Spiritualizing thought

I read an excerpt from a letter today written by my favorite spiritual thinker, Mary Baker Eddy. She was writing to a student of hers (she was a teacher of spiritual healing) who wanted to know how to pray so that he could consistently heal others of any ill, emotional or physical.

Eddy wrote in part, “Your aid to reach this goal is spiritualization. To achieve this you must have one God, one affection, one way, one Mind. Society, flattery, popularity are temptations in your pursuit of growth spiritual…Pray daily, never miss praying, no matter how often: ‘Lead me not into temptation.’…let all my thoughts and aims be high, unselfish, charitable, meek, — spiritually minded. With this altitude of thought your mind is losing materiality and gaining spirituality and this is the state of mind that heals the sick.”

This direction is not *new* to me…I have been studying and applying spiritual methods as a student of Christian Science for most of my life. But this really struck me as being so simple yet, at the same time, it pinpointed why it is hard on a daily basis!

As I am now thinking why this seems hard, a litany of daily activities come to mind: activities that maybe distract me from spiritualizing my thought. Spanish classes (living in New Mexico this is a must), boardmember of a regional arts foundation, exercise classes, social activities with a growing circle of friends from all these activities.

Each day I start with prayer, even before I get out of bed. I think about a quality of God that does two things for me: expands my understanding of the infinity of God’s nature, and shows me, as a reflection of God, a quality that I can live and put into practice that very day for myself and to help others.

Then I spend time reading the Bible and Science and Health, relating fresh spiritual inspiration to the day’s activities. That’s a good start for the day.

OK, so now I am thinking, maybe I shouldn’t spend so much time on these other activities? Is that it?

On the other hand, maybe I should be spending time spiritualizing my thinking ABOUT these activities. And I should ask myself if these activities are helping me spiritualize my thinking. IOW, am I bringing my spiritualized thought to bear on situations in these activities that need healing?

I hope so. For instance, my Spanish class is a small group of women who I love to get together with every week. Besides learning Spanish from a GREAT teacher, we also learn about each other and discuss issues we are facing. There have been a few times when I have listened to a story and prayed to know how I could help. A simple prayer is that God is loving this person right now and is in total control of every aspect of their life, and that whatever she needs it will be supplied. It never fails, but practical ideas come from around the table to support our friend.

Here’s what I am thinking: I need to be more persistent and specific in spiritualizing my thought about all my activities during the day. I figure a couple of things will happen: either these activities will be more fulfilling for me and I will be more helpful to my friends, OR the activities will drop away if they are not helping me in my desire to spiritualize my thought. Hmmm, if that is the case then likely more fulfilling activities will appear!

Whatever happens, my desire is to be more spiritually minded. Huh! Any activity associated with that has gotta make for a very productive day!