SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVES
  • Home
  • Lets Listen
    • Daily Lift
    • Radio Feature
    • Podcasts
    • For Kids
  • Lets talk
    • ...about healing prayer >
      • 7 Things I Wish Everyone knew...
    • ...about Christian Science
    • ...about Science
    • ...about Mary Baker Eddy
    • ...about Martin Luther King
  • Lets read
    • Lets read: TAKE 5!
    • Publications >
      • Articles
      • Poems
      • Healings
      • Sentinel Watch
      • Audio Podcasts
      • Religious Articles
      • For Children
      • Publications-German >
        • Artikel und Texte
        • Gedichte
        • Audio Podcasts
        • Für Kinder!
        • Heilungen
    • Posters
    • Lets be >
      • Lets be
      • Good Morning!
  • Lets connect
    • Annette
    • Annette's Practice
    • Practice Fees
    • Pay a bill
    • Contact
    • Site notice
  • Ideas
    • My favorite day
    • How are you?
    • Volunteering
    • Show Up - Every Day
    • How unrest ends
    • Know the image
    • Right Thinking
    • Spiritual practices
    • A word-A world
  • German Website
    • German Audio

       
Ideas



Accusing others - of what?

17/2/2016

 
Picture

​This is a tricky and important subject. Anybody who does not live the life of a monk with a vow of silence tucked away in a mountain convent, knows about strife, about accusation, censure, critique, and criticism. It is a dear friend who shared with me this insight:
People will only accuse you of their own mistakes.
What an observation! I wish I had known this for years. But now I do. Once you know its truth and embrace the embedded potential for progress, you understand much better the fabric of conflict. At least I do. Of course, it is easier to see the mistakes of others rather than confront our own shortcomings. The entire Sermon on the Mount deals with this question, in a way. This is one side. The other is how to stay calm when being criticized unjustly. And how to accept legitimate complaint as such without arguing. Mary Baker Eddy doesn't mince words when putting her own version of Jesus' advice about the mote in our brother's eye and the beam in our own eye (see Matthew 7: 3-5) into writing:
If a man is jealous, envious, or revengeful, he will seek occasion to balloon an atom of another man's indis‐
cretion, inflate it, and send it into the atmosphere of mortal mind — for other green eyes to gaze on: he will always find somebody in his way, and try to push him aside;  will see somebody's faults to magnify under the lens that he never turns on himself. (...) Do we yet understand how much better it is to be wronged, than to commit wrong? (...) He who judges others should know well whereof he speaks. Where the motive to do right exists, and the majority of one's acts are right, we should avoid referring to past mistakes. The greatest sin that one can commit against himself is to wrong one of God's 'little ones'.  
​
Know ye not that he who exercises the largest charity, and waits on God, renews his strength, and is exalted? Love is not puffed up; and the meek and loving, God anoints and appoints to lead the line of mankind's triumphal march out of the wilderness, out of darkness into light.

​Mary Baker Eddy. Miscellaneous Writings, p. 129/130
So: People will only accuse you of their own mistakes. And if we are being manipulated into accusing others, we have a problem. We can learn to see how the urge to criticize others is melting away as the willingness to grow ourselves is deepened. It keeps us busy 24/7, this grand "warfare with one's self", Mary Baker Eddy mentions in an address to the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in 1893 (quoted in Miscellaneous Writings, p. 118). Accusing others is like using a lens  - a magnifier, a camera. Use the lens of your mental camera and turn it to the hidden potential, to the soft and fluffy side of all of us, to the goodness waiting to come forward. And take a picture. In the end, we are like the two rabbits -  in need of much stroking. So in this sense, this insight is a caress: "People will only accuse you of their own mistakes."
Picture

Comments are closed.
    Picture

    Who is writing?

