Tag: reality

The beauty of life

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Beauty is a thing of life, which dwells forever in the eternal Mind and reflects the charms of His goodness in expression, form, outline, and color.1

Beauty is a thing of life….wow….isn’t that the truth. When I was a photographer, my job was to look through this lens of life to see beauty in the details. I did a photo series on shadows that were cast by light shining through blown glass. The reflections looked like abstract images of water. You could almost see faces, boats and other shapes in the series. Beauty is everywhere; all around us. Have you ever seen someone in whom light and joy radiated through their eyes? I have. This has since taught me that beauty is, indeed, a thing of life. Because it dwells in God, divine Mind, we can see it all around us.

For in Him we live and move and have our being.2

Being in awe of beauty is a therapeutic action (the Greek word therapeo means in English “to heal”3). Looking at the stars and moon, looking at the smile on a friends face, the sweet voice of a child, all remind me of God and God’s goodness. It is as if these are God’s faces, God’s smiles, and God’s laughter and voice. Perceiving beauty has therapeutic effects.

When I was in high school and college, I thought beauty was something I did — a way I acted or a way I dressed. I have since learned the beauty is not something we do; it is something we are. We shine because God is light. We reflect beauty because God is beautiful. We laugh because God expresses Her joy. We are like rays flowing out from the central sun, who is God. We are never disconnected from our Source, which is why we have the right to express all the beauty, poise, grace, love, energy that God has for us today. Nothing can stop it because nothing — no circumstance, physical ability, lack or limitation — can ever separate you from God, divine Love (even if you seem to be separated) for an instant.

Just like nothing separated me from God through past mistakes and lessons learned. We are one with the light of God, with the light and activity of Christ. We always have been and always will be. Seeing beauty around us is one way we can perceive the spiritual reality, God’s presence, all around us.

let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.4

________

1 Mary Baker Eddy, Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 247
2 Acts 17:28 NRSV
3 Emmanuel Y. Lartey, In Living Color: A Intercultural Approach to Pastoral Care and Counseling Second Edition, p. 55
4 Matthew 5:16 NRSV

Overcoming personality 

Published on by lindseybiggs1 Comment

I’m trying to be alert to the need not to glorify or belittle someone else’s personality. Sure there are some people that we get along with more than others, but looking deeply to see the spiritual nature — the God bestowed nature that includes an inexhaustible list of spiritual qualities — is helping me perceive divine reality. The actual spiritual substance that is underlying being. 

For instance, if someone is sick, I can see that person spiritually as whole, poised, receptive, loving, at one with God and including all right ideas from God, while tending to their human need with compassion and humility. 

Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God’s own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy.*

This spiritual perspective heals.  

This can be helpful in an office setting as well. That horrible boss is actually God’s spiritual, valuable, loved and loving child. He or she is the embodiment of light. Discerning even one good thing, one quality such as compassion toward their family or honesty with their colleagues, can heal the situation because it melts the suggestions of evil that say that all is material and limited. 

This is absolutely helpful in looking at political leaders. That great act didn’t come from that particular person; it came from God giving the right idea — expressing Himself — to the people so that it would be a blessing to the community. 

Giving the credit to God helps me realize everyone’s innate Christly nature and capacity to be receptive to the ideas and messages coming to them from God. I can recognize that we all have the power to listen to God and that we don’t have to fear because it is our Father’s good pleasure to give us the Kingdom (Luke 12:32). 

All of us can recognize the Kingdom within (Luke 17:21) and work together effectively to see that.
Let’s rejoice!

—

Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 477 

Reblog: Reader Responses to ‘The Present Heaven’

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In this blog post, beautiful experiences are shared of becoming conscious of our spiritual being here and now (and at a time when it was needed most).

Reader Responses to ‘The Present Heaven’