My final post for this blog

My dear friends and readers,

I started blogging the inspiration I'd been gaining from studying and praying the Lord's Prayer - and the spiritual sense of it as understood by Mary Baker Eddy - over 3 years ago. It has been an amazing voyage of discovery and inspiration.

But it is time for me to stop blogging and focus more on living the truth of the Lord's Prayer. Not that I haven't already been doing that as best I can. But it feels natural for me to stop now and talk less and live more.

My study has been so wonderfully life-changing for me! I have learned so much about Jesus' prayer and it's power. And even though I've been praying this prayer all my life, these last 3 and a half years have been so revelatory! There is just SO MUCH in the Lord's Prayer to listen to and practice. Just 62 words, but such powerful words! Mrs. Eddy stated that, understood in its true spiritual sense, the Lord's Prayer can heal anything.

It has been a complete joy for me to companion with this prayer and share the inspirations I've gained from studying it and praying it with you all. I have tried to be as clear and sincere in doing that as I possibly can.

So I hope you also have enjoyed the journey. And may the Lord's Prayer continue to help you, and heal you, and bring you closer to God.

With great gratitude,

- Mark

Give us this day our daily Communion

"Give us this day our daily bread."
Give us grace for today; feed the famished affections.

"And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.

Give us this day our daily experience of the Christ, of God-with-us. This is our Bread of Life - our true communion!

And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, because it is the life-changing inspiration of that all-forgiving Love that is God, being lived as love in our daily lives - that is our communion Wine. This is the blood of Jesus, the blood of the Lamb.

Jesus reflected the forgiving love of Love of the Christ so completely that it pays all debts, heals all wounds, awakens and saves all sinners that accept Him - and follow Him.

While Jesus literally gave his life blood on the cross, it was his complete and utter sacrifice that exposed that crime - and all evil - for what it is: powerless. His resurrection proved that. The heavy stone of hate that the world rolled over his tomb, still could not keep Love from rising Him in triumph.

His body - His all-healing Truth - is our Communion Bread of Life.
His blood - His all-forgiving Love - and is our Communion Wine.

"Take, eat." and "Drink ye all of it."

Let the Hallowed Name and Nature of God shine as you!

"Hallowed be Thy name."
Adorable One.

Nothing can silence the gifts that God gives each of us. Why? Because we are not "personal authors" or "priveleged originators" as much as we might like to think so. No. We are His reflection. Can you imagine standing in front of a mirror and ever seeing your reflection do something you're not doing? No. But way too often we (or at least I) seem to be doing what *I* want to do and what *I* think is right or important or better or whatever. When that ego shows up, you can be sure you're falling for the Adam dream.

Mrs. Eddy puts it this way: "Whatever indicates the fall of man or the opposite of God or God's absence, is the Adam-dream, which is neither Mind nor man, for it is not begotten of the Father. The rule of inversion infers from error its opposite, Truth; but Truth is the light which dispels error. As mortals begin to understand Spirit, they give up the belief that there is any true existence apart from God."

"...give up the belief that there is any true existence apart from God." Can you do that? Are you willing to do that? Is it a little scary? That's OK. Just be open to the idea. That's the first step. And remember that God is Love itself and so very approachable. He moves you with intuitions of good. He nudges you with whole and healthy and holy inspiration. He draws you with the warmth of His Light. He awakens you with His Truth. He guides you with His Word. He heals you with His Love. And He is everpresent. As close as your own thought. As Jesus said, "...the kingdom of God is within you."

Do you realize this? Do you know what it means? Have you accepted this? The kingdom of God is within you - right now! You are His spiritual image and likeness, right now! He is moving in your heart, soul, mind with intuitions of peace, with inspirations of joy, with feelings of spiritual power.

Are you listening?

He is always moving within us to act and do and make and create and to manifest His Light. He is always inspiring us to make His presence felt, to make His power known, to reflect His warm and beautiful glory. And this feeling comes from the very core of our being, from Soul, the source of all art and beauty and music and form and outline and color. These are ways His Light is made manifest. Your so-called "personal ego" has nothing to do with this manifestation. You are His perfect reflection made manifest.

