Articles

I teach a Sunday School class for teenagers. In the fall of 2017, the class became very challenging.

We use passwords to protect our computers, cellphones, and online accounts. We do this because, of course, we don’t want anything or anyone to access and corrupt our important personal information.

On a summer vacation, I was feeling especially proud and assured as my motorcycle galloped the sinuous blacktop in the hills of Northern California. I put the bike on cruise control, and was feeling invincible and on top of the world.

Early morning walks with my dog are always a peaceful time, and with no one else around, they are a great opportunity for quiet prayer and communing with God. One morning as I began to enter the woods, the sunlight burst through the trees in all its splendor and glory.

SO OFTEN, THE Bible beautifully brings forward the spiritual sense of familiar concepts. For instance, in Second Corinthians, reflection is revealed as more than merely a physical phenomenon: “We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” ( 3:18 ).

When I first opened my heart to taking what I was learning in Christian Science about the allness of God and expanding it beyond the walls of my own household, there was a keen desire to be a blessing to others. With this in mind, I strived to ground my daily endeavors and communications in three ideals: being available, approachable, and understandable.

For months, I had looked forward to time away from my busy work schedule. But when I was able to fit in a one-week vacation, the first four days were full of fog and drizzling rain.

During the past 15 years or so, some developing thinking in the health-care industry has changed the usual approach to caring for others. One idea that has emerged is to recognize the importance of respecting individuals and their choices.

The theme of renewal is central to the Greek Scriptures, known by Christians as the New Testament. The author of the Epistle to the Ephesians writes that the readers and listeners of the letter should “lay aside the old self,” and “be renewed in the spirit of [their] mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22–24, New American Standard Bible).

Some months ago while reading The Christian Science Monitor Daily, I asked myself why I just briefly perused some articles and thoroughly read others. Realizing that some were apparently not as meaningful to me, I then wondered if that meant I was being indifferent to subjects that needed dedicated prayer and was “picking and choosing” what to pray about.