Grits

A guide for life

The other evening, at the end of a very fun dinner, a newish friend of mine here in Santa Fe said something that was totally cool and quite profound to me. He is a medical doctor and had just learned that my husband and I study and practice the principles of Christian Science in our everyday life...and we both have for most of our lives.

He said, "That is so cool, to believe in something as an adult that you did as a child." I said that it was when I was an adult that Christian Science proved its worth as a way to live my whole life.

When I was a kid my brother, sisters and I attended the church of my mom. My dad attended the Christian Science church. (My parents agreed that was a reasonable plan. Pretty typical of the era, I think.) At around 7 years old, I was stung by a bee. We hustled off to the pediatrician and he gave me a shot of penicillin. As I remember, in a day or so I started to swell up and itch everywhere...feet, hands, joints, face, even inside my mouth.

Back to the pediatrician who prescribed another drug to alleviate the swelling and the itching. Didn't work. I remember being very uncomfortable -- and being popped into a cold bath with baking soda to relieve the itching.

This went on for several days. Finally, with no progress in my condition, in fact my throat felt like it was closing up and it was hard to breathe, the doctor told my mom that he was very concerned about giving me any more of the drug because it could have a harmful effect. But that he didn't know what else to do.

My mom called my dad at work, very frightened. Dad said, "Can we use Christian Science now?"

To my dad, relying on spiritual healing as defined by Christian Science was a natural and effective remedial practice. He had relied on it for most of his life. But to my mom, who had only relied on medical treatment, Christian Science was a radical approach to physical healing. But it appeared that nothing more could be done by the doctor. So she said yes.

My dad called a Christian Science practitioner, someone who is a professional spiritual healer in the Christian Science method.

He prayed through the night. Now since I was the patient, I don't know how his specific prayers actually went. But knowing what I know now about how to pray scientifically, he probably started with the definition of God as Love, as the loving Father and Mother of His entire creation. He is the All of every living thing. And since He is Love, then His creation, His Allness, must be good.

Then the practitioner would have seen me as a creation of this Father-Mother Love, so I must be good too. Could this good Creator have made anything bad, like a deathly reaction to a bee (one of His creations) or a drug? Not possible. As a child of the Good One, and a reflection of His good qualities, I cannot be susceptible to anything He did not create. I must be free. This is the principle, the law of my true and only being.

Whatever the specifics of the practitioner's prayer, I WAS free the next day. The swelling and the itching were gone.

To my mom, this experience changed her whole view of a spiritual practice. We soon started attending the Christian Science church of my dad.

For me as a kid, Christian Science was a faith tradition. But as an adult, learning how to apply the principles of its teaching, it has become a scientific practice, a practical application to any situation in my life: relationships, healing, financial challenges, career guidance, etc. The more I apply it, the bigger its worth is proven.

It is pretty cool, when I think about it...that something I accepted in my childhood (because it was all I knew) has become bigger, stronger and grander to me as an adult.

If you have ever gone back to the house you grew up in and seen it shrink before your eyes, you can get an idea of how profound the opposite effect can be.

I'm pretty grateful to my parents -- to my dad for never thinking it was "too late" or "not enough time" for Christian Science treatment, and to my mom for saying "yes." They gave me a guide for life.

Personal worth, with or without an MBA

Should I or shouldn't I go after my MBA?

At the time, I was 40 years old, president of my own advertising agency in San Francisco, had co-founded and expanded a consulting company in association with Tom Peters...and for the first time I felt devalued because I didn't have one. Actually,I also felt ticked off.

A good friend of mine who was managing director of a regional office of a large multi-national general business consulting company had been observing the success I had in developing the Customer Service practice of my consulting company. He thought it was something his office (and possibly the company) should develop too and rather than start from scratch, why not buy my company and employ me to head it up?

So he floated the idea to his colleagues. Naaahh, they said. True, we may need the expertise, but she doesn't have an MBA. My friend was majorly apologetic and disappointed -- what he admired was my passion for Customer Service which, he said, was worth more than an MBA. But his hands were tied.

