I HAD A SUGGESTION....

                             I Hear You Knockin!  (Click for Audio)

“You went away and left long time ago
Now your knocking on my door
I hear you knocking
But you can't come in
I hear you knocking
Go back where you been”

The words of that old song by Dave Edmunds kept going through my mind as I watched still

another pharmaceutical commercial during the evening news television broadcast recently. Commercial after commercial… offering up an array of frightening symptoms of one physical malady after another, each message planting seeds of doubt and worry to the receptive and unsuspecting thought.
I have seen and experienced the effect of some of these messages… “Do I have those symptoms, could that be what I have? I think I may have those symptoms, that horrible condition!”

Oh, the power of Suggestion!!! Suggestion is probably appearing in a venue near you… TODAY… TONIGHT… TOMORROW!!! See if you can identify and unmask him!!

Targeting a marketing pitch to a receptive client is very important in marketing and sales.  The motto seems to be to “Plant the Seed of Need! Then provide a solution or fix!” In other words… SUGGEST!!!

We should pity the physician who has to eventually answer to the fears and concerns resulting from the suggestive messages and eventually calm and overcome the patients’ concerns.

Pharmaceutical commercials are just one type of aggressive "suggestion" that we face from the media every day. Not all are fear based.  Some are enticements. Images of new

flashy cars, beautiful luxurious homes, scenes played out of beautiful men and women finding the good life in often far fetched circumstances, the allure of wealth and happiness based on material “things”, planting the seeds of discontent with our sometimes humble lives.

While many of these enticements are innocent enough, they often influence us to do what is not in our best interests, such as an enticing ice cream commercial often gets my interest and suddenly I need an ice cream “fix”!!

As a guy who really doesn’t NEED any more ice cream and has felt the influence of all of the above "suggestions", that old song, “I Hear You Knockin’ But you Can’t Come In” has relevance. Those lyrics magically appearing in my thought at some of the most tempting moments have saved me, helped me to close the door on intrusive thoughts and brought me back to more rational thinking,  guarding my thought.                 

 When I was a young boy, a well-known hypnotist came to town and put on a show. This “mesmerizer” was very convincing as he went through his act, choosing one person after another from the audience. These folks, ordinary Main Street moms and dads, middle America Ohioans, arrived with innocent and open minds, eager to see what was coming next. There was no defense for them, as they were subject to every suggestion that the hypnotist made. 

One older lady who was told that she was very thirsty immediately began showing signs of light distress and drank several glasses of water while we watched, fascinated. When the hypnotist woke her up she had no idea of what she had done.

Another volunteer selected was a very distinguished looking, middle-aged man, bald and rather rotund. The

suggestion was made to him that he was a chicken and he immediately he began running around the stage clucking, waving his arms as though they were wings.  It was  a really good chicken imitation which I am sure he could never have imagined he would ever be doing in front of an audience.

From that very moment, even as a young boy, I knew that I never wanted to be put to sleep by suggestion in that way, nor be fooled into believing something that was not true. AND, most "suggestions" don’t come as easily identifiable as does a tuxedoed Hypnotist!! They come subtly as our own thoughts!!

Mesmerism, or hypnotism involves the mesmerizer making suggestions and his clients becoming absolutely mesmerized by him, convincing enough for them to act out the role that has been suggested.

Abbé Faria was one of the disciples of Franz Anton Mesmer, an early experimenter in what was called “animal magnetism” in the late 1700s. Faria continued with Mesmer’s work and conducted experiments to prove that “no special force was necessary for the production of the mesmeric phenomena such as the trance, but that the determining cause lay within the subject himself;” In other words, that it worked purely by the power of suggestion.

Certainly we need no hypnotist to be affected.  We are bombarded by hypnotic suggestions every day, sometimes every moment.

Pioneer in Christian Healing, Mary Baker Eddy, in her Book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, realizing that disease is fear made manifest on the body, wrote:

 “Stand porter at the door of thought. Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily results, you will control yourself harmoniously. When the condition is present which you say induces disease, whether it be air, exercise, heredity, contagion, or accident, then perform your office as porter and shut out these unhealthy thoughts and fears. Exclude from mortal mind the offending errors; then the body cannot suffer from them. The issues of pain or pleasure must come through mind, and like a watchman forsaking his post, we admit the intruding belief, forgetting that through divine help we can forbid this entrance.”( 1 

The Bible describes  “planting suggestions” in a parable  about a farmer who planted good wheat seed but an enemy came along and planted tares, or bad seed,

among the wheat. To me this parable typifies the bad “suggestions” being planted in our thought to battle the good seeds in our thought. Some Bible scholars agree that in the story in Matthew 13, the enemy who planted the seed was actually the farmer himself, unwittingly letting the evil, the temptation, the bad seed take root.

