Category: practice

Things I Learned

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“Everyone has been made for some particular work,and the desire for that work has been put in every heart”             — Rumi

I was thinking today about some of the things I am so grateful for.

My introduction to Science of Mind in 2008 was right up at the top of my list. I was lost and confused about the state of my life at that time, having been divorced and living alone and feeling that something else was lacking. I began to take any and all classes available to me at CSLT, and slowly things began to shift.

So, here are some of the things I learned that literally turned me around & up.

I learned that a loving God put me exactly where I belonged, with exactly the teachers I needed to have.

I learned that I was capable of bonding deeply with like-minded people that I barely knew.

I learned to trust, at a much deeper level, both with my God self and others.

I learned that life is ALWAYS what I choose to make it, and that I am always at choice.

I learned that it’s OK to make mistakes, and that if I do, I am still loved.

I really got it, that I am an eternal being and death holds no threat for me.

I learned and saw that Spiritual Mind Treatment really works.

I’m learned that supply and prosperity come to me in many forms, when I allow it to be.

I found out that I am not a separate being but one with the One.

I came to understand the complex workings of the Law and how to use it constructively.

I found out that I spent more time worrying and praying how to put these thoughts on paper than it actually took.  🙂

Thank you Science of Mind for the blessed life I now have.

— Janie Hooper

 

Soul Searching

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Some of our members have been soul searching and asking questions like, is New Thought for me and is Science of Mind for me? It helps to know what one wants. Is it spiritual illumination? Is it prosperity? A relationship? A social network? I could only answer questions like those when I knew what I wanted.

As a member of CSLT, who facilitates book study and discussion and small groups, I have witnessed individuals reassessing their relationship with New Thought in general and with CSLT, specifically. They have been quietly asking themselves, where do I want to worship and celebrate the life that I have been gifted with? Has New Thought helped me get what I want? While obtaining an answer may sound very straight forward, feelings and muddled thinking have gotten in the way. Muddled thinking is cleared by knowing what you want.

To simply be disillusioned has never been enough for me. In a strange way, I have been guided by the words of JFK. “Ask not what your country can do for you, but rather what you can do for your country”. Thus, to paraphrase, ask not what my spiritual center can do for me, but what can I do for my spiritual center? As for me, I give, and ask for nothing in return. My involvement in New Thought is not a transaction. If it is true that the greatest among us is one who serves, then if you want to know if New Thought or the Science of Mind is for you, then serve. I have found joy in service.

I also have viewed the decision-making process as a good thing, because CLARITY is the eventual outcome. Discerning our direction (want) is never a waste of time.

With clarity, you will be better equipped to confidently move in the direction of your dreams and hopefully be forever grateful for knowing that you were always at choice. If you understand this philosophy, then you will know that no New Thought individual will hold choice against you. It is our birthright. Finally, whatever the choice, embody it and be of service to others.

–Keith Gorley

Livingness and More Light

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As we *stroll* into this season of light, maybe we are joyfully sprinting into the season, and maybe we are dragging our feet. Regardless, the season of light is upon us again. What those words mean for each of us is unique to each of us. There are some things that I know as universally true.

What I know:
There are as many ways to express and experience light and livingness as there are individuals. Perhaps even more ways than that. At times, two or more contradictory opinions wrestle for first position in my mind, and I am sure this also happens for others. That recognition does not diminish the fact that I live, and each one of us lives, as the Divine Essence at every moment, at our own personal level of awareness and understanding in this moment.

It’s OK to be completely satisfied with our lives exactly as they are. In fact, if we don’t accept what is, it is hard to move forward, but that’s a different conversation. It’s also OK to want to learn and grow. It’s even OK to be asleep on purpose. (That one is a hard one for me personally to grasp, but it is still OK.) There’s no big-mean-daddy-god-in-the-sky judging us for our choices and punishing us by sending us to our room without supper for misbehaving. There’s not really even any misbehaving, we simply make choices and experience the consequences of our choices. It’s also OK to not know, or not believe, that we can choose a different life than we have. It’s personally sad to me, but it’s OK.

Two of the statements Ernest Holmes made in the Declaration of Principles: We believe in the eternal Goodness, the eternal Loving-kindness and the eternal Givingness of Life to all. We believe in our own soul, our own spirit and our own destiny; for we understand that the life of all is God.