"Disappointed" doesn't even begin to describe my feelings. I was evangelistic about Customer Service and the opportunity to have a bigger platform and megaphone with my friend's consulting company was a golden opportunity. But to have the deal fail BECAUSE I didn't have my MBA -- IOW I wasn't one of "them" -- knocked me flat.

So I thought, well maybe this is going to be a hindrance for the rest of my career...maybe I should go get it?  See, I was starting from the basis that "they" were right: Not having an MBA was a big problem for me. My career experience was not good enough without it. I was not good enough without it.

This kind of thinking kept me busy for several days. I looked into the local universities (Cal, Stanford) and the graduate school test. WIth my Cal undergraduate degree and practical experience I might squeeze in. But the more I thought about the practical implications (time and cost), I had to ask myself, is this really worth it?

And that is when I decided to pray about the situation. I really needed to go to the root of the problem BEFORE I made a decision about what action to take. See, the core of my despair was that I felt worthless. My identity was somehow devalued because I didn't have an advanced degree. This made me ask, What is my real identity? Is it made up of education, money, career role, corporate position?

My true identity is created by Spirit, by the Creator of all living things. And this Spirit made me whole and complete in the divine image. So how could I be less than anything? How could I be missing anything? How could I not have what I needed if the Spirit gave me all of Her love and goodness?

Evidence of this had been so obvious throughout my career -- in fact, the conditions presenting the opportunity to own my advertising agency AND the consulting company could only have come about through the divine hand. I knew this without a doubt. So why now would my divinely-led career suddenly be not good enough?

I can't describe the wave of relief that swept over me. The bouyancy and joy...I felt LOVED by the Spirit! And I knew I had and will always have whatever I need to live my life, expressing the qualities of the Divine.

Now I could evaluate the pros and cons for enrolling in graduate school for all the right reasons, not out of despair. And I decided not to get my MBA. The passion just wasn't there...and I had already come to experience the satisfaction in working with passion.

Looking back over several years, I made the right decision for me. But most important, I learned a very valuable lesson about what constitutes my true identity.

Whose Vision Do I See?

Years ago I was in the middle of a startup which consulted with companies on how to make their cultures more customer-driven. We had a great USP -- we were offering the branded programs created by Tom Peters -- but the business wasn't taking off as well as my partners (2) and I had planned. (Basic rule for entrepreneurs: Plan for the Unplanned).

But we were getting to the point of no return: should we hunker down (even more), borrow more money and hang on, or should we cut our losses and hang it up? I was so committed to the ideal of our work (we had seen some pretty amazing turnarounds in Fortune 500 companies) that I just couldn't envision stopping...I thought we just might be at the breakthrough point! But my two partners, who were probably more pragmatic, weren't so sure. Over a period of several weeks we hadn't come to any decisions. I do remember, however, that many meetings to discuss what to do included at some point my statement, "I have this vision...."  Looking back, it sounds like I thought I was the only one who had a vision. Aaargh.

During this period of time, I got afflicted with that weird eye disease -- conjunctivitus -- that gets progressively worse and hangs around for a long time and for which there isn't a medical cure (this was about 12 years ago). What a DRAG! It is the kind of thing where you begin to think, "I'm never gonna get better!"

The eye doctor (which is where I evidently caught the thing when I went in to have my contact lenses checked) prescribed some medicine but said it wasn't going to cure it (he said you gotta let the disease run its course, which could be 3 weeks or more -- ick!), but it would relieve some of the annoying symptoms.

Well, humph. If the medication was actually going to do something I would have used it. But since it wasn't really getting RID of it for a long while, I decided to treat it with spiritual prayer. I have had good results in healing diseases through specific prayer treatments -- I was sure this was going to be better than "letting the disease run its course".

