“During the current pandemic, many people around the world have turned to prayer. Research by Jeanet Bentzen, an economist at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, found that internet searches on prayer skyrocketed during the period of time when COVID-19 began to rapidly proliferate around the globe.
After analyzing data from Google searches across 95 countries, she found, “In March 2020, the share of Google searches for prayer surged to the highest level ever recorded, surpassing all other major events that otherwise call for prayer, such as Christmas, Easter, and Ramadan” (“In crisis, we pray: Religiosity and the COVID-19 pandemic,” CEPR Press, May 20, 2020).
People are praying for the general population of their own and other countries; for key workers, such as nurses, custodial staff, and grocery store clerks; for public health officials; and even for national recovery plans. But what is the best way to pray? Over several decades, I’ve found Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures to be a wonderful resource, filled with practical ideas about how to pray—and how to pray specifically regarding disease.
Our present spiritual nature as God’s expression is a dependable basis for prayer that brings healing, as the first chapter in Science and Health, “Prayer,” brings out. Such prayer isn’t asking God for something we don’t have, but an awakening to what we already do have and what we forever are as God’s creation. True prayer isn’t repeating a set of words or pleading for God to intervene; it’s realizing and understanding present spiritual reality.
The book says, “Tell the sick that they can meet disease fearlessly, if they only realize that divine Love gives them all power over every physical action and condition” (p. 420). Going far beyond being a compendium of prayer techniques, Science and Health offers valuable insights into who and what we are as children of God and the dominion that this affords us over fear and illness. Whatever we face, we have the most powerful resource of all, God’s ever-present, never-failing love.”
Read or listen to the complete article by Lyle Young who also gives an example of healing prayer when he faced sickness whilst trying to return from Africa when flights were being cancelled here
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WHEN I WAS in my early 20’s, just out of college, I felt a deep personal responsibility to do something with my life that would make the world a better place.
……..I began to realize that I would never find my peace in a place or in my career. I began to see that I could only find answers to my questions through facing myself and learning more about God and my relationship to Him.
This marked the beginning of my real journey.
But during this time, I felt guided by the strong, prayerful conviction I had gained when my father passed on a couple of years earlier. Through my prayers at that time, I had heard the very clear communication from God: “Nothing has changed.” Even though the human picture had changed, I knew in my heart that to God nothing had changed—my father lived on because God was his Life. And I really felt the spiritual, eternal nature of life in a way I hadn’t before.
Over the next few years I prayed and listened for God’s guidance, gradually gaining confidence. Many times I looked to this line from Psalms for comfort and support: “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well” (139:14). That was talking about me!
As I prayed through this experience, I gained some valuable insights. First, that spiritual answers provide the only permanent solutions in life. Second, that trying to avoid problems rather than facing them is like being in school and refusing to do the homework. I would just keep staying in the same grade. I also learned that when I approached challenges with humble gratitude and joy, I was able to see, feel, and hear God much more clearly.
Slowly the depression and dark thoughts receded, and I began to feel a real sense of joy again….The murals I painted evolved from a personal venture into a community venture, involving whole neighborhoods. This was a career path I could never have outlined on my own. But it grew very naturally once I accepted my pure, Soul-inspired identity.
Ultimately, God is our Life. We can spend years and years searching out ways to give meaning to our lives. But until we see clearly that God, eternal Love, is our life, I don’t believe we will ever quite be home. When we do arrive at that understanding, we’ll see clearly that each life is eternal, precious, adventurous—and very much worth living.
Read many more helpful ideas in the entire article by Alex Cook from The Christian Science Sentinel here
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Listen here how Mimi Oca from New York managed a long drive through a snowstorm while refusing to be mesmerised by the snowflakes but instead listening to an inner direction. She learned how not to be hypnotised by snowflakes nor by what the physical senses tell us is swirling around us.