Master Teacher Jesus is quoted as saying, “I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10) Religious Science doesn’t interpret this to say that we depend on the individual personage of Jesus to give us this life, since the gift of our divine sonships and daughterships has already been given, but that he showed us, by his example, how to live an abundant life. What example did he give us to emulate? Love. Blessing. Kindness. Compassion. Inclusion. Acceptance. Appreciation of the All Good in every moment. Joy. Celebration. Generosity. Presence. Poise. Power to become. Peace.

Two additional statements Holmes made in the Declaration of Principles: We believe that heaven is within us, and that we experience it as we become conscious of it. We believe the ultimate goal of life to be a complete freedom from discord of every nature, and that this goal is sure to be attained by all.

Heaven is within us already, and we have the delicious and delightful opportunity to become aware of this gift of life and light, unwrap the beautiful package, and explore the contents. If I believe I am trapped by any condition or circumstance, then I am not able to experience heaven now. Even if I can’t see a way out, I can feel comforted in knowing that at some point in time I will attain this goal of complete freedom. The gift has already been given. I get to receive it, and I get to decide how I want to experience and express it.

Spanish poet Antonio Machado wrote, Wanderer, your footprints are the path, and nothing else; wanderer, there is no path, the path is made by walking. Walking makes the path…

We get to walk our own paths, following them wherever they lead. I think it is more fun to do it in the company of our beloved community. That’s a personal choice we each get to make, too. Blessings to you.

— Rev Janis Farmer

What Does The Funding Team Do?

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The Funding Team is a behind-the-scenes team that advises on many of the financial decisions that our Board, and our Center, take.  It’s not a showy or exciting team, but remains a critically important team — one that pays attention to our continued financial well-being, and supports us in encouraging Our Board to take necessary actions to make sure we stay in-the-black and able to focus on teaching the principles of the Science of Mind philosophy to all and facilitating each individual to have a greater quality of life as they implement these tools and ideas.

Tasks of the Funding Team:

  • The Funding Team drafts the budget for each calendar year. In previous years, the Funding Team has recommended a growth agenda, which required greater attendance and higher contributions from participants and then provided additional services.  After much discussion, our projected 2020 budget has been based on current contributions.
  • It also makes recommendations about ways to encourage prosperity consciousness, whether through a Pledge Program and/or through educational curricula like Prosperity Plus III or home study groups like Art of Abundance, and also to assess our present level of prosperity consciousness, using monthly board financial reports and the quarterly range reports.
  • It also makes recommendations for Fundraising activities that benefit programs in and for our Center. Our Funding Team initiated the creation of our Facility Fund in 2009 when we realized we had a need to accumulate specific funds dedicated to the purpose of owning property in Tucson.
  • Our current activity of soliciting prospective local charities that support self-determined living is part of the Stewardship aspect of the Funding Team’s function. This team will take the suggested local charities and high-grade them for the ones that most clearly match our intention. They will count the ballots cast on January 5th when the attendees present that day will vote on our 2020 charity.

This team has made a recommendation that would be considered quite unusual inside other Centers for Spiritual Living. We have recommended that we do not have an annual pledge campaign at this time. Other Centers use the pledge program to encourage participants to decide their annual contributions, and then commit to giving that amount over the next year.  Having a pledge campaign theoretically allows the Funding Team to determine the probable funds available for use in the coming year. It has been our experience that pledge campaigns frequently do not provide accurate information for planning and budgeting. Instead we trust the Law and acknowledge that each individual contributes financially as they choose.  We also know that as everyone grows and deepens in their understanding of their own relationship with their own abundant life, their contributions grow accordingly.

If you have a few hours each month, and strong interest in engaging around the financial well-being of our Center, you are invited to talk with either of us about joining this team.

— Dick Laird with Rev Janis

 

Reflections

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In 2009, I began my transition from an exciting but longish career as an engineering technician to that of professional teacher with an initial mixture of nobility and naivete’. Thanks to Texas Instruments and Pima County, I sailed through Pima Community College’s “Post Baccalaureate” teacher training and ensuing board exams. I then began plowing through a rough trail of real experience, beginning with an aborted internship, on into an extended, eclectic series of experiences with charter schools in Tucson and Prescott.