Let it shine!

Hallowed be the Name of God, of Life, Truth, Love!
Adorable infinite One!

Forgive us our debts...

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.

The need for forgiveness is eliminated when you accept, understand, and (most importantly) live the meaning of "Love is reflected in love."

The Love that is God has no sense of debt, and no sense of being a debtor. In Love's infinite grace, there is only an awakening to the debt-free atmosphere of Love! Love that holds no grudges. Love that doesn't keep score. Love that never says "you owe me!" Love that sees only love in everyone and everything in the universe.

And this Love is not a state of oblivious weakness, covering a multitude of sins. No. It is a "law of annihilation" to everything unlike itself. Like Light eliminating darkness, it is unopposably powerful.

And this is the way God forgives: the Light of His Love annihilates all sense of debt or thought of tresspass or any kind of owing or owning. Love sees only its own perfect reflection - love. Divine Love is abundant, free, unconditional, universal, all-embracing, without judgement, without measure, without price.

So imagine that. Live love like that. Like the old Persian mystic Hafiz once wrote:

"Not once has the sun ever said to the earth: You owe me.
Imagine a Love like that!
It lights up the entire world!"

All there really is...

"For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever."
For God is infinite, all-power, all Life, Truth, Love, over all, and All.

All that is really here is the presence of Mind.
Hallelujah!

All that is really here is the depth of Soul.
Hallelujah!

All that is really here is the breath of Spirit.
Hallelujah!

All that is really here is the joy of Life.
Hallelujah!

All that is really here is the power of Truth.
Hallelujah!

All that is really here is the warmth of Love.
Hallelujah!

All that is really here, right now, is the light of God.
Hallelujah! and Amen!

Forgive us as we forgive others...

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.

When you pray this verse, have you ever thought about this little word "as" before?

"As."

In this verse, I think it can mean two different things:

As = at the same time
As = in the same way

So, to take the first meaning: if you forgive someone now, you are also forgiven now.

And if you take the second meaning: if you forgive someone completely, you are also forgiven completely.

It can also mean that if you only "kind of" forgive someone now, then you are also only "kind of" forgiven now. And if you forgive someone only partially, then you are also only forgiven partially.

Think about it.

And consider how important then it is to forgive as God does: completely now. Only then are you truly living in your natural state. Because as His likeness, His Love forgiving you is always reflected in your love forgiving another.

And Love insists on being reflected!

See what Love has prepared for you

"Give us this day our daily bread."
Give us grace for today; feed the famished affections.

How many powers are there? How many do you think are governing you? Is there a power called hunger? Is there a power called thirst? Is there a power called lust? anger? sorrow? or digestion, circulation, sleep, breath? or how about politics, the economy, or even the weather?

It sounds crazy, but in spiritual reality there really is only one power. And that is God.

And Christ Jesus proved this repeatedly, by stilling storms, feeding the multitudes, redeeming sinners, healing the sick and raising the dead. He even paid his taxes - courtesy of a fish!

One of the most beautiful things about Jesus' life is how vividly he shows us the all-encompassing unconditional Love that is God. He embodied that so completely that he changed the lives of everyone he encountered. He proved repeatedly that sin is not desirable, that sickness is not inevitable, and that death is not final!

So what if you just stopped for a moment. Just stopped worrying and fretting and wondering about what's next. What if you just occupied this very moment right now and just asked God, Divine Love itself, to show you what He has prepared for you. No arguing, no whining, no stressing, no fretting, no doubting. Just that childlike expectancy that looks up to its Parent with a complete openness to Love.

Spend today practicing that expectancy. If you are worrying about something difficult, offer it up to your Father-Mother God and just listen for the intuitions of good that come back to you. Persist in your expectancy and your listening! And then, be sure to be open - completely open - and you will see what Love has prepared for you.

Today.

"For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever."
For God is infinite, all-power, all Life, Truth, Love, over all, and All.