These downward pulling hypnotic “suggestions” aren’t a new thing! Jesus was tempted by that “knocking at the door” after some long period of meditation and prayer, alone on a mountain when intrusive thoughts identified as “Satan” suggested that Jesus could turn rocks into bread, throw himself off of a mountain, even be King of the Jews. Jesus, realizing that Life is Spiritual,  quickly identified the thoughts as evil "suggestions", and "Satan" disappeared.

Recently. I went through a rather lengthy siege of attacks from "suggestions". It seemed like one thing after another came to me and as soon as I prayed and overcame one thing another, even more serious,  hit me. There seemed to be no consistency, rhyme or reason in the attacks. The problems ranged from not being able to form sentences, not able to voice the words that were in my thought,  to instability in standing and walking, back pain, loss of vision, extreme anxiety, and so on and so on.

Letting down my guard,  my reactions ranged from fear of the symptoms, to the thought that I was passing on, to mental confusion and looking for a cause on one side… to laughing out loud when I realized (as one who has practiced Christian Science healing for many ailments and life problems for fifty years),  how utterly ridiculous the whole scene was. These material suggestions were so exaggerated,  I was acting like a tennis player running around the court hitting back the ball… backhanded, forehanded, in bounds and out of bounds!!! 

Then I remembered Mary Baker Eddy's clear direction in times of distress:  "Take possession of your body, and govern its feeling and action. Rise in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike good. God has made man capable of this, and nothing can vitiate the ability and power divinely bestowed on man." (2.

Apparently I was believing the "suggestions".  It became clear that the more I looked at myself, my body, my personal situation for health and happiness while suffering from a deep sense of loneliness after the recent loss of my spouse, the more problems I would find.

Then, after a short while of listening for God's guidance, that old song,  a reminder to "stand porter at the door of thought"  came to me once again and I sang out loud… "I hear you knockin’, but you can’t come in”.  Remembering that we are here to reflect God's infinite goodness and Love replaced the fear and negated the suggestion.   And “the devil”, identified, disappeared.”

Whatever your religious or moral beliefs and convictions, we can all be alert to these "suggestions" and consider where they are coming from. Understanding that the only real, true, inspired and eternal Truths are from our Father, we regain our sense of  health and happiness.     Keep Singing!!!!!

(1.   Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures... Mary Baker Eddy   page 392

(2.    IBID  393

Lesson from the Leaves

The soft, mellow music of Nat King Cole’s velvet voice  drifted softly across the front porch where I was sitting in my rocking chair, enjoying the view of the sun setting behind the Blue Ridge  mountains in a lovely late afternoon sky. 

     

Click Here to listen... Autumn Leaves by King Cole

"The falling leaves drift by the window
 The autumn leaves of red and gold ….” 

And on it played to its beautiful conclusion…  “When autumn leaves start to fall”

The familiar words turned my thought back many years, to a time when the autumn leaves were falling, cascading down and covering the lawn on Jefferson Avenue in Chillicothe, Ohio, where a young boy had decided to help his Dad, a hard working father who was exhausted after an extra long night shift at the paper mill.

What had started out as a “Dad’s little helper” task was now turning into major disaster.  As a six year old, I had absolutely no idea that even well intentioned little “helpful tasks” could cause big problems.

It all started when I felt a little too big for my britches and decided to rake the fall leaves from the front yard.    I was so proud of myself for having raked the entire front yard, pulling the leaves with the big leaf rake out into the gutter.  Now that I had a huge pile about half the width of our lawn stacked high in the gutter and reaching out into the street, my last little task was to get rid of them.

Now it didn’t seem like a good idea to let my Dad know what I had planned, I wanted to surprise him with a “Well Dad, I took care of the leaves!” I could almost hear the inevitable praises… “What a good boy”. 

I slipped into the house and got a box of matches and went back out. It took a few tries as I had never lit a match before, finally, success! I had a match burning and I threw it into those dry leaves.   I was on my way!!

The fire actually grew faster than I had thought it would and the the flames started rising producing thick clouds of dirty white smoke.  In panic mode, I started raking vigorously covering up the flames,  need more leaves, raking faster and faster. “Surely if I get enough leaves on the fire it will be hidden.  Gotta cover it up quick!”

The fire just grew bigger and bigger, flames reaching higher and higher, smoke covering the neighborhood.  I was really frightened and wanted to keep my parents from seeing the fire. But….