“The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory.” Isaiah 60:19
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Photo by Andrea Piacquadio
I cherish my alone time with God each day. I look forward to digging into the scientific truths that are uncovered during my study of the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. I’ve always found such comfort during my study—even as a child….Never could I have imagined a time when I would feel that all was lost, when I wouldn’t want to reach out for those comforting truths.
However, not long ago both of my parents passed away, rather suddenly and only a few months apart. I felt completely gutted. I was unprepared to handle what seemed like such a monumental loss. Rather than turn to the Bible and Science and Health for comfort, I found myself pushing them away. I didn’t want anything to do with God. I felt betrayed by everything I’d ever known. It was very lonely and disorienting.
A year after my dad passed, I took a trip to see a friend of mine in another state. While there, I also had a visit with some dear family friends whom I hadn’t seen in many years. It’s hard to describe what happened next, because it was so unexpected. During my visit with these dear ones, I felt myself open up again. I felt loved in a way I hadn’t since before my parents passed. I could feel that these dear friends didn’t see me as overwhelmed by grief and loss; instead, they saw my unbroken identity as a spiritual expression of God—they saw me as I really am.
I can’t possibly lose anything good, because God is divine Love and He alone is my Father and my Mother.
One of these friends also said something to me that completely broke through all the resistance I was feeling and woke me up. After I shared how difficult it had been without my parents, this friend reached out to hold my hand and said in the most loving, mom-like voice, “Don’t let it harden you.” Whoa. That hit me right between the eyes. I felt as if all the wind had been knocked out of me—almost as if my own mom had just spoken. That was exactly what had happened—I’d let myself become hardened. I had been so mesmerized by the sense of loss that I had forgotten the scientific fact that I can’t possibly lose anything good because God is divine Love and He alone is my Father and my Mother. This was a turning point. Once uncovered, the lie of separation from good simply dissolved into dust. Isn’t that what Jesus taught when he said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32)? I was free!
I felt lighter than I had in months. It was so clear to me that God was talking to me through those dear ones. It was as if He were grabbing my hand and saying, “I am always with you and you are so very loved.” It reminded me of one of my favorite passages from the Bible: “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God” (Isaiah 41:10). I truly had nothing to fear because God was with me every step of the way. And the mothering and fathering qualities I had been yearning for from my parents were being so tenderly expressed by those friends, it was a powerful reminder that these qualities can never be lost.
Since then, my sense of family has expanded and lifted. I understand more clearly that all of us express the mothering and fathering qualities of our Father-Mother, God. None of us can ever lack anything good when we see ourselves and others as we truly are. No longer do I claim loss for myself—I know that my parents’ love always had its source in God, and therefore continues on. And God’s love isn’t abstract; it’s forever active and tangible!
Read the full article written by Emily Nofsinger Kuhl for the Christian Science Sentinel here
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- Photo by ROMAN ODINTSOV
Knowing how to be resilient in tough times is a huge benefit and a blessing. You can recover from setbacks quickly, readily find your feet again, and easily bounce back with a better frame of mind. Practicing resilience is empowering. You’re able to stay confident, optimistic and buoyant in the midst of difficult situations.
In emerging from home isolation, schooling and work, parents, kids, and workers have again been feeling the stress of adapting to new regimes. Feelings and finances are being stretched to the limit. However, there is good news. When life seems out of control, resilience helps you stay firmly on-track, keeps you mentally balanced, and in charge of your daily activities.
HOW TO BE RESILIENT
To be a resilient person means to have a bend-not-break attitude at home, school or work. It’s being flexible and adaptable, not thinking or acting in a rigid, inflexible manner. The key to being resilient is to embrace and practice bendability, flexibility and bouncebackability. These thought-qualities allow you to easily rebound from tough situations and recover readily from stress.
While the ability to rebound quickly and easily is sometimes thought to be a quirk of nature or to be inherited, it actually isn’t. Resilience is a spiritually mental capability which we all can express. It comes from a divine Source – the Bestower of all that’s good, and everyone has access to it.
