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!

Aspects of Forgiveness, Part 2

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

Jesus prayer requires something more of you than just generic "forgiveness." He requires you not to just forgive, but to actually love your enemies. To bless them that curse you. To do good to them that hate you and pray for those who would dispitefully use you and persecute you. (See Matthew 5: 43 - 45)

This may seem like a very difficult teaching. It's one thing to forgive, but another to actually love someone who hurts you, curses you, hates your, dispitefully uses you. It may even seem more difficult if it's you yourself who needs forgiveness.

But consider this: forgiveness never really happens until there is love. Forgiveness without love is not forgiveness. It is just one personal ego saying "I forgive you" to some other supposed personal ego. Maybe your saying is heartfelt and sincere. Maybe not.

But without love, even that heartfelt forgiveness leaves a taint. And that's because you still harbor the belief that the evil happened to you (or them) in the first place. And as long as that belief remains, the dream remains, and so the forgiveness is not yet complete. The dream of good and evil, of human wills, of multiple minds, of more than one power, more than one God, still goes on.

Mrs. Eddy had this startling insight into how Jesus was able to break that dream: "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. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy."

Jesus saw things differently. He had a Christly view. Jesus knew what others did not: that the human view of reality - with its sinning, sick, dying, evil, mortals - was incorrect. That in the Christly, true, spiritually scientific view - God's view - things are very different. Jesus saw wholeness, holiness, and Life where everyone else saw just the opposite. Jesus saw divine Love at work. Where everyone else saw sick and sinful humanity, Jesus saw healthiness, wholeness, holiness. That's because Jesus had a higher - spiritual - perspective. Jesus looked out on the world with the loving eyes of God.

And the result was always healing. It was always forgiving. It was always Love-made-manifest. The result was a demonstration of what is really spiritually true. What is always really going on: God's will being done in earth just as it is already done in heaven.

That is why this verse of Jesus' prayer is so important to study and understand. Mrs Eddy's spiritual sense of its Christly meaning alerts you to the complete healing of all sense of being wronged that Jesus is offering you when you pray this verse.

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." And Love [God] is reflected in [your] love - your beholding in Science the perfect man (or woman, or situation, or circumstance) where sinning mortal man (or woman, or situation, or cirumstance) appears to mortals (personal egos, evil people, human history).

But moving from mere human forgiveness to actually loving your apparent enemies with the power of divine Love, takes some practice (to put it mildly!).

So look to Jesus' example.

To love as Jesus loved is to start with what is spiritually true about God, about you, about your so-called enemy, and about God's complete creation. It is to acknowledge that God is your Father - and the Father of your apparent enemy. "Our Father." That He is in complete control. That His name and nature are completely Good - and the only reality there is. "Hallowed be Thy name." That you - and everyone (including your "enemy") are perfectly made in His image and likeness - are His perfect creation right where "sinning mortal man" appears to you.

This higher, spiritual perspective has a powerful healing effect. When sincerely felt and acknoweldged, you can't help but rejoice that God's kingdom is here now - and that His presence is the only real presence there is. "Thy kingdom come."

His will is being done right here, right now, right where you are - and where your so-called enemy appears to be - just like His will is done in heaven. And God's will is always good - always a blessing for both you and what appears to you as your enemy. "Thy will be done in earth [right where evil appears to be] as it is in heaven [the true Christly view of God's creation].

This statement from Science & Health will help you understand how to move from forgiveness to Love: "Truth has no consciousness of error. Love has no sense of hatred. Life has no partnership with death. Truth, Life, and Love are a law of annihilation to everything unlike themselves, because they declare nothing except God."

Rejoice that God's Love is a law of annihilation to everything unlike itself. This is not the good-and-evil dreamland of little egos trying to hurt each other - or forgive each other. This is the bright shining power of God filling the universe!

Just as light annihilates darkness, so Love annihilates all hate, spitefulness, manipulation, persecution, all evil. Why? Because Love is real, is light, is presence, and evil is actually unreal, is darkness, is absence. And where Love is present, there is no darkness at all.

Acknowledging this truth helps wake you up to actually experience it in reality, in your daily life.

