Teaching, Living, and Learning: GOD, THE LORD

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

GOD, THE LORD

The word “God” or “Lord” is mentioned thousands of times in the Bible, and it reminds me of something: the nature of God is the most important thing for me to study. Nothing else counts if I don’t understand – not just believe but really understand – what God is. Today I want to focus on keeping in mind just exactly what this God is that I’ve been praying about all these years. I want to keep before my thought the great fact that there is always only one power active at any given moment and that is the power of thought. Since it’s the only power, then it is unopposed and unlimited – that is, it goes on forever. And also, since there is nothing besides this power of thought, then there really is nothing material – no “me”, for instance. “I” am a part of this infinite power. I think and work because this power thinks and works. This power – this infinite thinking, this unlimited Mind – is God, the Lord.

MP3 File

No comments:

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

I found this quote (below) in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. She's describing Fanny Price's home at Mansfield, but the words exactly remind me of the atmosphere I try to maintain in my classroom:
" ... no sounds of contention, no raised voice, no abrupt bursts, no tread of violence, was ever heard; all proceeded in a regular course of cheerful orderliness; everybody had their due importance; everybody's feelings were consulted."

...........

The following quote is from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. I would like my classroom to be like Dr. Strong's school:

"Dr. Strong's was an excellent school...It was very gravely and decorously ordered, and on a sound system; with an appeal, in everything, to the honor and good faith of the [students], and an avowed intention to rely on their possession of these qualities unless they proved themselves unworthy of it, which worked wonders. We all felt that we had a share in the management of the place, and in sustaining its character and dignity."

If I replaced "agent" with "teacher", this passage from a short story might, I hope, describe me in my classroom:
"The agent spent his days in following what seemed to many observers to be only a dull routine, but all his steadiness of purpose, all his simple intentness, all his gifts of strategy and powers of foresight, and of turning an interruption into an opportunity, were brought to bear upon this dull routine with a keen pleasure."
-- from "The Gray Mills of Farley" by Sarah Orne Jewett