TIPS TO HELP YOU BE RESILIENT
– Be a bend-not-break person. When faced with hardship, draw on spiritual resilience to help you overcome it. Have the flexibility to bend with the winds of adversity and then expect to recover quickly and easily from trouble.
– Boost your resilience. In the morning and during the day, affirm that you’re a resilient, flexible person who has been created to triumph over hard times and be successful at home, school or work.
– Have confidence. Don’t stay rigid with fear or despair. Take the next step forward with courage. “We often suffer, but we are never crushed. Even when we don’t know what to do, we never give up.” Bible. II Corinthians 4:8.
– Be strong. Bounce back from disappointment or discouragement. Get up each day mentally stronger than the day before. “The very circumstance, which your suffering sense deems wrathful and afflictive, Love can make an angel entertained unawares.” Mary Baker Eddy. Science and Health p.574.
– Practice being resilient. Emulate the humble rubber-band, which being both pliable and elastic can stretch a l-o-n-g way without breaking. You can do likewise in tough times. No matter how far you’re stretched, with inner resilience you’ll be able to recover and rebound with ease whenever times are tough.
Beverly Goldsmith writes on the connection between spirituality and health and is an experienced Christian Science practitioner and teacher.
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To listen to the recorded webinar
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Photo by David Bartus
Of all the events capable of becoming a shared global memory, a pandemic lockdown wasn’t the one most of us would have envisaged or desired. Yet most of humanity now knows what an enforced “sheltering in place” feels like. While the lockdown experience can result in great innovation and community spirit, it can also lead to stressful feelings of isolation and futility or, conversely, the tension of too many people at home, bringing unsought added responsibilities.
Whatever the difficulties we face, within or outside of a lockdown period, God—who is infinite, inexhaustible, divine Love—is capable of delivering us from them, as the Psalmist experienced. He sang of divinity, “I called upon the Lord in distress: the Lord answered me, and set me in a large place” (Psalms 118:5).
During a lockdown, we might feel the “large place” we want to be set in is any space outside our familiar four walls, or if we don’t have a place of our own, any space with four walls that we can call home. In either case, the “large place” God sets us in isn’t a location; it’s a mental state that the Bible describes as “the kingdom of God.” This divine realm is the spiritual consciousness of divine Love’s infinite ever-presence and supreme government, which are always at hand for all to discover and begin to experience. This is true irrespective of whether we can get out and about or find traditional shelter. As Jesus put it, “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20, 21).
This is liberating. It means that everything we think of as being “out there” and out of reach is actually within reach of our true consciousness right where we are. For instance, the warmth and affection our hearts crave from, or want to share with, those we can’t be with are present in the divine Love that such mutual care always truly represents. Our true consciousness is populated by spiritual intuitions and ideas that come from God, our divine Mind. In a radical departure from the traditional sense of angels as divine beings, Christian Science reveals that angels are these pure thoughts from God, which are communicated directly to all of us and bring the most wonderful sense of being loved. They are described in a reflection called “Angels” by Mary Baker Eddy in the following way: “When angels visit us, we do not hear the rustle of wings, nor feel the feathery touch of the breast of a dove; but we know their presence by the love they create in our hearts” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 306)……
Whether we’re feeling overstretched or underoccupied, in or out of lockdown mode, our true life is a permanent “sheltering in place”—sheltering securely in that limitlessly “large place” the Psalmist sang about. It is our spiritual life within the Mind that is God—in which harmony, health, joy, purpose, and satisfaction aren’t dependent on where we are, but what we are, as God’s ceaselessly caring and cared-for sons and daughters.
Read or listen to the entire article by Tony Lobl from The Christian Science Sentinel here
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- Photo by Anna Shvets
Important strides have been made toward improving race relations in the United States in the 50-plus years since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. And there is certainly cause to celebrate progress made in appreciating cultural differences and diversity. But it is sadly obvious that deeply held negative feelings still divide the races. One only has to consider the frequent violence erupting between law enforcement and the black community to realize that the time has come to elevate the human race above the ignorance, injustice, fear, and hatred perpetuated by the long-held belief that we are inherently divided by skin color.