By 2017, after a series of Fall-Spring gigs, it had become clear that I was a round peg in a square hole as a rote classroom teacher. Driving up and down the Black Canyon Freeway, into Prescott, and the Desert Highlands on holiday sojourns, I found that the look and feel of the land, and of free time, welcomed and called to me.

● In the driver’s seat of my car: Why do I feel as a pauper in the desert heat?
● In the confines of my classrooms: I know the math. But how do students learn?
● In my recesses of my mind: Who I am and What Am I Doing Here?

These questions lead me to the alchemy that extracts my mind’s enigmas into conscious thought. In the vocabulary of our Science of Mind, it is the clarifying methodology and psychological practice that we have come to know as Spiritual Mind Treatment. At this juncture, my inner quest is thus illumined as spiritual questions: Am I turning within to Spirit, tuning into Truth, diving deeper into Love but want more? Am I prepared to manifest a meaningful, fulfilling, prosperous, joyful life?

If so, I must:

● Align with Universal Principles and activate awareness of the Divine Presence within
● Apply positive, practical, spiritual tools, including meditation and mindfulness, affirmations,neuroscience, and self-awareness in your daily life
● Discover a profound spiritual technology called Spiritual Mind Treatment
● Go within…deeper than you have before…and experience Truth
● Uncover and discard hidden beliefs, set yourself free
● Enter a safe, sacred container for true transformation

(From Foundations of the Science of Mind, CSL Dallas)

With consultation, prayer, and encouragement galore: I logged onto my job-search engine with “Math Work Prescott.” Voila, one job: A small Waldorf-inspired middle school, a walkable half-mile from decades-old friends house right there in Prescott, where I would room for that school year. Another dash up the Black Canyon Freeway, an entire afternoon with the headmaster, and I’m committed to a school year. I believe our teaching calls this manifestation or demonstration.

Two years in, evolving into a spiritually-oriented, Steiner-inspired teacher of both spectrum and gifted adolescents. And dipping into the deeper well: the psychology of learning for adolescents. Book studies, faculty collaboration and shared experience are in the treasure chest at the end of the rainbow. Here, the Waldorf-inspired “developmentally centered” teaching methodology: especially in the middle grades, where the teacher must see that emerging students are academically mature; thus solid with the concepts in concrete terms, before guiding them further into the abstractions: the hallmark of higher learning.

And now, further into the challenges of students’ learning in a troubled world. Cultural and psychological pressures on our children precipitate a plethora of learning and developmental difficulties. These distorting forces show up as hormonal and behavioral breakouts, precluding traditional classroom learning environments. Again, a more spiritual question: what’s this got to do with me?

Apparently, it’s time I begin teaching effectively, and continuing to learn myself, in a behaviorally challenged classroom. Thus, this next chapter comes with a real salary, more college in behavioral and psychological studies, and “more-better” encounters with forgiveness and learning, stemming from my own reflections on a disruptive adolescence, and war-torn early adulthood.

In Love’s Gift of Radical Forgiveness, Colin Tipping writes, “Radical Forgiveness challenges us to fundamentally shift our perception of the world and our interpretation of what happens to us so we can stop being victims.”

Teaching leads to more advanced questions, leading into deeper understandings of healing, forgiveness, and teaching. We learn to love ourselves and the culture in which we live, practicing and modeling:

● Self-control – with constructive thought and considerate behaviors with others
● Self-care – with nutrition, rest, and reflection
● Service toward the greater good.

In It’s Up to You, Ernest Holmes shows how to move from a life of “no” to a life of “yes.” We teach students that they, too, will be able to choose their future, because what we experience tomorrow depends on what we think and do today.

“It’s up to you,” Holmes writes.

It’s up to me. My Guide tells me “Keep up the Good Work,” and “Remember to stay tight with your teachers, (and Me)”

With Love — Robert

“Phantom Pain”

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Ever feel like you’re suffering from an action or a choice or a betrayal that you know you’ve forgiven and moved on from? But when you stop and think about it, the emotional trail leads straight back to some happening that should be long gone.

The comparable physical feeling has long plagued doctors and amputee patients alike.

