CHILDREN

The spiritual thoughts and representatives of Life, Truth, and Love. … The beautiful, good, and pure constitute his ancestry.

--Science and Health, p. 582, 63—

“Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, …”

–The Bible, Matt. 28:20—

Of What Surrounds Me

Whatever it is I am saying, 

I always

need a leaf or a flower, if not an

entire field.  As for sky, 

I am so wildly

in love with each day’s inventions, cool blue

or cat gray or full

of the ships of clouds, 

I simply can’t

say whatever it is I am saying

 without

at least one skyful.  

That leaves water, 

a creek or a well, river or ocean, 

it has to be there.  

For the heart to be there.  

For the pen to be poised.  

For the idea to come.

--Mary Oliver--

We had lost everything

Having fled the heavy bombing of our city, we reached a village after a long journey.  A farmer offered my family and me a room above a stable.  I was just a small child.  I cried.  And I so much wanted to go to sleep.  But ever-recurring nightmares frightened me.

Though this happened years ago.   … Most of us have seen pictures of … children looking into television cameras and have heard their family members telling of these little ones crying all night.  It makes the heart ache.  But there can be a silver lining in the violent clouds of ethnic, religious, and political hatred.  Because at a time of severe struggle, we may also discover, as Mary Baker Eddy quotes, “… man’s extremity is God’s opportunity” (Science and Health, p. 266).

On such occasions we so much want to reach out to know and do good.  This desire opens our thought to God.  Turning to God and listening for His voice within, we feel God’s comfort.  This points to a most secure place of refuge—a childlike trust in God, in good, right there where the icy winds of hatred blow.  Most children intuitively trust and want to stand with good, even if they are deprived of life’s simplest necessities.  Give them a patch of grass where they can play with a ball, and they respond with joy and self-forgetfulness.

Just a glimpse of the sustaining infinite helps us to feel safe.  And this ultimately changes our thinking about everything.  It moves us through the dailiness of life in a creative and most positive way.  We then recognize divine Love as our rock and there stand tall.  The Psalmist days, “My heart trusted in him, and I am helped” (PS. 28:7). This in one of the many passages in the Scriptures that kept my trust in God buoyant.

–An excerpt from an article by Eva-Maria Hogrefe, C. S., published in the Christian Science Sentinel,

September 27, 1999--

The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.  –The Bible, Psalms 121:8—

“Refuge and Strength

Step by step will those who trust Him find that 

‘God is our refuge and strength, 

a very present help in trouble.’”

--Science and Health, p. 444:10--