There is something each of us can do – individually, and collectively – by making a decision today that Dr. King, a deeply Christian man, made. He said: “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
Hatred springs from ignorance of those we don’t truly know, fear that arises from the unknown, and injustices that have been perpetrated on innocent people. These can be burdens indeed. So, it’s time to “stick with love” – with the courage to have our ignorance, our unjust thoughts and actions, and our fears uncovered and overcome by divine Love, which forgives and heals. In doing so, we can do our part in helping to lift racial prejudice.
Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, said, “Love for mankind is the elevator of the human race; it demonstrates Truth and reflects divine Love” (“The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany.”p. 288).
“Love for mankind.” That’s where we need to start. This involves demonstrating Truth and reflecting divine Love, which is spiritual and universal – so it’s much more than a human emotion. It means elevating our thoughts above defining one another by physical characteristics, and realizing instead that we have one common creator: God, divine Truth and Love, who created us as His spiritual image – one race, that has nothing to do with skin color or human heritage.
This is where we begin to truly know one another. But this understanding also needs to be made practical. And the first step in healing racial divides is to care enough for one another to recognize the challenges and mental wounds that have built up through time, and that pose as barriers to overcoming fears, misconceptions, and injustices. There is a crying need for all of us to get to know and truly value our brothers and sisters of all colors – both spiritually and humanly – and to heal the wounds of injustice through the love that reflects the unchanging love of God.
All humanity is in need of being elevated to that love for others that demonstrates Truth, is just toward everyone, reflects God’s pure love, and brings healing to hearts. In proportion as this is done – through genuine caring and active compassion – the elevation of the human race beyond racial division and strife is accelerated.
Read or listen to the entire article by Barbara Vining from The Christian Science Monitor’s A Christian Science Perspective here
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- Photo by Pixabay
During times of uncertainty and political divisiveness, people want stability. They want to know that the institutions that undergird their lives, such as government, are resting on a more sure basis than the shoulders of well-meaning but imperfect men and women.
Centuries ago, the prophet Isaiah foresaw a government not of fallible people, but of an infallible, all-powerful, all-good God. He said that this divine government would be represented by the Son of God born into the world, and that “the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).
In the past, I, like many, tended to think of Isaiah’s prophecy as depicting a future time in which God alone governs the world and there are no longer human governments. But the study of Christian Science has helped me to understand that while presidents and prime ministers come and go, the real power and authority in our lives always has been, and always will be, the one eternal, divine Mind that guided and inspired the biblical prophets and was fully represented by Christ Jesus.
As we become more conscious of the divine power operating here and now, we will see its harmonizing effect in our daily lives.
In an age of political tribalism, when differences of opinion are being constantly advertised in the media, it’s very tempting to believe that government is incapable of working together to address the problems we face as a nation or people; that only if our candidates are elected, or reelected, will we be able to solve the issues we face as a country. But does good government begin or end with a particular person in office? Isaiah prophesied, referring to God’s government as demonstrated by Jesus, “Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever” (Isaiah 9:7).
In other words, the government has never rested on our, or any other individual’s, shoulders. It is resting, right now, upon the wisdom and power of Almighty God. As we turn thought away from believing that power rests on human opinions and personalities and recognize God’s government of the universe, evidence of the stability and peace it brings to our lives will inevitably appear.
To read the full article by Carlos A. Machado from the Christian Science Sentinel click here
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Dear Friends,
Christian Science practitioner and member of the Board of Lectureship, Alexandre Fischer, has shared heart-to-heart from his hometown of Paris, France.
* How to overcome fear in uncertain times * How to find peace when our world seems upside down
* How to find healing when healing does not seem possible * How to learn what God is
* How an understanding of God, infinite good, can restore harmony in our life
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