Feel the Spirit

"Hallowed be Thy name."
Adorable One.

Feeling the Holy Spirit is the most natural thing you can do. Spirit is as close to you as your breath and is equally as natural - and as necessary!

To be inspired is to feel the breath of God. To live your inspiration is to be His perfect likeness.

"Therefore we are always confident, knowing that whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) We are confdient, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord."

Amen!

Sometimes what you're looking for is standing right in front of you!

"And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil."
And God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death.

God does not lead us into temptation. God leads us into Love. Real Love.

And isn't temptation just a way of thinking that what you really need is "out there" somewhere - like something you have to get, like maybe something that's better than what you already have, like maybe something more exciting or alluring or fun?

But isn't this just the expectation that God - Divine Love itself - is absent, boring, distant, uncaring? or maybe too churchy, or too hard, or even "too airy-fairy"? And that really we're all left to just figure this all out on our own anyway? And maybe even that even if there is a God, there is actually something out there that's better and more real and tangible for us than Divine Love?

It sure can seem like it.

But God never leads us into thinking this way. He does not lead us into the temptation to believe that we're on our own and have to fend for ourselves and somehow just find the love we need "out there" somewhere.

And temptation is just exactly that: thinking Love, God, is absent. But Love, Divine Love, is never absent. "God is Love" and so Love is actually always everpresent! Where? In consciousness, where everything Divine is reflected.

So wake up! and feel for His intuitions of expectancy that He is constantly stirring within you. He is constantly stirring your thought to look for - and find - what His divine Love has already prepared for you. He does not leave any of us out on our own, but always embraces us if we but learn to recognize and accept it.

So look for it.

Love is standing right in front of you!

Ain't got no satisfaction??

"Give us this day our daily bread."
Give us grace for today; feed the famished affections.

And what is it that really feeds and satisfies us anyway?

Grace.

The peace and joy and power of God's unconditional Love - accepted and embodied in your own thought and heart and life. That's what fills every void, satifies every need, and feeds every famished affection! It is in giving that we receive, so it is in giving - reflecting - Divine Love that we finally feel loved.

And no matter how great your need is for love, His Love is infinite, His Grace is completely sufficient, to deliver you from any sense of the absence of love in your life. Just move your thought off what you think you need and instead try living His love to everyone you encounter and see what happens! It may take some practice. And it may not be obvious immediately. But you will discover for yourself that Love, God's Love - when you live it - is always reflected (sometimes in unexpected ways) in love for you.

Forgive us our debts...

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.

We're forgiven as we forgive - because where is the real debt?

In us.

All sense of debt or lack or attack is within our own thought. It is how we perceive the world and those within in it.

When we learn that only Love is reflected in love, there ceases to be any debt or debtor because lack - or attack - do not exist in divine Love. The darkness of debt or lack or attack does not survive the Light of Divine Love.

All really already is here and now "infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation" because God really is All-in-all.

So where's the debt - or the debtor - in that?

Beautiful Saviour - a song

Beautiful Saviour

Deep from His Spirit,
Pure from His Soul,
Our beautiful Saviour
Is making us whole.

He loves us completely.
He cures us of shame.
He sees His reflection.
He knows us by name.

Oh beautiful Saviour
So pure and so bright!
You make us Your likeness
We live as Your Light.

Freed and forgiven
You’ve paid all our debts
You’ve cured us of sorrow
Healed fear and regret.

Oh beautiful Saviour
We live through Your Life
We’re safe in Your Love
We’re free from all strife.

So stir us to action!
And teach us to heal.
Your Light must be lived!
Your Love be revealed!

Oh beautiful Saviour
Adorable One
You’re everpresent
You’re Kingdom is come.

We love and we thank You!
We stand in Your might.
Made whole in Your likeness
We shine as your Light!

"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil"

"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."
And God leadeth us, not into temptation, but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death.

God delivers us from that "suggestion of the serpent" that there is either something God is not giving us, that He is giving us what we don't want - or even that there is some other "god" ruling our lives called sin, disease, death.

