Dealing With Christmas Pressure

   
        While at a Christmas gathering of relatives one year, my sister-in-law mentioned that their phone system was acting up, and the technician who was repairing it said, "You've got a lot of chaos on the line."  To which, Joannie replied, "Our whole house is chaotic right now!"

        This does not need to happen to us, at Christmas or any other time of the year, not when we can turn to what Christ Jesus said:  "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you:  not as the world giveth, give I unto you.  Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."  The number of men and women in the world who would give almost anything they own to feel some of this peace in their lives, must be in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions.  Calmness in the midst of life's disturbances, when we aren't experiencing it, can seem more important than food or drink.

        If you and I want to experience the deep peace the Master promised us and so obviously felt himself, a logical way to begin would be to cultivate the same awareness Jesus had that God is all-powerful and constantly in charge of our lives.

       God knows you and me not as stressed-out material beings but as His spiritual reflection, in possession right now of His dominion and peace--the same peace that Jesus manifested and said was ours.  Christ is always at hand to change turmoil into harmony.

        Abiding tranquility carries a price tag.  Through consistent, heartfelt communing with God, we feel the peace of our unity with Him as His beloved child.  God--the all-directing, supremely governing, intelligence of man and the universe--is indeed in charge of everything that concerns us.  

Postscript to Poem (John Robert Howell)

                                                      


        Someone from St. Louis has inquired about the (unintentionally) obscure last line of the Thanksgiving poem I posted.  As I read Mary Baker Eddy in Christ and Christmas, Sharon's rose is a reference to Christ Jesus.  There are a few Christmas carols which speak of the rose, but what is referred to varies.  Herbert Howell's fine carol "A Spotless Rose" seems to refer to Christ Jesus, as does the old German carol, "Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen.

       I emphasize, however, these are my quite possibly flawed reading of these carols and Mrs. Eddy. The term "rose of Sharon" occurs in Song of Solomon 2:1), of all places, but appears to have no prophetic intent.  There is also a general reference to the rose in Isaiah 35:1, 2.

     

     

A Poem for Thanksgiving

                                   By John Robert Howell



Vain seasons ebb and flow.  The summer's heat

Now yields to coming dark and cold, a feat

Of nascent winter.  Dazzling roses fade

In dour display of floral pasquinade.



The wind dry petals fling into the air

Remind the hungry heart of earth's despair.

O loose eternally the mortal curse

And find hid sacred pearls to bless your purse.



Why not this day depart from fear and fade-

Less blessings gain, your tainted fleshly shade

Put off?  What blooms in holy solitude?

The Rose of Sharon, God's beatitude.



                             

Thanksgiving 2014

        "You may have a daughter somewhere who is more grateful to You than I am for what You revealed to Mary Baker Eddy of what Jesus knew and taught and healed by", I often tell my heavenly Father.

        "But I doubt it," I always tell Him. 

        Of all the blessings that have come this year, first on the list has to be the  help my family and I have received from the teachings of Christian Science.  To say that I would not want to go a day without having God to turn to for comfort, healing, peace of mind, joy, guidance, purpose, supply--for everything--is an understatement.  Challenges would truly be overwhelming at times without having Him to rely on.

        In sum, it's as though I have a debt always being (working to be) paid off, but ever increasing.  And this makes life  such a joy!

Our Lord's First Commandment

People can laugh at me

(And no doubt many will)

But I just can't help

Feeling the way I do:

I'm growing more and more

        In love with You.

And of obedience, thankfulness,

               And love,

Love is what our heavenly Father

   Wants from His children

         Most of all.




"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God

With all thy heart and with all thy soul,

And with all thy mind,

And with all thy strength."


         Christ Jesus

We Who Write For Jesus

Why do we do it?
Because we can't not do it.
There is a song
from American Musical
"Show Boat" which goes:

"Can't help loving that man of mine."

We who love the Name
want others to do the same.
Having been--being--
blessed beyond measure
by Christ's oh so precious words,
we have to help others along
that path that leads to God.
Who can have such a treasure
and want to keep it hid?
As any true believer knows,
if any of what our dear Master
lived and said and taught
reaches the heart of someone,
that someone's life is going to change,
dramatically, permanently.

So, ours to write what God imparts,
assured He will see to it that it goes
where in this world it needs to go.

Culprits and Correction

                                                        John Robert Howell


   
        One culprit that can send the healing process into seemingly endless and unnecessary innings or overtime is a misapprehension of what it is that needs healing.  One cruelly puckish aggressive mental suggestion of the carnal mind is the red herring that it should even be obvious to a dolt that it is matter that needs healing when the body is in revolt, whereas we learn in Christian Science that it should be plain that there is no something in nothing (matter) eligible for healing despite a seemingly vivid, but vacuous, melee of afflictions.

        An eraser does not correct a botched computation.  Computation and correction are mental processes, which may be expressed on a sheet of paper, but these visible numbers, correct or incorrect, are not realities.  It is always wrong thinking that needs correcting, i.e., healing, not sensory evidence.  An errantly directed pencil point (I know, nobody uses pencils any more, but work with me on this) is innocent as a newborn babe, though the flawed human thought guiding it via the hand is not and needs to profit from the salutary effects of the operation of Christ, Truth in consciousness.

       And one's thought does, as this letter Mary Baker Eddy received from someone she had healed points out:  "I should have died, but for the glorious Principle you teach--supporting the power of Mind over the body and showing me the nothingness of the so-called pleasures and pains of sense. The treatises I had read and medicines I had taken only abandoned me to more hopeless suffering and despair.  Adherence to hygiene was useless. Mortal mind needed to be set right.  The ailment was not bodily, but mental, and I was cured when I learned my way in Christian Science."  Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, pages 382, 383