I hope you all enjoyed Margaret’s post a couple days ago about Turkeys. Because certainly, the Turkey clan rocks! Gobble gobble!
As those of us in the United States begin to gather this week around tables with our dear friends and family – whether they come from around the block, or from far away – we have a really special time of year to reflect and consider all that we are blessed with in each of our lives. In fact, I’m writing this on an airplane as I travel to visit with one of my brothers, who lives in Phoenix, Arizona with his wife and their children. It takes two flights of three hours each in order to get to see him. This is important for this post – but hold that thought for now, I’ll come back to it in a bit.
The last couple years for me have been filled with a lot of personal challenges. My daily prayer for myself has included lines from a beloved hymn from the Christian Science Hymnal,
“…If on joyful wing, cleaving the sky…all my song shall be, nearer my God, to thee.” (Hymn 192 – bolding added by me for emphasis)
If there is one thread that I can draw through these challenging times which this hymn brought to my consciousness, it is a real deepening understanding that divine Mind is, in fact, one. Often in Christian Science circles we may talk about our acknowledgement of the concept of “one Mind,” but too often I know for myself, I would revert to a generic acceptance that really there are just a bunch of human minds running around, each with their own wills and ideas… and somehow this world was our way of figuring out how to work with each other. Although I trusted that somehow the concept of one Mind did in fact under-gird existence, I gave it more lip service than real dedicated study to understand the truth of the concept.
A few years ago, working with a Christian Science practitioner on a specific challenge, he told me to not forget that it is Mind that initiates all prayer – that the belief that I, as a human, was petitioning God for healing – well, that concept was a part of the mistake that needed to be acknowledged, but then moved on from. Then my job was to prove and show that I do in fact operate from the basis of one Mind, instead of many human minds. And while it took some time, I was able to make some meaningful progress in my understanding – and the issue for which I’d called the practitioner did in fact get resolved. Before calling the practitioner, I felt a real sense of hopelessness, because it felt as though this issue was something I was just going to have to deal with forever.
This healing then became proof to me of Mrs. Eddy’s statement from Science and Health (pg. 209),
Mind, supreme over all its formations and governing them all, is the central sun of its own systems of ideas, the life and light of all its own vast creation; and man is tributary to divine Mind.
So, what does all of this have to do with Thanksgiving? Well, as we gather today for the national holiday here in the USA, and as you have the opportunity in other places in the world to gather for Thanksgiving, I am deeply and so sincerely grateful to be drawing nearer to God in my own life and consciousness. And as I draw nearer to God, the other challenges in my life become less daunting, and instead they turn into opportunities to prove that divine Mind – God – is in fact the constant, steady action of existence. I really couldn’t be more grateful and thankful for anything than this understanding – that I simply get to prove my nearness to God in all of my thoughts and daily demonstrations.
And why am I grateful to visit my brother, as I indicated at the start of the post? Well, as boys, he and I did not get along – we fought, and quite aggressively so. This was far worse than your typical sibling fighting. There were many, many injuries and unkind actions between us for years. And then after leaving home in our later teen years, we didn’t speak with each other, and often I would refuse to attend family functions if I knew he was also to be in attendance. Suffice it to say, our relationship was exceptionally bad. But here I am, not only getting to go see he and his family for Thanksgiving, but I’m excited to spend a whole week with them! To say this is anything else than a deeply fundamental healing would be to really dishonor the truth. That divine Mind – God – is working out his purpose for my brother and me by bringing us together again in order to show each of us just how powerful Love really is. Love conquers all.
In these heady days with such aggressively bad news from all around the world, this simple truth and understanding – that Love can conquer all, including hate between family – well, isn’t that something we all can be grateful for? That we have the chance today, to really see Love in action in our lives, and specifically acknowledge it as God, and to give gratitude for Love being so powerful.
On behalf of all of us at Crystal Lake Camps, we are grateful for you, and the part you play in the greater CLC ‘family’ – whether that is as camper, donor, staff, participant, volunteer, or in whatever capacity. You help to make CLC the great organization that it is today, and we are blessed by your involvement with us. Thank you.
Nathan Bowen
Executive Director
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