Jesus could give us the command to love our enemies because he knew the power of divine Love. He knew that, though the human dream seems to see enemies everywhere, being awake to God - to Truth, Life, and Love - destroys that dream. Just like light destroys darkness.

When you practice living this powerful love of Love, you begin to "behold in Science" that there actually is only God's creation. You start to understand that Love's omnipotent goodness sees no enemies, that Love is real, that Love is the only real power there is. The sense of being hurt or hated is more than just eliminated. It is annihilated by the light of Love.

What seems like someone hating you, spitefully using you, manipulating you, persecuting you - is actually only an absence - a darkness - of thought that the light of Love annihilates. Love frees you from a personal sense of evil. Love is always - and only - reflected in love. When you yield to this possibility, you begin to see as Jesus did, to see your "enemy" in a new light, see "the perfect man where sinning mortal man" used to appear, and to love that perfect reflection of God.

Then you feel the bright fresh awakening of the holy Love that wipes clean any sense of hurt or pain or loss or evil. You're awake to Love. There is no dream of evil. There is no enemy.

"Forgive us our own dream of indebtedness as we forgive those who we think are in debt to us."
And Divine Love is always reflected in love that restores, fulfills, awakens.

Aspects of Reflection (Part 2)

Definition of Reflection
...
6: a thought, idea, or opinion formed or a remark made as a result of meditation
7: consideration of some subject matter, idea, or purpose

To think deeply in a focused attentive way on some thought or idea is to reflect upon it. Meditating - reflecting - upon that thought or idea means you are considering all of its many aspects. You ponder them. You pay specific attention to them. You are consciously alive with them. This gives you insight and understanding of the thought or idea. It awakens in you a deep appreciation. The thought or idea becomes alive to you.

Don't you think that when Mrs. Eddy talks about you as the reflection of God, of divine Mind, that this sense of reflection is included? Not just the passive reflection of a mirror, but the actively engaged reflection of Mind. This is an aspect of reflection. This is how God, divine Love, considers His creation. This is how God, divine Love, thinks about you. Specifically. Attentively. Deeply.

You are consciously alive to your Father-Mother God. And by reflection, your Father-Mother God is alive to you.

"And Love is reflected in love."

Feed the famished affections (Part 1)

"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.

"God setteth the solitary in families:" it says in Psalms. God delivers you from loneliness and into love. How? By giving you the grace - the love, the fluidity of thought and the movement of perspective that, what? Awakens you to your authentic purpose: that you are the active expression of His Love in the world. You are Love alive in the world. You reflect that Love that feeds the famished affections. You are the living proof that Love is unconditionally forgiving. You are "Love reflected in love."

Because Love is your true nature, you're naturally attracted to Love's expression, naturally appreciative of it, and naturally connected to it - even while glimpsing that it is something bigger than just any one person. In fact, it isn't personal at all. God's Love is divine, even if it seems humanly expressed and experienced.

As you become more conscious of, feel, appreciate - embrace - this divine sense of Love, you realize that this is why you're here: to live Love, to live to give Love - not live to get love (which is the lie spoken by loneliness). Living to give Love embraces Jesus' command to "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Living to give is "Love ... reflected in love."

Gently embrace this idea of living to give Love. Your intuition will show you opportunities. Expectancy helps you see them. Faithfulness helps you act on them. And as you practice living to give, living God's precious "grace for today," you'll see that it's for a reason: Because the way God feeds your famished affections is by having you feed someone else's.

"Love is impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals. It is the open fount which cries, 'Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.

"You will learn that in Christian Science the first duty is to obey God, to have one Mind, and to love another as yourself."

Yes. It is actually your duty to love at least one other person as you would yourself.

Yes. You get to be the answer to someone else's prayer for love.

This is Love reflected in love. This is obeying God. This is letting "this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:" This is adoring the Divine Name of Love by being loving. This is striving to know and reflect God's true nature in your relationship to everyone and everything around you.

This isn't necessarily though all easy-peasy. It usually involves some hard work letting go of maybe some not too God-like ways of acting. Because to withhold love is to be in debt. To take love without giving it is to be in debt. To ignore, belittle, mock love is to be in debt.

So if you feel in debt, challenged, by the idea of living to give Love, and want a good example of how this is done, take a look at the life of Jesus in the Gospels. You'll see that Jesus' followers weren't perfect either. Far from it. But you do need to do the same thing they did: follow his incredibly challenging but loving teaching and example as best you can.