From the Mayo Clinic: Phantom pain is pain that feels like it’s coming from a body part that’s no longer there. Doctors once believed this post-amputation phenomenon was a psychological problem, but experts now recognize that these real sensations originate in the spinal cord and brain.

Same with emotions, the brain thinks they’re real, so they plague us.

I have, mostly in the past, accepted and retained other’s actions toward me as personal. I let them stick and stay — feeling small and wounded. Those wounds have largely healed–except for what I’m now calling “phantom pain.” The conscious version of it’s gone and past, but the unconscious version lurks and occasionally trips me into feeling bad and sad about myself.

And when I ‘feel it’, I limit myself and shrink to something less than I am. Because every time I let someone else’s action determine my reaction I’ve given away power and lost peace.

…old thought habits are prone to reassert themselves, to claim they have a right to remain in your consciousness, to harass and torment you. But now you are wise and you know they have no such authority. You see them to be exactly what they are—false impressions claiming to be the Truth.
–Ernest Holmes (Living the Science of the Mind  121.6-122.1)

And there it is. The understanding, the encouragement, and the instruction on exactly what I should do.

The inclination is to go back and get angry with others or with myself for the unhappiness and pain that I took on – but the real goal, the path to actual freedom from them comes as Dr. Holmes continues

They are traitors to your True Self, false representations of the Divinity within you. They are a misuse of your Law of Freedom, but you will cast them out. You will say to them, “I no longer accept you. Begone!”
–Ernest Holmes (Living the Science of the Mind  122.1)

Not exactly the language I use, but then Dr. Holmes probably never uttered some of the words I do. The language actually isn’t important. It’s claiming the Spirit within to fuel the belief to power the Law to free myself. Whew. And, then recognizing the thought that is triggering the pain, and practicing consistent, persistent rejecting of the old, embedded emotion and replacing it with Truth.

In short, I accept the Spirit within, believe in myself, replace negative moods, emotions, and feelings with something better. And if it is true for me, it is true for everyone else too.

And the sprinkles on that:
No greater good can come to you than to know that the Power already within you is the Power to live, the Power to create. Not only to create for yourself but for others– the Power to do good, the Power to heal, the Power to prosper. — Ernest Holmes (Living the Science of the Mind  123.2)

This Power: it’s mine, it’s yours, it’s everyone’s – accept it, claim it, know it, use it.

–Peace, Mariann Moery

The Road I Traveled

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“The Sage does not hoard and thereby bestows, the more he lives for others the greater his life, the more he gives to others, the greater his abundance” — Tao Te Ching

Wow, does this quote ever speak to me. When I was much younger, I had expectations that the world was here to give me whatever I desired. Boy, did I ever have some lessons to learn about the life ahead of me.

I recall expecting to receive an automobile for Christmas the year I turned 15, only because another girl in my class had gotten one for her birthday. My Grandmother, who was raising me, could no more afford that, than she could fly to the moon. It has taken me many years of experiences to learn that my youthful expectations were both unrealistic and childish.

I rarely gave much thought to serving others in any way, until I went away to boarding school run by the Sisters of Saint Mary. That was my first exposure to a group of women who lived and worked, basically to serve others. It still took me a long time to realize that my own happiness was tied to minimizing my expectations of others doing for me, knowing that I had a relationship with a loving God that only wanted the best of life for me, and that Sacred Service was a path of belonging and participation that really worked for me.

When I became a young Mother, I believe, was the first time that I ever put another human being’s needs and wants before my own. My first child has brought me great happiness. I would have done anything I could to help her in her early years, and still will.

The first few times I was asked to volunteer I thought, “Not me. What could I possibly have to offer?” I was so wrong. It has only been later in my life that I have finally figured out how important my connections with others, and my service to and for, others has enriched my life more than I can express.

I have always received so much more than I have given in any service activity or volunteering work I have ever been involved in. My first opportunity as a volunteer was when I made the coffee at the place where I eventually got sober. Fresh hot coffee was always welcomed, and welcoming, at those AA Meetings a long time ago.

The reason I am sharing this is really a thank you to everyone who serves in any capacity at CSLT and an encouraging invitation to anyone who might want to serve. We are so fortunate that so many do, yet there are still opportunities to engage, and lots more things we could accomplish with more individuals participating in this way.

