Oct 14, 2006 |
by Annette Bridges. © 2006. All rights reserved.
It’s about time to begin my packing list. Weeks before a trip is scheduled, I start my travel preparations with a list. Mostly I do this because I don’t want to forget anything I may want during our vacation. My husband would probably tell you that I generally overpack my bags with more clothes, etc., than I could possibly need or use. Nevertheless, his comments don’t deter me in the least as I move forward toward our trip countdown.
Did you know there are guides on how to pack a suitcase? Yes, over the years I’ve come across dozens of packing guides and many helpful tips. One such guide begins, “Packing a suitcase is a strategic exercise in maximizing space and minimizing wrinkles.” My mom has often boasted about my skillful ability to make the most of my packing space.
Yet another guide begins, “Knowing how to pack a suitcase is essential to being a good traveler.” However, 27 years of traveling with my husband have taught me a successful and happy trip requires more than the items I pack in my bags. Indeed, the most important thing I need to pack doesn’t require luggage. As the title of a recent online chat featured on www.spirituality.com put it, “Don’t forget to pack prayer.”
I’ve found that beginning trip preparations with prayer has helped me add items to my suitcase that I might not have thought I needed and then would indeed need during the trip. In addition to packing, planning for a trip can raise all sorts of anxieties. For me, this has included fear of flying, health concerns, inclement weather dreads or any other unexpected or unwanted catastrophes.
With plenty of worries to fear and fret about, it’s a wonder anyone can ever have a happy vacation. But prayer can help us find the perfect solution for every situation. During one trip on which everything went wrong, including a hurricane evacuation, prayer made the difference in turning the trip into a safe, and still fun, adventure.
Packing prayer means acknowledging God’s control and power before you pack — or rather, before you even make your packing list. Then, certainly every day throughout a trip, packing prayer is listening for God’s wisdom and knowing that He is providing us with the practical ideas we need. Packing prayer means we’re alert to the angels of His presence — the spiritual intuitions and thoughts God gives us. These spiritual guides will lead us on a safe journey and also deliver us if we get into any trouble. For the Psalmist promises, “For He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways” (Psalms 91:11).
The Psalmist also tells us how we hear the guidance our angel guardians give to us when he says, “Be still … ” (Psalms 46:10). Being mentally still may not always be easy, especially in challenging times, but doing so, if only for a few moments, will help us to hear God’s angel messages more clearly.
As we prepare for traveling and embark on our travels, we can be assured that God is with us to care for us each step — or mile — of the way. We can trust in the Psalmist’s reassuring message, “The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore” (Psalms 121:8).
So, when you’re preparing to travel, don’t forget to pack prayer and have a great trip! That’s my plan, too!
Oct 13, 2006 |
by Annette Bridges. © 2006. All rights reserved.
The Bible in My life
How well I remember the Bible stores read to me as a child! Daniel in the lions’ den. Joseph with his coat of many colors. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace. David and Goliath. And many others.
Throughout my life, the Bible has been my life coach. If I need guidance of any kind, I know I can find it in the Scriptures. And Science and Health assures me that “the Bible contains the recipe for all healing” (p. 406). Again and again, I am finding this to be so.
Not long ago I learned a lesson from the account of Daniel’s interpretation of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams, in chapters one to four of the Old Testament book of Daniel. The king sought advice from magicians, astrologers, and sorcerers, about the significance of these dreams, but they gave him no satisfaction.
Eventually Daniel – who had prayed that the “wisdom and might” of God might be revealed to him –was brought to Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel offered an interpretation, but the king feared that the humility called for in Daniel’s response, which pointed to God’s supremacy, would threaten the “power, and strength, and glory” he had worked so hard to attain.
It was Nebuchadnezzar’s pride that caught my attention. At the time, I was working on a variety of projects. I enjoyed what I was doing, but I was feeling that I was the only person on the job who could accomplish the tasks efficiently. Many days, I felt burdened and overwhelmed. I should have asked for assistance from other members on my team, but I didn’t – mainly because I didn’t think anyone else could get the job done as well as I could.
Soon, I began to suffer from severe headaches. I couldn’t sleep at night, because I would lie in bed thinking about all that I had to get done the next day. Some nights I suffered constricting pains in my chest that were so severe I could hardly breathe.
It was during one of my sleepless nights that I reread that story about Nebuchadnezzar. Suddenly I realized that I was expressing a similar kind of puffed-up pride. I had been thinking my skills were indispensable and irreplaceable. Self-righteousness and self-justification controlled my reasoning and actions.
Then it struck me that it wasn’t until Nebuchadnezzar had humbled himself before God and learned to “praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, all whose works are truth,” that his life was restored and renewed (Dan 4:37).
Reading about Nebuchadnezzar’s experience made me feel humble, too – even a bit ashamed of myself. I was reminded of Jesus’ words, “I can of my own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me” (John 5:30).