Above the sound of my racing heart I heard a shout behind me.  Dad was no longer sleeping and was standing with Mom on the porch aghast at the site and fearing, I’m sure, that the whole neighborhood would go up in flames. Dad rushed out with the hose and together we fought the fire until Dad told me to get lost, and get out of his way.  As I recall he wasn’t smiling his usual happy smile.

After the fire was out and things calmed down especially my Dad, we had what Dad called a little instructional talk.  What he lacked in tact, he made up for in straightforwardness!!   I guess the most important thing  I took away from the lesson was: 

If you find yourself in a hole… STOP DIGGING!

In what became “The Lesson of the Leaves” to me, I learned at a young age the consequences of a “cover-up” and the necessity for honesty and openness.  Tragically today we so often see the disastrous results of attempts to cover up mistakes, errors and omissions, dishonesty, situations that would bring dishonor, embarrassment, even jail time by individuals, businesses and governments.

How hard the lesson we all must learn that a problem approached with humility and honesty when there is  wrong doing, hastens a solution and makes things so much easier on everyone.   Even in very insignificant dealings, complete honesty and openness are so healthy.  

It is fascinating to watch criminal defense attorneys being interviewed on TV, fiercely defending their clients, claiming their  innocence, maintaining that their client will be vindicated, notwithstanding that the defendant’s criminal act may have been captured on security cameras, in front of ten witnesses, leaving clear fingerprints and maybe had already confessed to the police!!   What a disservice to truth and honesty when people can blatantly tell something so obviously false.  

I recently saw a sign in front of a local church that said, “Prepare your tax returns as though someone was looking over your shoulder.”   I wanted to jump out of the car and change that sign to read:  “Always do everything in the most honest and truthful manner and you won’t need anyone looking over your shoulder!!  A clean conscience is a wonderful feeling!!”  And I have earned the right to do that through painful experience, “Right Dad?”!!!

The weight of guilt is heavy. For those who are humble enough to learn from others, especially the wisdom of the ages captured in what I call my Operator’s Manual, the Holy Bible, we can see examples of the effects of deceit, dishonesty and covering up or hiding unacceptable behavior.  While there are many examples, one of my favorites can be found in the record of Jacob.

Jacob and Esau were twins, the sons of Isaac and Rebekah.

When the time came for Isaac to bestow his blessing on his sons, Jacob and his mother contrived to deceive Isaac into blessing Jacob in Esau’s place, thereby giving Jacob the inheritance that was due his brother, as first born. . When Esau found that his blessing had been given to Jacob, he threatened to kill his brother, and Jacob was forced to leave home to go to another country to avoid Esau’s wrath.

When he finally decided to come home he was very frightened and in a sacred moment, when he turned his whole life over to God and asked forgiveness, he was relieved of the guilt. As he approached his brother Esau, who was coming to meet him, they rejoiced in each other and were at peace. Poor Jacob must have been fearful and guilt ridden all these years because he had tried to hide his sin.

Religious pioneer Mary Baker Eddy counsels in her book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “Honesty is spiritual power. Dishonesty is human weakness, which forfeits divine help.   You uncover sin, not in order to injure, but in order to bless the corporeal man; and a right motive has its reward."   Proverbs has it: “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy."

By opening the window shades and letting in the sunlight of truth we can put out the fire of guilt and enjoy a life of peace, honesty, purity, guiltless living. 

As leaf raking time approaches,  I am remembering the Lesson of the Leaves!!  And as the sun sets over the mountains and the music changes to Nat Cole singing “How High the Moon”, it’s time to go inside….

Breaking NEWS… We are “EXPECTING”!!!!

This news flash may shock some friends and family... but it is true!!

Oh, many of us have been through the “We’re EXPECTING” experience before… receiving the good news, buying a crib, bassinet, diapers, painting the room. Days filled with joyful anticipation. We know it will be good, exciting, a new page in our lives, new experiences, fun and laughter, joyous times.
But, to the undoubted relief of friends and family, this message is not about an addition to our family. It is about EXPECTING GOOD, anticipating God’s blessing, spiritual inspiration, love and kindness, new revelations of life’s secrets of happiness.

And it is a GOOD thing to be Expecting!!

Recently, watching the evening news on television it became apparent that there was a negative tilt to almost every story. It seemed that each report carried gloom and doom, broadcasting the dreary outlook that “there is no expected relief”, “a good outcome is not expected”, and promises that “things will undoubtedly get worse before they got better.”  They remind me of the statement from a 1913 novel by Eleanor Porter, Pollyanna... "When you look for the bad in mankind expecting to find it, you surely will find it."

Some media reports seem to be more negative than others, their stories leaving one feeling helpless, discouraged, upset, while others, the more positive views seen in other sources may tell the same story but offer a brighter view, maybe offer possible solutions or positive steps we can take in light of the stories.