And as you do, you begin to understand what Jesus knew implicitly: that that which is the cause and creator of everything, that which is the most fundamental primary power, that which we call God, is actually Love itself. And Love impells expression. Love must be lived.

So the only way to pay off that debt is to do likewise, to live your God-given purpose as His Love-light rejoicing no matter what the circumstances, shining from the top of the hill, bright and active and radiant and loving impartially and universally.

This is not theoretical. It is practical. It can be challenging. It can be difficult. You might resist it. This resistance is the cross. Take it up! This work is the practice. Bring it on! Love is imperative. It has to be seen and felt. It has to be made manifest. It can't just be talked about or thought about or wished for. As an old friend of mine used to say about living Love: "Put some skin on it!"

Sticking to the Love that is God, you find yourself - and all around you - held in His arms, safe, satisfied, rejoicing. And there is never any loneliness or famished affections there, for living in Love is living in the presence, the power, and the glory of God, forever.

Awaking to this as your actual state of being, you'll be too busy loving God and your neighbor as yourself to ever be suckered into that lie of loneliness again.


"Give us this day our daily companioning."
Give us unconditional Love for today. Feed the famished affections of us, our neighbor, and the world.

"And forgive us forgetting to love as we forgive those who we think have forgotten to love us."
And Love is always reflected in love.

Fed by Grace

So think about how "Give us this day our daily bread" relates to "Thou shalt not steal" and "Thou shalt not covet..."

When Jesus gave us this verse "Give us this day our daily bread" do you think he meant you should only ask God for whatever minimally it will take to keep you from dying? Did he mean that you could only expect bread and nothing else? Did he mean that God only rations out good in small doses? No. Consider this passage from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:25 - 33):

"25Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
26Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
27Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
28And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
29And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
31Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."

All these things shall be added unto you - when you first seek the kingdom of God, when you let go of what you want or think you need and turn your desires over to Him, when you really first pray "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven." Then your every need is met.

So what does it mean then to steal or to covet?

Isn't stealing taking something that doesn't belong to you? And isn't coveting wishing you had what someone else already does? Aren't these both actions of someone who thinks their life is missing something good? something they need to make them happy or complete? And isn't stealing and coveting what happens when you don't trust God to supply your every need?

But see, right there the lie exposes itself. Did God fail you? Did He forget to make you complete or capable of happiness? Did He leave something out of your being, something that other people have but you don't and that you think you should? No. He made you right the first time. He made you in His image and likeness. So He made you perfectly.

OK so woopdeedoo, that's all nice and everything, but it sure doesn't always feel that way.

That's why the Lord's Prayer is so beautiful: it helps you to come home to God, to come back to the sanity of Divine Love's view of you: Already complete. Already loved. Already whole, and so, already holy.

So think about it: if your heart is being fed all that it needs every day, is being fed that Divine grace every day, and every day its famished affections being fed completely by Divine Love - what could you want to steal or covet? If you actually knew that all the good that God has is already yours, what you could possibly want to steal or covet anyway?

And that is exactly what Jesus is telling you here: if you feel covetous, or think you need to steal (whether money, things, or even the limelight), what would happen to you if you were to know instead that God is giving you every day, your daily bread? your daily grace? your daily everything? What if you turn that "something's missing" feeling over to God? if you trust that need completely to God? Really honestly hand it over to Him?

How did Jesus phrase it? "...what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?"

Exactly. How much more will your heavenly Father give you exactly what you need? And then how much more you should be asking it of Him! As you do, you will see your real desires awakened, molded and exalted. And you will wake up to see that those "things" you used to want start to look like cheap tinsle compared to what you really really need and want: fulfillment, satisfaction, completeness, joy, love, life.

But you sometimes think you need those material "things" first in order to feel those spiritual values. That's backwards. And that's precisely why coveting and stealing don't work. They are an illusion of a fix but without the substance of a fix. Why? Because they put the "things" - the symbols - first, and completely leave the real spiritual treasure these things/symbols are supposed to represent (fulfillment, satisfaction, completeness, joy, love, life) completely out of the picture.