But what about when maybe we're believing that God is holding out on something we not only want, but really need?

Or maybe that we don't need God, or that there's no such thing as God?

Or that we can find the goodness we need on our own? In fact, that we are completely on our own, wandering, naked, vulnerable, needing to be as sneaky as a snake to survive, fending for ourselves in a confusing sometimes-good/sometimes- evil world?

Or maybe that essentially, we can even find something even better than God?

But no matter how far we roam in our thoughts about God, God never abandons us. He speaks to us continuously. His voice is heard when we shut up! or when we cry out! But we can also learn to hear His voice in every intuition of goodness that we feel, every effort to love, every selfless act.

These are points of awakening. If we notice them, listen to their meaning, pay attention to them, begin to embody them, these intuitions of Good wake us up to what is actually real and valuable. We begin to see that "things" are less important than thoughts - than what is in our heart of hearts. And when we come face to face with what is in our heart, we might feel some very strong feelings, sometimes with a flood of tears. But these intutions of Good always work in our favor. They serve to wake us up. If listened to and acted on, they deliver us from the "forbidden fruit" sin, disease, and yes, even death.

That's because God wants you to live! God, Divine Love wants you to wake up! and see yourself the way He sees you: as His image and likeness! not the image and likeness of your human history! God wants you to feel His love for you so strongly that it will overflow your life and spill out to every one you meet.

There is, in fact, nothing "better" than God. In actual reality, there isn't anything other than God and His reflection, Christ and the universe. There is no "other" called sin, disease, death. These are the dark shadows of mortal thought which evaporate in the presence of the Divine Thought: that there is only ONE God and He has made you in His likeness - Good!

And God supplies all your need with everything that is spiritually real and permanent as well as humanly necessary. You are already complete in Him right here, right now. The Truth of spiritual being, the Truth of your status as His image and likeness, and the complete understanding of the fullness of the Christ, are already our actual reality.

And in the beauty of this spiritual wholeness, healthiness, holiness, we discover something wonderful:

"Truth is God's remedy for error of every kind, and Truth destroys only what is untrue."

And "God leadeth us not into temptation [to believe that wily lie] but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death"!

Why?

Because, in absolute reality: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual."

Amen!

God is my All

"For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever."
For God is infinite, all-power, all Life, Truth, Love; over all, and All.

"Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all."

God is my wealth, my health, my relationship, my purpose, my substance, my being, my All. "All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all." And the nature of God is Good! is Life, Truth, Love.

How wonderful it is to know that "...His arm encircles me, and mine, and all." *

So let me see what Love is being and then let me be what Love is doing! Amen!



* from "Mother's Evening Prayer" - a poem by Mary Baker Eddy

"Our Father..."

"Our Father..."

If only these two words of Jesus' prayer had survived the centuries, they still - if deeply and honestly lived and understood - would be enough to heal the world.

Think about it.

Fed and saved and satisfied!

"Give us this day our daily bread."
Give us grace for today, feed the famished affections.

Give us this day our daily Bread of Life, our daily inspiration, daily ideas from Divine Mind. And give us the grace to "eat" them - consume them, embody them, live them and so be strong enough in the Spirit to feed all need, all that world of famished affections! Bless us with this communion Bread of Life!

"And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.

And forgiveness is our communion wine that washes away all sense of debt and debtor, of "other-than-Love". And this wine-blood washes us clean - wakens us in His likeness - saves us as untouched by lack, by debt, by tresspassers or by tresspassing or any belief that we have ever been anywhere outside our sacred communion, our sacred oneness with Divine Love being eternally reflected as love - as Love made manifest as us!

So, in the greatest humility, let us sit down with God. Let us take His cup, receive His Bread of Life, His Wine of Soul and so embody all that Divine Love has prepared for us. In this meal, we are completely satisfied!

Debts?

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.

To see a debt is to be in debt!

Have you ever stopped to think about that?

But in debt how? in debt to what?