So over the next few days I prayed to understand better who Spirit is and my identity and relationship vis a vis Spirit. See, to me, we are all really spiritual beings, created by the Creator of all living things to be the reflected image of goodness and purity. Which means, there is no separation between the Creator and the creation (me!). Now, most of the time I either forget this or don't understand what this really means in a particular situation. Which is why praying works to get me lined up with what is spiritually true.

Soooo, if my true and only self is actually the reflected image of the Creator then either the Creator has conjunctivitus or I DON'T have conjunctivitus....one or the other can only be true. One morning, I was pondering this and many other thoughts about my spiritual identity when I went to church and the sermon was on the BIble story about Jacob who is wrestling with an angel. At one point, the angel says "Let me go..." and Jacob says,  "Nope, not until you bless me..."

Boy, did I want to be blessed right then, too. This eye thing had been going on for about a week and I wanted it GONE.

Then, right at that moment, something flitted across my consciousness. It is hard to describe actually because it was just a fragment of an idea about true VISION. And I mentally struggled to hang on to the idea, to get a fuller picture of it -- and it hit me it was like Jacob and the angel!

The idea that came to me was this: the only vision that mattered was the vision of the Creator. Since I was the reflected image, I reflected Spirit's vision, but I wasn't the creator of it. Talk about a big bull's-eye on my business "vision" that I was clinging to.

I hung on to this idea, and it became stronger and clearer in my consciousness...until I truly felt I was blessed with it. And when I felt truly blessed, the weight of the business decision lifted from me. I still wasn't sure what we should do, but I wasn't hanging on to "my" vision of the way it should work.

And that's not all. Within a few hours the conjunctivitus cleared up. Went away. DIsappeared. I could see clearly again. When I visited the eye doctor later in the week he was pretty surprised and said, "Gee, your eyes have cleared up a lot faster than anyone else's."

True vision about the spiritual creation is what I needed to get a clearer picture about.

My partners and I came to a good resolution not too long after that. I continued with the consulting work, incorporating it into the value set of another business that I was running. Everyone was pleased...and blessed.

What does a Tsunami of Love look like?

You want to know what it looks like, go to www.spirituality.com. There is a bulletin board asking for prayers for the areas affected by the earthquake and tsunami.  There are 225 posts so far from people all over the world and from all different faith traditions offering prayers, comfort, and courage to the world.

Not only that, there are deep wrestlings with the questions such as "Why did this happen?" , "Did God let this happen?", "Where was He then and where is He now?". These might well be the biggest questions of the entire universe, and  could be summed up in these questions: "Who is God and what is my relationship to Him?"

Every religion on the planet has some form of answer for these...and anyone seeking the answers has to find the ones that satisfy, truly satisfy. And that only happens, it seems to me, when one can see some kind of proof or evidence.

Logic in these spiritual matters is big for me. Like, if God is Love then how could God be hateful or harmful? If God is all, then where does evil come from? There has got to be logical, if mind-bending answers. Mind-bending because little man can't possibly know what God knows. If I can get a glimpse of some teeny bit on occasion, I will be satisfied.

But logic is only the first hurdle for me. Once I get the logic, then I wait for the "feeling": the resonance or chord in my heart that sounds when the "rightness" of the logic eliminates any chatter of "but but but..." It is hard to explain, but it is when I KNOW a spiritual fact is true at that moment. It gives me peace, comfort and courage to go forward and take on the next challenge of getting by everyday.

Several years ago I got into a similar discussion with a Muslim client of mine about the nature of God as good. Omar was also having a very hard time reconciling the evil of the world with the allness of a loving God. Basically, I said, they were irreconcilable. It's not logical.

"So where does evil come from," Omar said. And I replied, "Heck, I don't know -- where do mathmatical mistakes come from?"  I truly don't have an answer for that, but I asked him if he loved his son. Omar had the most adorable little boy who, when he met me said to his father in Arabic that I reminded him of Tinkerbell. I KNEW he loved his son more than anything in the whole wide world. I was pretty fond of the little guy myself.

"But of course," Omar said, sounding offended. "And you would do anything to protect him and care for him and show him that you loved him...and you would never hurt him?" "Yessssss." By now Omar figured I was going to make some kind of point.