    ​Dr. Annette Kreutziger-Herr

    In my work as Christian Science practitioner and writer I draw on listening to God and listening to people.
    I strive to love deeper and work better,
    every day. Here I share ideas as occasion demands.
    ​

    Picture
    Picture
    I support the UN Refuge Agency. Want to join me?
    Picture
    ​​​I support
    "Sunrise of Africa".
    Want to join me?​

    Categories

    All
    Abundant
    Advent
    Affection
    Afghanistan
    Akhil Sharma
    Animals
    Apartheid
    Apples
    Atmosphere
    Beauty
    Bible
    Book
    Bread
    Children
    Christmas
    Competition
    Complaining
    Cows
    CS Monitor
    Daily
    Danger Zone
    Darkness
    Day
    Death
    Depression
    Discovery
    Dislike
    Doctrine
    Do It
    Doubt
    Dualism
    Effort
    Endeavor
    Envy
    Evidence
    Expectancy Of Good
    Fear
    Feeling
    Follow
    Forgiveness
    Forgiving
    Foxes
    Freedom
    Freshness
    Freshness Redemption Progress Movement
    Friendship
    Fruit
    Fruits
    Gentleness
    Getting Along
    Gift
    Ginger Rogers
    Global
    God
    Golden Rule
    Graduation
    Gratitude
    Happiness
    Harmony
    Healing
    Health
    Heart
    Help
    Home
    Humanity
    Humility
    Image
    Imperfection
    Intelligence
    Joy
    Justin Timberlake
    Kind
    Kindness
    Knowledge
    Landscape
    Learning
    Library
    Life
    Light
    Like
    Listening
    Local
    Long Time Exposure
    Love
    Man
    Martin-luther
    Mary Baker Eddy
    Maya Angelou
    Mentoring
    Mercy
    Mind
    Modesty
    Morning
    Music
    Negativity
    Nelson Mandela
    New
    One
    Oneness
    Opinions
    Overcoming-judgment
    Pain
    Panic
    Past
    Paul
    Peace
    Perfection
    Persistence
    Plants
    Platinum
    Pneuma
    Politics
    Postmodernism
    Prayer
    Psalms
    Public
    Purity
    Purpose
    Reflection
    Respect
    River
    Roger McGowen
    Ron Radford
    Rules
    Salt
    Sea
    Stars
    Still
    Study
    Substance
    Success
    Sunshine
    Supply
    Surface
    Tears
    Truth
    Unity
    Universe
    University
    Unselfishness
    Usefulness
    Visibility
    Who
    Wholeness
    Work
    Worry
    Yes

     My Archive

    November 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014

    Picture
© Copyright 2023. All rights reserved. Content may not be used except by permission. Annette Kreutziger-Herr, CS
Artwork by Anna-Zoë Herr. Photography by Annette Kreutziger-Herr, Martin Speer, Anna-Zoë Herr.
  • Home
  • Lets Listen
    • Daily Lift
    • Radio Feature
    • Podcasts
    • For Kids
  • Lets talk
    • ...about healing prayer >
      • 7 Things I Wish Everyone knew...
    • ...about Christian Science
    • ...about Science
    • ...about Mary Baker Eddy
    • ...about Martin Luther King
  • Lets read
    • Lets read: TAKE 5!
    • Publications >
      • Articles
      • Poems
      • Healings
      • Sentinel Watch
      • Audio Podcasts
      • Religious Articles
      • For Children
      • Publications-German >
        • Artikel und Texte
        • Gedichte
        • Audio Podcasts
        • Für Kinder!
        • Heilungen
    • Posters
    • Lets be >
      • Lets be
      • Good Morning!
  • Lets connect
    • Annette
    • Annette's Practice
    • Practice Fees
    • Pay a bill
    • Contact
    • Site notice
  • Ideas
    • My favorite day
    • How are you?
    • Volunteering
    • Show Up - Every Day
    • How unrest ends
    • Know the image
    • Right Thinking
    • Spiritual practices
    • A word-A world
  • German Website
    • German Audio