person in the missile section.

Distressed by the troubled state of his world, he had begun reading the Bible and Science and Health, trying to make some sense out of his life in relation to these conflicts. A military chaplain and his wife befriended the young man, and he began to feel a quiet and gentle sense of love and support. He was finding meaning for his life and growing spiritually.

In his military assignment, he and his crew responded to many alerts each day, prepared to shoot down unauthorized aircraft. Usually the planes triggering these alerts were identified within a couple of minutes, and the alert was cancelled. However one day his crew was startled to have progressed to the final seconds of the final countdown. The aircraft had not identified itself as either “friend or foe.”

To add to the confusion, the command center that would give the final orders - was unexplainably silent. While his fellow crewmen were shouting at him to fire the missile, he prayed to God to know what to do, and it came to him very clearly to not fire. So he aborted the missile. In violation of all his orders, he went to find out what was going on in the command center about a mile away.

There he discovered the soldier managing the alert had physically collapsed, and no one knew he was not fulfilling his job. The plane in question was a troop carrier full of GIs who, had they known, would have been very grateful they had not been shot down. The young man was praised for his unusual actions that day which saved many lives.

So yes, each of us matters. Each of us has wonderful potential to make a difference for good - although perhaps not as dramatically as that airman. Even so we each have the ability to be and do good things in our lives that bless not only us, but those around us.

What counts most is an honest desire to do right. What shapes and moves that desire involves discovering something of our relationship to God, Father-Mother Mind, the creator of the universe who knows and loves each of us, trusting that relationship, and letting it move us forward.

____________________________

The account referred to can be found in a newly published book,
The Christian Science Military Ministry: 1917-2004,
by Kim M. Schuette, starting on page 127.

Brockton Publishing Company, Indianpolis, IN
1-317-487-6868
brocktonpublishing@sbcglobal.net

Meeting God half way

One loved puppy

"Where the Red Fern Grows," is a great family movie. It's a love story between a boy and his dogs.

Billy Coleman, growing up in the Ozark mountains, at about age 10 wants a pair of redbone hunting dog pups more than anything in the world. Because his family is very poor, he asks God for these puppies.

Eventually he asks his Grampa why after all his prayers, he still has no dogs. His grampa says, “Maybe you need to meet God half way.”

Billy wants to know what this means, and Grampa wisely tells him to think about it.

Think Billy does. Then he puts his prayer into action. He begins doing chores for the neighboring farm families – cutting wood, painting fences, selling vegetables to seasonal hunters. Every nickel, dime, and quarter earned goes into a jar. At the end of two years he has saved enough to buy two fine puppies.

Another way to phrase Billy’s insight is “God helps those who help themselves.” Religious leader Mary Baker Eddy observes that if our prayers are sincere, we will live consistently with the spirit of those prayers.

Was it Ghandi who said, “Become the change you want to see”?

Billy realized he had to be a participant in achieving his prayer.

Christ Jesus taught his followers (throughout all time) to be doers. There’s a balance between prayer and doing. Taking time for prayer undergirds whatever action follows.

So I have to ask myself when I pray, how willing am I to meet God half way? How willing am I to change my thinking from that of an observer to that of a participant? These are two different attitudes.

How willing am I to drop old opinions, old habits, old ways of looking at things in exchange for fresh ideas, fresh approaches? Not change for the sake of change, but change in order to keep up with the times. How willing am I to leave old familiar routines that don’t necessarily promote progress or growth?

How willing am I to do my share to achieve my prayers?

From the mouth of a child

The Lord’s Prayer like you haven’t heard it in a long, long, time – unless you are the parents of a three-year old.

Just click here.

Mary's dream

When Mary was growing up, wonderful woods grew near her house, filled with trees, creeks, and paths. In those days, children could play safely in the clear water creeks. Her father showed her one creek she was not to go near because it was too dangerous.

Years later, married and with children of her own, Mary dreamed about walking in those woods. She heard screams from the creek that was dangerous. In her dream Mary ran to investigate, and found a couple of people sinking into quicksand in this creek.