"Would not the God of all the universe, the power of all creation show AT LEAST the same kind of love for His sons and daughters? What kind of love from God could be LESS than man's love?"

We both agreed that, for now, we would focus on the love of God for mankind and look for evidence of that. There is no logic to devastations, mistakes, evils...they make no sense so there is no purpose served in trying to figure them out or assigning blame.

I figure I can't give all the love I have in my prayers for these dear people if I am also spending mental time trying to make sense of the bad. These two efforts are incompatible. I choose love. Know what? I like to think that's what God does too.

A Tsunami of Love is what we need

My heart hurts today. It's the third day of the reports of the terrible effects of the tsunamis in Asia and the pictures of the anguished parents tell the story of devastating loss. And there was a picture of two young German boys in wheelchairs who look bewildered -- they are tourists in Thailand -- because their parents are missing.

I just want to put my arms around them all and comfort them. I know it is so small, a hug, but it represents all my love that I can give. Although I am only one, there must be thousands, probably millions of people around the world feeling the same...that must count for something. That must have some kind of effect...a tsunami of Love is what we need.

The news has reported millions of dollars, supplies, food and medicines pouring in to the countries hardest hit. That so blows me away. It never fails to blow me away when disasters hit anywhere in the world countries brush aside any political agendas and rush to the aid of the victims.

Doesn't this tell you there is a higher law in effect? A law that supercedes laws of governments, regardless of their position in the world pecking order? The focus is on the innocent victims and local governments are unable to do all that is needed. "No problem," the world says, "we are there for you."

What is this higher law that impels immediate giving, instant caring -- without meetings of Congresses or Parliaments to deliberate and weigh pros and cons? This kind of giving and caring is instant because it must be the most natural thing to do.

In a disaster, this natural impulsion to care and comfort demands precedence, even superiority. Nothing else matters. This tsunami of Love, this higher power of Love will comfort the people of Asia.

In my prayers today and for as long as it takes, these people take precedence. I will add my hug to the tsunami of Love that is embracing them all.

A peek inside

Today is a reflective day. A day for thinking about bigger vistas, grander real estate than just the little plot of land that I inhabit. It wasn't just one thing that set me on this track, it's been several unrelated things over the past week or so (well, I think they are unrelated but who knows? At some point I might see that they connect in some way).

But I did have an experience that kind of sums up how I am feeling right now.

My cat, Dale, (her brother is Roy...yes, all you TV children of the 50's will know why) was recuperating from a wound. She hung out in the closet, in a dark and cosy place. I would go in regularly and pet her (which she loved, evidenced by her purrs), plus I brought food to her, which she scarfed up (so not feeling too poorly!). Basically, I spent two days hovering over the cat, attending to her simple needs. (She's fine now.)

At one point, it reminded me of my mom (good company, mom! I love my cats). Whenever I was sick from school, my mom would hover too. Not clingy, just be there...bring me chicken noodle soup (still my favorite!) and chocolate milkshakes (sigh, gave those up several gym memberships ago). Mom hovering like that made me feel safe and loved, regardless of the physical condition.

And that made me take a leap. If my mom did that for me, what about the Mother of us all? Would She not do all that -- and more? If I am down, feeling alone, under siege by sickness or stress or depression, wouldn't this Mother hover near me especially? Heck, I do it for my cat! There's got to be something bigger for the rest of us animals, eh?

I mentioned Mary Baker Eddy in a previous post, a really remarkable spiritual thinker. She wrote that "Love is especially near in times of hate...", which I take to mean under siege of any kind. (Eddy uses Love as a synonym for God or Spirit.)

Think about it. Just when you think you are the most alone, that no one cares or even could do anything to help, right there is Someone, as close as breathing. Someone who really cares and can actually do something about it. Maybe you can't see it right away cuz you are preoccupied with the circumstance. But still, She's there. And eventually, the day gets brighter and the shadows fade away.

And you realize, She never left...She was there all along.