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



Quitting the choir of murmurers

25/1/2017

 
Picture
Picture
Imagine what aliens might hear if they listened to the earthlings from their space station on Alpha Centauri with their version of a giant radio telescope? Well, billions and billions of different sounds evaporating into time and space - inexplicable sounds, technical noise, explosions, machine guns, dogs barking, birds singing, flouting tea kettles, hundreds of washing machines spinning. Also billions and billions of cries, laughters, lots of technical noise - and an ever present human choir of murmur. Sung by murmurers. Thousands of years ago this choir enter the stage of the human condition, when the Israelites resisted their outlined path from slavery to freedom with complaining, questioning and murmurings - a Hebrew word meaning complaining and a "malicious whispering of slander", as a Dictionary has it. Murmuring is a kind of egoistic resistance to something good, it doesn't improve anything and keeps one pinned on the carousel of challenges. Talk about patience when remembering Moses (and read Exodus 16).

Humanity is a complaining species, one might think when one considers the resistance against the very good proposals for a different way of living as set forth by Jesus. What? Sharing? Humility and meekness? What? Walking a second mile? Giving your coat? Forgiving? The noise of complaint, an inner renitency against everything from accepting governments to doing the laundry to living peacefully with our neighbor to family members, who are different from us. Opposition, opposition, opposition.

Mary Baker Eddy is quoted in the diary of her secretary that whenever she felt tempted to murmur over her trials or burdens she would open her Bible to where the children of Israel murmured and found fault with God. I remembered this recently and have made it a point in leaving the choir of murmurers once and for all. And be willing to accept the abundant life, the freedom, lightheartedness, and joy that flows from the spirituality of being. Little complaints stem from the tale of desperation that material living brings - they make us stumble over small things or slow us down by fastening us with barbed hooks to material circumstances. It is said in the New Testament about Moses that he was chosen for the task to lead the children of Israel out of enslavement for one special quality: meekness. Meekness is the superb quality of being an empty slate before God, letting the supreme intelligence of the universe be expressed effortlessly and without any sense of questioning in our experience. That is the opposite of being a doormat - it means true unselfishness, true individuality.

What a relief to say "yes" to any demand. A life without sighing (not even when the doorbell rings and you have just sat down for a cup of tea and your favorite show), daily life as service. All the time needed to explain why this or that cannot be done: saved, by simply doing it. To refrain from murmurings puts humility into your heart and a joy into your day that supersedes everything else.
​
If you feel you cannot possibly do this, if you feel you have all the right in the world to feel the way you think you feel, give it a try for one week. Resist every attempt to resist good, eliminate feelings of competition and egotism, say yes to little requests from your surrounding, be generous. Just one week. And while you are up to the task, take a little break once in a while with a dance. This will help you to remember that you also have got that "sunshine in your pocket".

I feel that something of this is captured in the wonderfully gifted composer, performer, and musician Justin Timberlake's "Can't stop the feeling" - and I especially love the fact that it is about some sense of lightheartedness within the workforce. Working people! John, Paloma, Philip - is it a stretch to say, that the sunshine in your pocket is felt where labor is transformed into service and hardships accepted as a necessity to grow? The stand on the farmer's market where I get my groceries has this sense of joy and love day in, day out, spring, summer, fall, winter. Humbling.

My wonderful Christian Science teacher would say: Lets take the lemons and lets make lemonade from it. And how do lemons grow in the first place? With lots of sunshine.​ 

    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