Gradually I came to think of the Bible’s characters as friends who shared not only their trials and challenges with me, but also their triumphs and the lessons they had learned. It was encouraging to know that others had walked down similar paths, surmounted roadblocks, and gotten back on track when spiritual insight called for a change in direction.
“Throughout my life, the Bible has been my life coach” H Mary Baker Eddy explained that we have the ability to improve our circumstances when she wrote, “If you believe in and practice wrong knowingly, you can at once change your course and do right” (Science and Health, p. 253). So that’s what I did. After praying to better understand God’s power and His government of our workplace, I became more of a team player – delegating tasks and sharing responsibilities. I stopped judging and criticizing others’ efforts. In fact, I gained an appreciation of my fellow co-workers and their talents that I didn’t have before.
I stopped taking myself so seriously, too. I started seeing my work in a new light, viewing it as an essential element in the business of glorifying God. Thinking with God. Seeing what God sees. Knowing what God knows. From that point on, work was handled so harmoniously that it was like watching musicians playing a symphony.
The headaches stopped, as well as the chest pains. There were no more sleepless nights. Joy and lightheartedness filled my days in the office. My Bible friends had helped to rescue me!
Oct 13, 2006 |
by Annette Bridges. © 2006. All rights reserved.
“I love you this much!” our daughter would say, smiling and stretching her little arms as far apart as she could. And she would ask us to say how much we loved her while we held out our arms and included as many quantifying phrases as we could think of — such as, I love you … more than the number of stars you can count in the sky, or I love you … more than all the people in the world. Oh, how she would giggle with delight at this news!
I guess I’m a bit like my daughter, who is now grown up and married. I can’t help but tell my husband how much I love him, and I love for him to tell me the same. So, there are those times when I ask, “How much do you love me?” And he responds with answers similar to those we used to tell our baby girl.
Recently, after I asked him my “How much do you love me?” question, he sweetly answered and then asked, “But is there a measure for love?” A good question. A profound question, the more I thought about it.
Pondering if it’s possible to measure love, I can’t help but think of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways … .” Her beautiful love sonnet includes such sentiments as “I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach” and “I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life!” I must admit, to hear such statements of “quantity” would certainly make me feel really loved.
Perhaps it’s not possible or necessary to measure one’s love for another, because our love truly is more than mere words could ever express. And I know the old saying often holds true, “Actions speak louder than words.” But I still want and long for the words, too. Maybe that explains my passion for romantic songs, books, movies and greeting cards.
Consider how weddings almost always include a love song. Couples choose a song or songs that express their feelings for each other. Such romantic ballads have existed for thousands of years and have been found in most cultures. Songwriter and producer Robin Frederick wrote, “The earliest love songs sound so contemporary, so honest, so urgent, they might have been written yesterday. They are proof that human emotions have not changed. When we fall in love today, we feel what men and women felt in centuries past: desire, joy, disappointment, yearning, fulfillment.”
It seems we’ve always loved to tell our beloveds how much we love them, and we cherish having the same sentiments expressed back to us. “An anthropologist once asked a Hopi why so many of his people’s songs were about rain. The Hopi replied, ‘Because water is so scarce. Is that why so many of your songs are about love?'” (“Gila: Life & Death of an American River” by Gregory McNamee)
My answer to this Hopi would have been a resounding “Hardly!”
The American culture’s interest and passion for love is anything but scarce. We may not always have our actions coincide with our desires, but we are in love with love nonetheless. Love is the theme of many of our songs because we long to soothe and inspire our soul with love lyrics. We love hearing about longing for love, finding love, wishing we could find love, as well as when we have found it and want more of it. And yes, we also love lyrics that paint a less rosy picture, expressing our many fears and insecurities about love — losing it or never having found it.
But the Hopi was correct in that many of our songs are indeed about love. In fact, over half of the most popular songs written in America throughout the decades have been, and still are today, on the subject of love.
The subject of many of Jesus’ teachings were on love — love for God and from God, love for our neighbor, and even love for our enemies. Jesus also warned us against the wrong kinds of love — praying aloud because we love to be seen and heard and disproportionate love of our material treasures. His teachings established the basis for how we can measure our love for God by our love for one another.
Paul’s famous words on the extent and reach of God’s love for us is perhaps my very favorite Bible verse: “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God … ” (Romans 8:38-39).
Wow! Those words surely quantify the love of God for us as infinite and eternal and sure make me feel very much loved. So, maybe words fail to fully give a measure of love, but that’s no reason to stop trying to express our love — not only in our actions but, yes, also in our words.
Oct 13, 2006 |
“Journalism is a public service and readers are best-served if I and the people I am writing about speak the same language.”