Desperate to help them, Mary prayed. Yes, even in her dream. It occurred to her to push on and bend a nearby tree so that the people in the quicksand could grab hold of it, and be pulled out. She felt God gave her the strength to push the tree over far enough.

Before the people could grab hold of the tree, however, Mary’s husband shook her because she had been calling out, and he realized she was having a troubling dream. However, Mary pulled a pillow over her eyes and tried to get back into the dream so she could complete the rescue.

Her husband helped her wake up completely. She was covered with perspiration, and her heart was pounding, so intense and real had the dream been. Once she was awake, of course, Mary realized she didn’t have to go back to rescue anyone. Nobody was caught in quicksand. None of the drama had been true.

There are neat lessons to be gleaned from this. Crises can feel very real, very frightening. Yet if we can pray in a dream (and we can –Mary did, and I have too), we can also pray for guidance during a real-life crisis.

Another lesson is that none of this rescue activity was physical – it was entirely mental. Yet Mary was as hot and out of breath, as though she had really been running through the woods and pushing trees over. What does this say about the effect of our thoughts on our bodies?

Another lesson is Mary’s desire to help. She was eager to find a safe way to help those in need. Yet even as she awoke and understood intellectually that the crisis was not real, her emotions tried to pull her back into the dream, to make her personally responsible for the rescue.

Prayer that turns to an ever-present caring and wise God is always a good way to find out how to help, especially when we are wide awake and facing an urgent need.

And we can expect to find solutions. Sometimes that solution might be someone else who is better able to help. Our job is to be willing to turn to that Source bigger than ourselves, and then do our highest sense of right.

A tale of two vendors

Innocent looking panel box -

but something needed fixing.

Condo living is great. Somebody else is responsible for shoveling the snow, cutting the grass, raking the leaves.

However, there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes. What's behind the scenes is called the condo board, elected volunteers who connect with the management company and the vendors and make sure things continue running smoothly.

In one of our buildings, the alarm panel that automatically alerts the fire department in case of emergency, malfunctioned. The state requires that panel to function properly. So the fire sprinkler inspection people came out and checked their equipment and said everything was working fine. Therefore, it must be the telephone people's responsibility.

The phone company technicians came out and tested their equipment. Everything worked properly, they said.

It was back to the fire sprinkler inspection vendor. They came out again and confirmed their equipment was fine. Back to the phone company, and so on. Would you believe, for months?

Solutions are not supposed to be this complicated.

So, what exactly wasn’t working, and who could find it and fix it?

Since I was the contact for these vendors, I finally realized (better late than never!) I’d better pray about this puzzle. My prayer went something like this: Dear Father, You are Mind itself, infinite intelligence, and it is your loving nature to meet every human need. It’s a human need to comply with state regulations, and I don’t know what to do next. But you do. So I am ready to hear what it is you want me to do.

It came to me to call the sprinkler inspectors again, and talk to Brad, the service manager. Brad wanted very much to solve this lingering problem. So he sent a technician who came armed with 30 years' experience. He studied the alarm panel parts carefully and then asked an out-of the-box question for a sprinkler inspector. “Where is your phone equipment?”

In that room he opened a box to find a little rectangular green module that connects the alarm panel to the phone lines. He ran some tests on that little rascal, discovered a bad wire, replaced it and, quick as a bunny, the alarm panel was back on-line. We were connected and in compliance – for the first time in months.

Did prayer make a difference? I believe it did. Because phone calls without prayer had, for months, solved nothing. Phone calls after honest prayer resulted in a quick and permanent solution. As I see it, the successful technician was inspired to push the boundaries of where to find what needed fixing.

Hurray! Or as a dear friend often cheers, sincerely, "Yea God!"

The Lord's Prayer -- different perspective

A daddy swan (called a cob)

Someone posed this question:

What would happen if we put “Dear Father” in front of every phrase in the Lord’s Prayer?

Would we think more deeply about that prayer?

Let's try it.

Dear "Father which art in heaven,"

Dear Father, "Hallowed be your name."

Dear Father, "Your kingdom come."

Dear Father, "Your will be done in earth, as it is in heaven."

