Are you being affected by people’s opinions?

Published on April 27, 2012 by lindseybiggsLeave a comment

Are you being ogled?

by Mark Sappenfield, Staff Writer for The Christian Science Monitor

I came across an article with a provocative headline the other day. It read, “Study: Ogling women makes them worse at math.” Basically, the study wanted to figure out what happened when men and women felt objectified, something the researchers defined as people being “judged on body parts or sexual function without regard to other aspects of their personality.” So several members of the study team were trained to stare at men and women in an inappropriate way, then the men and women were asked to take a math test.

The women who were objectified did worse than women in a control group who were not. (The men showed no difference.) Moreover, other research has shown that women do worse on math tests when they are told before starting: “Girls are bad at math.”

We often think of contagion as being a process of microbes and viruses. But how often do we think about mental contagion? Yes, we admit that we are influenced by our friends, our parents, our co-workers. Still, these studies are shocking – showing the degree to which we unconsciously allow others’ thoughts to shape our experience. This is mental tyranny, and thankfully it is something that we can summarily reject.

How? We can start by understanding our origin and nature. Mary Baker Eddy, the author of “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” (see p. 525), refers to the Icelandic Bible translation of this verse from the first chapter of Genesis: “And God said, Let us make man after our mind and our likeness; and God shaped man after His mind; after God’s mind shaped He him; and He shaped them male and female” (verse 27).

So all that we are is the likeness of God’s mind. We are not a body to be ogled or a brain of doubtful mathematical aptitude. We are an image of God’s thought, and the allness of God precludes the intrusion of anything unlike this perfect likeness in this image. This frees us from aggressive mental intrusion… Read more

True love

Published on April 19, 2012 by lindseybiggsLeave a comment

Last night, as I was going to bed, I was praying to know how to “love my neighbor” better.

The answer that came to me is to love my neighbor (and myself) spiritually.

“In patient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error, — self-will, self-justification, and self-love, — which wars against spirituality and is the law of sin and death.” (Eddy, Science and Health, p. 242)

Self-will (or human wilfulness), self-justification (or feeling the need to justify what you are doing perhaps because it isn’t right) and self-love are actually the opposite of Love, divine, true Love.

A well-known, and probably the best written statement on Love comes from I Corinthians 13:

“If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly,but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” (New Revised Standard Version)

I think of this wonderful statement of love as a comparison between self-love (thinking we are the best and indulging our material personality) versus spiritual love, the Love which is God itself.

We have all felt moved, touched or inspired by Love, I’m sure. Perhaps it was in helping a friend, saying just the right thing that meant so much to someone, or in a healing we had. As we erase the “adamant of error” from our consciousness we become lighter, clearer and a better transparency for divine Love, the love that heals, saves and uplifts.

Childlikeness & its benefits

Published on April 5, 2012June 19, 2012 by lindseybiggsLeave a comment

Tobin Hart, PhD, author of The Secret Spiritual World of Children, writes about how children are naturally attuned to the spiritual. He says:

“Nearly all children experience ways of knowing and being – outside of any training or rituals. They include awe and wonder, intense feelings of love and compassion, startling moments of wisdom and a deep curiosity about the profound nature of life. They are naturally attuned to the spiritual.”

There are many ways that we can learn from children and cultivate our own forever innocence, childlikeness and receptivity.

Here is what Christ Jesus says about children:

At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me. (NKJV Matt 18)

And said in a slightly different way:

“I’m telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you’re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom. What’s more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it’s the same as receiving me.” (The Message Matt 18)

I have the joy of teaching Sunday School, and this past Saturday I went to prepare my lesson. At the time, I was feeling really bogged down by some plans my husband and I were trying to sort out. I couldn’t tell which direction we should go in or when. The limitations of my human sense of things was frustrating and confusing. And it was tempting to just stew about these plans rather than actively engage in the preparation of this Sunday School lesson.

But I had just gotten a bunch of new lessons from a previous teacher so I decided to check them out. 2 of the lessons used a concept of a “thought bucket”; you and the children decide what can go in to your thought bucket and what can not. We adapted one of these games and tried it out. The game went like this:

You get 5 buckets (we used tupperware) and think of 5 temptations i.e. discouragement, fear, lack, revenge, hate, lust, etc. You then think of 5 “weapons” of God i.e. love, kindness, patience, meekness, trust, hope, faith, confidence, etc. We wrote the 5 “weapons” on a piece of paper and crumpled it up on in a ball. You then try to make a basket throwing the “weapons” into the buckets. If you make it, you go on to the next one. At the end, each bucket should have a “weapon” in it. And I thought it was really fun to unfold the weapon paper and see which weapon conquered each temptation.

At the end of this exercise, I felt totally refreshed and joyful! The simplicity of this exercise reminded me of the simple, spiritual Truths and how easy it can be to practice them. Sometimes as adults we make it so complicated! But it can be as simple as determining if the thoughts in your bucket are from divine Mind, Spirit, or from the carnal mind, error. Our Father takes care of all the other details. All we have to focus on is what is going into our consciousness.

It reminds me of this thought:

“Stand porter at the door of thought. Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily results, you will control yourself harmoniously.” (Science and Health, p. 392)