So wrote Jill Carroll, freelance reporter on assignment for The Christian Science Monitor, in a scholarship application shortly before her kidnapping in Iraq. The Washington Post reported.
At the time of my writing this column, the world still awaits the outcome of her ordeal. And I hope when this is published the world will have received good news. But her words are giving me pause today and I know they will continue to do so in the future.
Many newspapers have been writing about Jill. And many have shared more information about the newspaper she was writing for. Such as “The Christian Science Monitor was founded in 1908 by a woman, Mary Baker Eddy, who believed passionately in the power of prayer.” (Chicago Sun-Times)
The paper is owned by the church Mary Baker Eddy also founded. It is an international daily newspaper, winner of seven Pulitzer prizes, renowned for its balanced, in-depth news coverage of world events and issues. (www.csmonitor.com)
The Sun-Times also reported, “The paper has an implicitly spiritual mission, one that by all accounts Jill – a young woman from Ann Arbor, Michigan, who moved to the Middle East a few years ago because she wanted to understand the region and humanize the lives of its inhabitants – believes in with all her heart: ‘to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.’”
Jill has been dedicated to learning Arabic since her arrival to the region and it has been reported that she can speak Arabic well enough to easily talk to the Iraqi people and interview Iraqi officials.
But I think perhaps her idea of speaking the same language may go beyond the limits of verbal communication although certainly important. Perhaps the secret to speaking the same language is rooted in the stated mission of The Christian Science Monitor – “to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.”
How do we speak so as not to injure?
Qualities seen in Jill’s writing come to mind. Honesty. Sincerity. Empathy. Thoughtfulness. To name only a few.
I hope Jill will be writing for the world about the world again in the future. But perhaps her life and example will inspire and encourage us. Learn to speak to one another, our neighbors and strangers, our friends and foes, in such a way that enables us to live in peace and understanding each other.
Tolerate and accept there will be differences. Appreciate and honor varying viewpoints. Respect uniqueness of cultures. Believe there is one God regardless of many religious beliefs and practices. No one is greater than another in His eyes.
Her example is helping me share her passion. Her resolve. Her mercy. Her faith. Her hope.
For humanity’s sake, I’ll try to speak the same language to all I meet. A high goal? Maybe so. But if we all try, mankind will surely be blessed.
Oct 13, 2006 |
by Annette Bridges. © 2006. All rights reserved.
Change comes in countless forms. Some life-altering. Some predictable. Some we choose. Some are imposed on us. Like those that are so sudden they uproot our secure and stable routine, and send us swirling into unwanted transition.
I was heading off to college for my freshman year with great anticipation – all good. And not just any college, but the college of my dreams.
Then mid-year, something I never thought about or imagined could happen – happened. Academic suspension for one year. The result of my poor study skills and more time spent in social activities than in classes.
Devastated. Depressed. I was faced with what seemed like a hurricane of destruction to all I held dear. Forced to leave new friends and a new boyfriend. Forced to leave my new home and return to my parents’ home. Not knowing what to do with my life.
Shortly after I got the unexpected news (that I should have expected), I received an encouraging letter from my college advisor. She explained that suspend also meant to “uphold by invisible support”. I could know I was also being supported by their hopes and expectation of my return.
I searched my favorite magazines for advice on coping with change. But one suggestion I found, to hang on and ride out the storm, was not what I wanted to hear.
The idea that we must simply cope with and endure storms sent me to the Biblical account when Christ Jesus and his disciples faced a “great storm.” I read how Christ Jesus “rebuked the wind and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.” (Immediately, I might add.)
Whirlwinds of self-pitying emotions were keeping me from accepting responsibility for my actions and seeing that there were solutions at hand.
These words from author Mary Baker Eddy, in a short piece entitled, Angels, helped bring me calm and clarity. “God gives you His spiritual ideas, and in turn, they give you daily supplies. Never ask for tomorrow: it is enough that divine Love is an ever-present help; and if you wait, never doubting, you will have all you need every moment…..This sweet assurance is the ‘Peace, be still’ to all human fears, to suffering of every sort.”
I started affirming the peace of God as present and powerful in my life. I felt assured of a God of love who is ever-directing and guiding me to whatever I need in each moment. The storm, with self-pitying winds, was stilled. I left my past mistakes behind me and focused on present possibilities.
As my point of view changed from dread and uncertainty to confident hope and resolve, a job opportunity presented itself. One that taught me much about unselfish care for others’ needs. I enrolled in a community college where I took several remedial classes and workshops to improve my reading and writing skills.
A few months later, I returned to the college of my dreams. And before my one year suspension date. Three years later, I earned my Bachelor of Arts degree with the senior class award for “progress.”
Life-changing lessons were learned in my freshman year. Just coping with change can keep us treading water and never moving forward. But using change as a means to grow wiser and stronger, leads to progress.