I know for sure that my life is happier, richer and fuller than I ever expected it could be as a result of stepping up on, and giving of myself in, the path of service.

–Namaste, Janie Hooper

Lessons from the 1926 Edition of The Science of Mind

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“The Instinctive Man has again spoken and told him to search more deeply into his own nature; to look deep within himself for the answer to life. The hour has struck in the evolution of man when he can understand this voice and do its bidding.” (page 30)

Who is the Instinctive Man? The Indwelling I AM. The journey towards not knowing myself to consciously discovering myself required faith. Faith in the truth and efficacy of our philosophy. In an hour of despair, the Instinctive Man told me to look deep within myself for an answer. What is its bidding? I did its bidding and forgave myself and others. Forgiveness gave me a fresh start. A new beginning.

“The brain does not think and yet man thinks; so, behind the brain there must be a thinker.” (page 31)

I began thinking anew. ‘Be renewed by the renewing of your mind.’ I began identifying with the thinker and not the brain. Why is this distinction important? Ernest considered this important because the ignorance of this is why we have “struggled along the weary road with a heavy hart and bleeding feet.” (page 29) In the past I had identified with the brain, which is a part of the body, which is destined to die. Our philosophy is not one of death, but one of life, and in this philosophy the thinker is the life. That is both the challenge and necessary transition to be made in your mind to understand and master new thought and metaphysics. Until this is done, death and the fear of death will “crown our lives and work with a pall of darkness and uncertainty.” (page 29)

Out of my own darkness and uncertainty (grief, rejection, fear and financial uncertainty), I built up the practice of right thinking.

“From this he gradually built up a definite technique for the practice of right thinking.” (page 33)

I moved from darkness to light and from uncertainty to knowing by building up a practice of right thinking. What is right thinking? Right thinking is listening to the Inner Voice and declaring Its Presence. It is living from the mind and thinker and not the brain.

“The highest mental practice is to listen to this Inner Voice and to declare for Its Presence. The greater a man’s consciousness of this Indwelling I AM is, the more power he will have. This will never lead to illusion but will always lead to Reality. All great souls have known this and have constantly striven to let the Mind of God come out through their mentalities. ‘The Father that dwells in Me, he does the work.’ This was the declaration of the great Master and it should be ours also; not a limited sense of life but a limitless one.” (page 214)

Will you declare its Presence? Have you been fully conscious of this Indwelling I AM? What do you do when your illusion lead to disillusionment? Whose mind is coming out through your mentality, the Mind of God or yours?

In closing. If we believe in the direct revelation of truth through our intuitive and spiritual nature, then I ask that you not judge the efficacy of our philosophy by the number of people who show up on Sunday mornings? If you must judge, then look within our community and you will see those efficacious fruits in action.

–Keith Gorley

It’s a Wrap!

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For the third time, I am completing my term as a sitting Board member for CSLT, and this is my last newsletter article as such.  I must admit, it’s frequently been a challenge writing these columns, but I’ve also grown a whole lot through doing so, so it’s definitely been worth it.  What to write about this time?  Being on the Board, of course!

Since I’ve been on the Board three times but none of those times has been a full term, Rev. Janis dubbed me a “pinch hitter,” (I like it!)  For one reason or another, three different board members were unable to fulfill their terms, so I was asked to step in and finish their duties until the next election.  I recall the first time, when out of the blue, Pat Masters asked me if I would consider being on the Board. I was stunned.  Surely, she had me mixed up with someone else, i.e., a competent, courageous, experienced person.  But nope, she meant me.  So, I braved my fears and insecurities, and stepped up to the plate, and it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

There was a learning curve involved and it took some time to build up confidence that I had anything at all to contribute to the meetings and my spiritual center.  But I kept showing up and giving it my best shot, doing what was asked of me and sometimes even volunteering for an extra something I felt comfortable taking on.

