Life lessons from landscaping

Published on April 30, 2012 by lindseybiggs6 Comments

My husband and I are continuing a landscaping project we started last fall. When we initially considered this project it was overwhelming. There was the space we had to consider as well as the aesthetic look, practical needs and our budget. How could we get the best results without exceeding our budget, or making mistakes and having to redo the landscaping?

We had a landscape consultant helps us with the big picture. We wanted to do the planting, expanding and decorating ourselves to save on cost and to learn more about the value and skills of homeownership.

We could then focus on priorities. This was very important because we didn’t have the time or money to do the whole project at once.

This reminded me of man’s spiritual journey through life. If we look at ourself, our understanding, the world and all that needs to be accomplished, we might feel overwhelmed. Feeling this way often prevents us from even getting started, being apathetic or feeling like what we have to offer is of little value compared to the all that needs to be done. But as I’m learning through this landscape project – planting a tree here and there, fertilizing and watching it grow – we see how each part that we accomplish affects the whole. In fact, with each part that we accomplish we can step back, look at the big picture again, and see if any adjustments need to be made. What have we learned? Can we adjust our route or strategy?

And then we see that each part is actually a valuable, integral part of the whole. Each part is needed to help us see the full picture. And with each part we gain the ideas, lessons and skills we need to continue in a more productive, effective way.

I think about all that the prophets and spiritual leaders have accomplished to help humanity gain a clearer sense of the allness and tangible presence of Spirit, Life, Truth and Love. They each had a spiritual journey of learning and growing – of God’s nature being revealed to their consciousness. If they had stopped, or failed to get started, we wouldn’t have the spiritual understanding of being that we do today.

Mary Baker Eddy, a Christian healer and teacher from the late 1800’s – early 1900’s wrote:

“[Divine] Science reveals the possibility of achieving all good, and sets mortals at work to discover what God has already done; but distrust of one’s ability to gain the goodness desired and to bring out better and higher results, often hampers the trial of one’s wings and ensures failure at the outset.”¹

“We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives. Let unselfishness, goodness, mercy, justice, health, holiness, love — the kingdom of heaven — reign within us, and sin, disease, and death will diminish until they finally disappear.”²

Even though we have a lot of growing to do, like my garden, we can still succeed with each step we take along the way.

¹ Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 260
² Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 248

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

Feeling successful

Published on April 4, 2012 by lindseybiggs6 Comments

Everyone wants to feel successful. Often this is expressed in terms of a house, marital status or kids and a job. And we can often feel pretty unsuccessful if we don’t have one or all of these things. But don’t believe it! Each one of us is the valuable, needed and worthy child of God with divine inheritance.

Recently, my husband and I were contemplating our future dream house and trying to make this more of a reality. However, I was feeling frustrated and unsuccessful because it didn’t seem like there was any way to start this project.

I got my journal to write and pray about what was bothering me. I saw that I love progress. Progress is a sign of productivity, success and being on a divinely right path. I was seeing this house and future plans as a sign of progress. And I was feeling really unproductive and lackadaisical because it didn’t seem like it could happen.

As I prayed about this from a metaphysical and spiritual standpoint, I began to see that progress is really mental. Progress is new thoughts about God and your relationship with Him. Progress is a new understanding of your spiritual selfhood and identity. Progress is seeing the true, spiritual nature of your fellow-man and loving your neighbor better. Progress is the victory of Truth over error, spirit over matter and the throwing off of material limitations or the so-called carnal mind.

“…let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance (unnecessary weight) and that sin which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us, and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us…” (Hebrews 12:1, Amplified Bible)

This new view of progress really uplifted me and aligned my priorities back to God’s. I saw that each moment, each thought, could be full of progress. So rather than having one big lump sum of progress represented in a house or some other material thing, I could have a hundred steps of progress in thought each day.

So if you’re feeling trapped by a financial situation, relationships status or some other thing, focus on the progress you can make today – right now in this moment. This illumination of present good and the activity of goodness in your life will surely lift your spirits and open up new views of what is possible today.