We may all know someone whose views reflect a worrisome attitude, always expecting the worst possible outcome, frowning and fretting over each situation.

I am inspired by the Expectations of professionals. It is hard  

to imagine a baseball pitcher going out to the pitcher’s mound expecting that everyone will hit a home run and that he will not strike anyone out.   Or picture a concert pianist taking the stage convinced that she will hit many wrong notes and disastrous results.… and we won’t even discuss the fisherman who is doubtful of landing “the big catch” and preparing thought to settle for empty nets at the end of the day! 

Turning to the Bible we can see how through the thousands of years wise men, prophets, even ordinary people in all walks of life EXPECTED GOOD, looked to God, the Creator, searching for Truth, expecting to see solutions and help take place in their lives. The story of the three Wise Men en route to the birth of Jesus demonstrated the lengths they were prepared to travel based on that Expectancy of Good, the promise of redemption, or  seeing God’s presence on the human scene. In stark contrast, Job, at the height of his discomfort and challenges lamented, “The thing that I most feared has come upon me.” I have always thought that Job’s lack of faith and expectation of God’s help precipitated his problems.

In another instance, a young boy destined to become King, courageous David, ran towards Goliath, a giant of overwhelming strength and experience, expecting God’s power to carry the day in this lopsided contest.    And, as Christ Jesus walked the hillsides and along the seaside, eager people gathered, expectantly, as recorded in Luke 8:40, “And it came to pass, that, when Jesus was returned, the people gladly received him: for they were all waiting for him.” Waiting for healing and uplift, confidently, and their high expectations paid off.

All good fisherman love the story of Jesus disciples

improving their "catch' by throwing their nets on the right side, the Expecting Good side of the boat!!
These examples of Expecting Good are not the result of Pollyanna  or “goody-goody” thinking, or a naive trust in Chance. They are documented proofs of the fact that God, Spirit, which is chronicled in the Bible in such terms as Mind, Love, and Truth… delivers nothing but good when we are faithfully listening and watching for signs of His presence.  Thoughts of doubt, discouragement, fear and uncertainty cloud the Divine purpose, make us miss the mark, (a definition of sin), and become obstacles to realizing God’s power and presence, available for us to use, right here!!But HOW does it work? Jesus set the example. He encouraged us to know and understand that we are God’s ideas that like rays from the sun carry the light and heat out from their source, so we are the emanation of God's qualities, the rays of goodness showering the earth.   For example: God is Love, and we are Love’s expression, here, in this place, right now!   God is Mind, and we are the outcome of that Mind, intelligent, aware, and alert.  God is Spirit, and we, His offspring are spiritual and eternal, not just little bundles of flesh running purposelessly through a span of time.  
Expectancy is the active application of faith, and we need not just sit back helplessly watching problems accumulate, feeling out of control, hiding from life, but we can actively participate, running forward like David did to meet Goliath carrying that expectancy that God is more powerful than evil. We can live the realization that we are the very evidence of God’s life and being and we can overthrow the claims of sin and disease, defeat the lies of corruption, infidelity lack… the plethora of problems that would rob us of our heritage as God’s loving ideas.
Jesus gave this counsel: “ If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you."  Matt. 17:20

When we face each day with Expectation of Good as our outlook, Seeing Good as our Goal, our lives become

more active, more fruitful, and more productive. Racing out to meet the Goliath problems, getting on the mound to pitch a strikeout, sitting at the piano keyboard to play life’s classical tunes, just going out to LOVE and let our light shine, is today's challenge and opportunity!!Theologian Mary Baker Eddy set the stage for our anticipation of Good when she wrote in her book "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures",  “When the destination is desirable, expectation speeds our progress.”

A favorite hymn carries this promise, a promise proven over and over again in my own experience:

"We expect a bright tomorrow, all will be well;Faith can sing through days of sorrow, All must be well; 
While His truth we are applying, And upon His love relying,
God is every need supplying, All, all is well."*

*     Christian Science Hymnal 350

For those who have inquired about the book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, referenced in some of my articles, here’s the information. This book is used in Bible study by students of Christian Science and people of many different faiths.

It explains the scientific laws behind the teachings and healings of Christ Jesus. From the first chapter, “Prayer,” to her exegeses of Genesis and Revelation, the author invites readers to deeply consider the allness of God, the perfection of man as God's spiritual creation, and how an understanding of these facts brings healing—just as it did in biblical times. For over 135 years, readers have testified that reading and studying this book has given them a spiritual sense of the Bible and their permanent relationship to God, and has also resulted in physical healing and spiritual uplift. For more information or to purchase this book, click here.