Dear Father, "Give us this day our daily bread."

Dear Father, "forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."

Dear Father, "lead us not into temptation,"

Dear Father, "deliver us from evil:"

Dear Father, "Yours is the kingdom,"

Dear Father, "Yours is the power,"

Dear Father, "Yours is the glory,"

Dear Father, "For ever."

Amen.

What then about Dear Mother?

or Dear ever-present Love?

or Dear forever Truth?

or Dear infinite Mind?

or Dear eternal Life?

What then?

Finding a way past anger

“Mom, can you take the boys tomorrow evening? We’re having a small dinner party, and we’d like it to be just adults.”

That’s how I came to pick up the grandsons Saturday afternoon. My preference is one boy at a time, but I am cautiously flexible for special occasions.

However, the eight-year old was not happy. His dad had just instructed that they were not to watch The Three Stooges at Grandma’s house, because they escalate into silliness and wildness afterwards. I appreciated my son-in-law’s preventive foresight.

We set off, Alan in a blue funk. “We have never missed The Three Stooges!” he explained, arms folded across his chest. His contribution to conversation, usually bright and imaginative, was totally negative.

At that point I rejected the scenario that the rest of the evening was going to be overshadowed by this heavy and self-hypnotizing reaction to disappointment.

So I prayed for harmony. My prayer went something like this. Dear Father (one way I like to identify God), thank you for being the only Mind here. You are in charge, you are in control, and your ever-present goodness alone sets the tone.

I wasn’t sure how God was going to fix this, but I was sure He/She would.

Finally younger Lee had had enough of the negativity and said bluntly, “Alan, you just want us to feel bad.”

“No I don’t.”

“Yes you do.”

“No I DON'T!”

“Yes YOU DO!”

Here I interrupted. “May I say something? I think what Lee is trying to say is that when one person chooses to be grumpy, it makes it hard for the others to stay happy.”

Silence in the back seat. Then from Alan, “Well why didn’t you tell me?”

From that point, Alan made an honest effort to change his attitude and to be pleasant. By the time we reached home, he was his normal cheery self. The boys played with Legos, and enjoyed each other all evening. Minor differences were quickly worked out on their own.

I am learning to really appreciate the power of prayer and its role in grand-parenting!

Where is God when bad things happen?

Watch the helpers

On a recent afternoon at Indiana Dunes State Park, my grandsons and their great-grand parents were caught on the beach by a brutal wind. It mercilessly hurled tiny stinging sand darts at every exposed living thing. It was so fierce the boys were crying as they all retreated through the woods for the shelter of the motor home (not an altogether bad alternative).

A few days later back at home, the boys and I were walking to the park for some batting practice. "Grandma, I don't believe in God anymore." This from the seven-year-old.

Grandma: "Oh?"

Seven year-old: "Yes. We were in that sandstorm and I asked God to make it stop, and He didn't.

Older brother: "Yes we prayed to God every way we knew how, and He didn't."

Grandma: "Hmm, yes, that's a tough one. But you made it safely back to shelter, didn't you."

Seven-year old, "Yes. But why does God make sandstorms?"

Grandma: "I don't believe he does."

Seven year old: "Then who does? The devil?"

Eight-year old: "There is no devil."

Seven-year old: "Yes there is! Isn't there Grandma?"

Grandma, evading for the moment the devil question, to address the more urgent issue of where God IS when bad things happen:

"Remember Hurricane Katrina (both boys nodded) that drowned so may people? There were a lot of folks praying then for it to stop or go away, and it just kept raining and blowing and flooding everything. Many were asking then, Where is God?"

We reached the pitcher's mound, deeply engaged in our theology. "But you know what? A lot of people came to help. Volunteers who didn't get paid, who just drove all the way down to New Orleans with food and water, and other supplies. Who took a week or two from their work, people like your mom and dad who just wanted to help those who had nothing.

"If you want to see where God is, watch the helpers, watch the care-givers."

This must have satisfied them, for we spent the next 1/2 hour pitching, batting, catching and mostly chasing balls.