Being on the Board is so much more than the monthly meetings and newsletter articles.  The only other time I’ve ever felt a real ‘part of’ anything was at AA meetings, but being a CSLT Board member has provided me with a sense of community and belonging I never knew was possible to have.  I’ve witnessed integrity at a very deep level, learned how to have respectful conversations involving differing viewpoints, and been a participant in supporting the Highest Good of the Center being the primary objective.  I’ve watched us ebb and flow; I’ve seen new people come, others leave, old-timers return, and I’ve had an opportunity to not make anyone wrong for their choices.  Everyone is welcome to walk through our doors, and I love that about us.

Over the years I’ve been on various teams around the Center (still am) and have taken numerous classes, but nothing has given me the clarity of who I am, who we are, and what we have to offer as much as being on the Board.

If you have completed Foundations and have been a member for a minimum of six months, you meet the minimum requirements to be a CSLT Board member. Is this yours to do?  I promise you growth, a sense of belonging to something incredibly special, and joy beyond my ability to express.  Elections for new Board members is immediately after First Sunday Potluck on October 6th – might you consider taking your turn as a contributing member at the most amazing level?  If you don’t like it, don’t worry – I’ll pinch hit for you, LOL!

“If we search for it, happiness usually eludes us.  Absorption is the key, but absorption with something outside ourselves:  a craft, service, creation – these functions allow us to become enthralled and lovingly involved with what we do, take us out of our mind’s preoccupation with our own interests, and lead us to a fruitful state of being.”

Elegant Choices, Healing Choices by Marsha Sinetar, p. 77

–Renée Mercer, September 25, 2019

THE YEAR WAS 1969…

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“You are an eternal being now on the pathway of endless unfoldment, never less but always more yourself.” This Thing Called You, Ernest Holmes, pg. 108

Later this month I will be flying to Everett, WA for my 50-year high school reunion, and I feel way different than I did for the other decadal gatherings. Mostly, it seems like another lifetime. Everything has changed. And for the first time, I feel like I can join my class as the woman I’ve become, not as the troubled girl I was.

My school years were not the carefree social or educational times that many other kids experienced. My school years were filled with the looming death of my mother, the death of my true-love boyfriend when I was a senior, too many drug-fueled parties and way too much alcohol. I missed 37% of my senior year, and was allowed to graduate with my class only because of the compassionate understanding of my teachers. I graduated in June, left town and never looked back. I hadn’t one single good memory from the years I spent in Everett.

I now know that for every other reunion I’ve attended, I was always looking back to the girl I was there, as I’d been in school, not caring to see or share who I’d been becoming. I still felt insecure, invisible, and unimportant. In order to feel safe at school, I’d needed to keep my world small and walled, so I didn’t remember most of the kids who remembered me. (This and the fact that I was frequently under the influence of mind-altering substances, notoriously bad for the memory.) It blew my mind, when at my 40th reunion, one of the popular boys who had married one of the popular girls told me he’d wondered if he’d see me there. What? Rick S. knew who I was? I had not an ounce of self-esteem.

I feel different this time. I’m actually really looking forward to seeing all the ‘kids’ I went to school with, whether or not I remember them, and I have no fear. Rather than just being excited about reuniting with the small band of boys I ran around with, I want to see the girls, too… the girls I felt I wasn’t good enough to be friends with. The girls who had both parents, lived in nice houses, had enough money for prom dresses, and were in social or service clubs and went to each other’s parties. I am Facebook friends with some of these girls now — they requested my friendship, not the other way around. There is still a wee bit of the insecure young girl inside me who couldn’t quite yet risk asking them to be my friend, even if only on social media.

So, I choose to leave my history, sob stories and ghosts behind, and show up as the strong, loving, worthwhile woman I am. My history does not define me, nor do I regret one iota of it. No longer do I view my school days as pitiful and sad; I needed all of those days and those experiences to become who I am. On August 24th, I will walk joyfully, confidently, and expectantly into a room full of my classmates from 1969 and it will be good.

My gratitude for the programs of Alcoholics Anonymous and Centers for Spiritual Living is immeasurable, because my ongoing transformation began and continues thanks to ‘their’ two Big Books, the people who study and teach them, and the tools they taught me to use.

“I am co-creating with a Universe that does not ever have self-esteem issues or a lack of horsepower or compassion. I am discovering unknown power within myself as I walk into the unknown.”
A Year Without Fear, Tama Kieves, pg. May 21

— Renee’ Mercer

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