So reverse the process. Forget the things and wake up to the spiritual gifts that God is offering you. Transform your desire from "stuff" to Spirit. Be willing to open your heart to those spiritual values first. Doing that moves your focus off yourself and what you don't have and onto God and what He has already prepared for you. This shifts your perspective off what you lack and onto God's abundance. This wakes you up to see, and accept, what God has already prepared for you.

The beauty of prayer is - when honest - that it is the way for you to lift up your famished affections, your real desires, to God. So be honest about your desires. Trust God with them. Hand them over to Him no matter what your family or other people or society think about them. It's none of their business. Prayer is always between you and God. Or actually, between God and you!

And if you trust God honestly, be ready, because God will mold and exalt you. He will hear your soul's deepest yearning and satisfy you in ways better than you could ever wish or imagine. The trinkets you used to covet or the attention you thought you had to steal will fade away as you start to see and embrace what Divine Love has already prepared for you. So look at what God is giving you. Focus on that grace. And you won't have any time for or interest in coveting or stealing. Why? Because there is nothing worth coveting or stealing compared to what God gives you.

Just ask.

Because God gives you "bread and fish" - what you really need. So why steal stones and covet serpents?

The 10 Promises and the Lord's Prayer assure you that your seemingly famished affections are already being fed by God's rich, rich grace.

Will you open your heart and accept it? What will you do? Right now, what will you do? What do you covet? What do you steal? How will you think about what you need or don't need? How will you put this into practice? Will you trust God with your famished affections? Will you accept His everpresent answer? Will you accept His daily grace?

Maybe start gently. Maybe just pray the Lord's Prayer as honestly as you can. Maybe just trust a little more and ask to see what Divine Love has prepared for you. If you do, you know it's gonna be great.

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

Let me accept Your abundant grace dear Father. You have already given it to me and everyone. It is already mine. Help me wake up to accept this gift. How empty everything else seems. How great is my need of You. Compared to Your love, what is there really worth stealing? What could I possibly covet that can compare to You?

Let me feel You feeding my famished affections. Let me feel satisfied. I offer up all my needs and wants to You because I know You will mold and exalt them so that they fulfill Your good will for me. Let me feel that beautiful Love of Yours filling me up to overflowing!

The Bible says "As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." Let my prayer, my desire, be to feel your Love so alive in me that I actually wake up! So that I understand that I can - and do - live as Your likeness. This is my true state of being, right here and right now. Let me open my eyes and see that my life is already so full of Your grace and Your love that I can only want to share Your love and give it and live it as Your child, Your likeness.

Then I will be living, not only Your prayer, but also Your promise: I shall not covet or steal because every day You feed my every need with Your priceless grace, and because every day You give me the opportunity to share that love with others.

"Fed by Thy love divine we life, for Love alone is Life."*

Thank you Father-Mother God.




------------------------------
* Poems, Mary Baker Eddy

Love and hugs

Which came first, the love or the hug?

The love. The hug is the love made manifest. So it is with God and Christ. God is Love. Christ is Love made manifest. In fact, you could say that Christ is God hugging the world.

"Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus."

Let this Mind embrace you as it did Christ Jesus. Let this Spirit, Life, Truth, Love embrace you as it did Christ Jesus.

The funny thing is, you can embrace - hug - love, without really knowing what love is. But by the mere fact of embracing love whenever you can however much you're able, again and again, you begin to learn what love means. By doing so, you discover that you're embracing love in your heart.

Then you begin to feel love and to recognize it. And now you are embracing love in your heart and in your thoughts. You begin to actually look for love. And you begin to wake up to understand that all that time, all through all that struggle, you were just letting go of your sense of separation. Divine Love was actually hugging you the whole time.

And then by being open to practicing love yourself, you wake up to what has really always been going on: Love, God, embracing YOU, God's own precious spiritual creation. Then you not only know love in your heart, and in your thoughts, but inevitably, in your arms - embracing all those around you, fulfilling God's commandment: love another as yourself.

You could say that this is Christian Science "practice."

"Forgive us our debts (our seeming lack of love) as we forgive our debtors (forgive those that we think haven't have loved us)."

Love is (always) reflected in love.

What is God?