C.S. Lewis, author of the Screwtape Letters, (though more likely known for “The lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”) wrote "I do not pray to change God. I pray that God would change me."

I think Lewis had it right. That’s a prayer I can identify with. Not asking God for things. Asking God to change us, to mold us to His purpose, shape us to His plan. Of course this assumes one knows and trusts his God, to shape a good, useful, and generous purpose for the one who prays. It assumes God knows better than we do what will bless us, give meaning to our lives, and make the world a better place at the same time.

“Consistent prayer is the desire to do right.”

Mary Baker Eddy

What is prayer to you?

peaceful place to pray

Recently Kevin Ladd, psychology professor at Indiana University South Bend, received from the John Templeton Foundation, a $735,000 grant to support his research into prayer

Ladd points out that even 10 percent of atheists pray. What prayer is to one person, he says, would not be prayer to another. He wants to define prayer and discover how people engage in prayer.

It’s certainly true that there are many forms of prayer, and many different ways to pray. One of my favorite definitions of prayer is this one by Mary Baker Eddy in her little book, No and Yes. “True prayer is not asking God for love; it is learning to love, and to include all mankind in one affection. Prayer is the utilization of the love wherewith He loves us.”

Then she describes what prayer does. “Prayer begets an awakened desire to be and do good. It makes new and scientific discoveries of God, of His goodness and power. It shows us more clearly than we saw before, what we already have and are; and most of all, it shows us what God is.”

Maybe we can look at prayer types this way:

1. Mountaintop prayer – where we’re asking nothing for ourselves, except to learn how to love as Jesus loved.
   
2. Walking on the mountain path prayer – where we are asking questions, looking for a higher view, or maybe some sense of direction in our lives.
   
3. "Just get me out of this valley!" prayer – a very basic, “Please help me, God!”

We might pray all three kinds in one day!

May you find the prayer that’s meaningful to you, that helps you through your day, or gives your heart peace, or helps you be a better person.

Another type of prayer
Jesus prayer

Life is not a card game

Prayer better than luck!

A friend in the interior design field believes in prayer rather than luck. Life is not a card game, he would agree. He is usually grinning from ear to ear with some amazing story about how a client needed a certain product that was no longer produced, or unavailable, or some other hopeless sounding theme.

My friend prays to know how God’s love fits into the service he is providing his client. If the answer is to proceed with the unavailable product, he starts making phone calls, and always finds, often in unexpected ways, exactly the amount needed for the job.

This happens not once or twice, but often enough that he sees a law of eternal good operating – not for a special person, or a special business. But a Life-law of good already in place, already active for all of humanity. My friend taps into that law when he prays to be a blessing for his clients and his community. Then he hears the ideas he needs to go forward with the projects he feels God has given him to do.

My friend loves to be of service, making people’s lives more beautiful, more harmonious, more joyful. His life embraces the spirit of Anne Hawks’ simple prayer-poem, comtemporarily reworded:

I need You every hour;
Teach me Your will;
And Your rich promise, Lord,
In me fulfill.

Living with sprouting purpose

Ever feel like an old stump?

The story of Job records the struggle of a man dealing with injustice and know-it-all friends. In great despair Job observes that even the stump of a cut-down tree might sprout if it just had enough water.

"There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. . . Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant."

Although Job felt worse off than a dead stump, his remark gives me hope! No matter what the loss that makes us feel cut down and useless, with trust in a loving God, we can deal with it. Lost job, lost friendship, lost self-worth? God has a good plan for restoration and renewal, and He wants us to know what it is.

In Job’s case, when he prayed for his super-critical friends, he rediscovered his oneness with God’s purpose for him. The tragic losses of previous years receded as he moved forward in every aspect of restored and productive living.

Note to self: It’s easy to pray for those who are pleasant. It’s important to pray for those who are not, that they may discover their inmost God-given nature is one of caring and patience. Willingness to wrestle with ourselves in order to pray for difficult people -- those we think least deserve it -- adjusts our course, realigns us so that we find ourselves in the groove with our Maker.

Related: Scent of water - Kim Korinek