Maybe think about it this way: to see a debt is to be in need of Love. And the bigger the debt you see, the deeper the need of Love, divine Love, the Love that is actually God Himself.

"Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name: bring an offering, and come before him: worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness." 1 Chronicles 16:29

And isn't this need cured by the "beauty of holiness"? to love God so deeply that you pay your "debt" first to Him? bring your offering to Him? your offering of your broken heart, your fear, your repentance? and offer these up - let these go - so you can awake in His likeness? whole, complete, divinely fair?

When you think that someone else needs forgiveness, it is really you that needs forgiveness! For what? For accepting evil for your neighbor: seeing your neighbor as a sinner, seing your neighbor as lacking, seeing your neighbor as evil.

"Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick."

So pure was Jesus' correct view that it also healed the sinner and raised the dead!

Be sure then to follow Jesus' example as best you can and witness correctly - see God's own likeness where everyone else sees debtors. This includes seeing yourself - loving yourself - this same way!

Forgiveness is always Love being reflected - acted on, lived, made manifest - in love: love for God, love for our neighbor, and (don't forget!) love for yourself.

Being the light of God

"Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven."
Enable us to know, as in heaven, so on earth, God is omnipotent, supreme.

"And God said, Let there be light: and there was light."
Genesis 1:3

"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

"For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."
2 Corinthians 4:6

"This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all."
1 John 1:5

"The manifestation of God through mortals is as light passing through the window-pane. The light and the glass never mingle, but as matter, the glass is less opaque than the walls. The mortal mind through which Truth appears most vividly is that one which has lost much materiality--much error--in order to become a better transparency for Truth. Then, like a cloud melting into thin vapor, it no longer hides the sun."
http://www.spirituality.com/dt/book_lookup.jhtml?reference=SH+295:16#jumpto


You - yes you - are the Light of God made manifest!

So don't be surprised when others find you spiritually attractive. Instead, pass your gratitude back to God, gratitude that you are becoming a transparency for His likeness, His Light. And notice now too how you see that same Light being reflected to you in everyone you see and and everyone you meet! Receive the Love that comes with that. And be ready to live that Love, to reflect the blessing God gives you to share with those around you in those moments.

Don't be afraid to be spiritually attractive! It just means you are about your Father's business. It just means you have an opportunity to be a blessing to everyone you see and everyone you meet. Just be sure to get ego out of the way. Then you'll truly be God's reflection and let Him do the shining!

At-One-Ment with the Adorable One

"Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven."
Enable us to know, as in heaven, so on earth, God is omnipotent, supreme.


"If Truth is overcoming error in your daily walk and conversation, you can finally say, "I have fought a good fight . . . I have kept the faith," because you are a better man. This is having our part in the at-one-ment with Truth and Love." http://www.spirituality.com/dt/book_lookup.jhtml?reference=SH+21:1-5#jumpto

Our at-one-ment with God, the Adorable One, is ever possible, because God, the Adorable One, is ever present with you.

Divine Love is here now.

And you are the pen in the hand of God, writing His love letters to everyone in the Universe!

Divine Love WILL be made manifest!

"Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven."
Enable us to know, as in heaven, so on earth, God is omnipotent, supreme.

So God enables us to know, as in heaven, so right here where we are, Divine Love actually is omnipotent, supreme!

Are you then sitting on the couch with your feet up on the coffee table waiting for Divine Love to show up on your doorstep?

Well, that certainly could happen if (while you're sitting there on the couch) you are understanding - and living - that omnipotent supreme Love that is God!

But otherwise, you need to get up off that couch and live that Love! Why? Because you are God's - Love's - manifestation! So get out there and manifest!!

How? Listen for those intuitions of good that will guide you and motivate you to do more than you are already doing, to live more than you're already living, and love more than you're already loving!

Because if Divine Love is demanding to be expressed, then Divine Love will create an opportunity for that expression to be made manifest! And you - right where you are - are always Love's choice to be that minifestation!

So be ready! See what Divine Love has prepared for you! You are being called to live His Love right now, right where you are!