When I was in College, I wasn't really sure I believed in God. Sure I'd gone to Sunday School from the time I was 3 and had memorized the books of the Bible, the 10 Commandments, the 23rd Psalm, the 91st Psalm, the Beatitudes, the Lord's Prayer, and various other things, but was there really a God out there somewhere? I just wasn't all that sure.

I happened to mention this to an old Sunday School teacher of mine, Mrs. Reyerson, when she and I happened to be chatting out on the Quad at the college I was attending. Mrs. Reyerson was one of those people who knew God well and so was wise enough to let inspiration guide her conversation. And that's what she did on this occasion. There was no insistance that I must believe. There was no doctrine thrown in my face. She just asked me some questions. She said,

"Well, the question "What is God?" is the single most important question there is. So what is a "god" to you?"

And I said, what do you mean? And she said "Isn't a god something you worship? isn't a god something that is the most important thing in the world to you?"

And I said, I guess so. And she said, "So what do you worship? What is the most important thing in the world to you? "

And I said, I don't really know. And so Mrs. Reyerson said "Imagine you're stuck all alone out on a desert island out in the middle of the sea. What would be the one thing - if you could have anything - that you could have with you that would make you excited to jump up out of bed every morning and be glad to be alive?"

And I said, "Well I don't really know that either." Then she said, "Think about it. Really think about it. And then let me know what your answer is."

And she gave me a hug and walked on her way.

I have to admit at the time I rarely felt like jumping out of bed in the morning, let alone jump out feeling glad to be alive. So I spent the next 3 days wondering what would that be like? And what would it be that, if I had it out there all by myself on that desert island out in the middle of the ocean, that it would be the one thing that would make me actually want to jump up with joy out of bed, glad to be alive?

So I ran through the usual suspects: a good book. The Good Book. A survival kit. A knife so I could whittle. A radio, a journal, a deck of cards, my dog Rusty. On and on I kept thinking these would be good to have - but would they actually make me want to jump out of bed in the morning, glad to be alive?

No.

Then after a couple of days, it dawned on me: my friends. If I could have my friends with me out on the desert island, I would definitely jump up out of bed every morning, glad to be alive.

And I thought that was it. I could feel the warmth of this answer, being out there with my friends, out on some crazy desert island, cooking up an escape plan, exploring, building a raft, having fun, doing more than just surving, but having an adventure and being together.

As it turned out I was going to see Mrs. Reyerson the next day, so I was glad I had an answer. But as I got ready for bed that night, a question popped into my head: "what is it about your friends that makes them the single most important thing that would make you glad to be alive? what is it about your friends that has to do with this question of what God is?"

And it dawned on me: it is their love. It is love that actually lights them up as my friends. It is the love we live and express to each other that makes us friends. It is feeling that love that actually makes me want to jump out of bed in the morning, glad to be alive.

And all of the sudden I thought of that phrase from I John 4:8 that I've seen written up on the wall of my church every Sunday since I was a toddler: "God is Love." God is Love. God is not some guy up in the sky to believe in or not. God is Love itself, the Love that showers down on the just and the unjust, the Love that is impartial and universal, the Love that heals, redeems, saves, the Love that my friends reflect, the Love that actually is God.

And when I put that feeling of Love into every time I read the word "God," the Bible suddenly lit up for me. I glimpsed something of what God really is. I felt a little bit of what God really is. I no longer doubted God's existance, I began to understand something of how we manifest - reflect - Him. I began to glimpse what God really is.

And I tell you, if you ask yourself "what is the most important thing in the world to me? what makes me jump out of bed in the morning, glad to be alive?" and actually honestly think about it as deep down as you can, I think you too will find out what God is to you. And if you do, it will change everything. God will be real to you, a living power and presence in your heart, a wonderful companion, closer than your own thoughts.

And maybe you will even find yourself actually jumping out of bed in the morning, glad to be alive.

"Our Father which art in heaven."
Our Father-Mother Love, all-harmonious.
Our Father-Mother Life, all-harmonious.
Our Father-Mother Principle, all-harmonious.
Our Father-Mother Soul, all-harmonious.
Our Father-Mother Spirit, all-harmonious.
Our Father-Mother Mind, all-harmonious.

Oh, and Mrs. Reyerson was glad I'd found my own answer. It happened to be the same as hers.