It’s cold in my part of the country right now. Nine degrees at the moment! It’s a lot colder in other parts of the country, I understand. One woman emailed a minute ago and said it was 16 below where she lives. Brrrrrr….
Last night, we had a neighbor teen visit with my son for a bit. He rode to our house and back in a light jacket on his four-wheeler. And he played outside with his dog before wheeling off. The cold didn’t bother him a bit.
Weather is all relative, I commented.
My wife told the family how Indians who lived in the cold in a book she had read, slept at night with very little covers, and very few clothes, and didn’t mind the winter lows. They were accustomed to the frigid temperatures, and didn’t pay much attention. When Anglo-Saxons traveled with them in the pioneering days, they put layers of blankets on at night to keep from shivering. The Indians thought, “How odd. Why all the coverings?” They didn’t need the blankets. They hadn’t been physically softened by educated beliefs the Anglos had developed over the centuries.
So, when I look out the window and see snow swirling around, temperatures in the single digits, and clouds in the sky, I try to keep my perspective. It’s not the temperature in mortal mind that determines how healthy and happy my day is, but the temperature in divine Mind. And the degrees in divine Mind, are rated spiritually.
Mary Baker Eddy wrote, “According to divine Science, man is in a degree as perfect as the Mind that forms him.”
When our expectations of health and harmony are rated by the degrees of divine Science, and not by the degrees of physics, we protect ourselves from disease beliefs that tend to come along with adverse weather conditions.
In divine Science, there is no adverse weather, only the omnipresence of Love. Degrees are not rated in terms of high or low, hot or cold, but according to knowledge, insight and wisdom. The degrees of divine Mind are the ideas of God constantly unfolding for our attention and engagement.
It’s a lot easier for me to feel secure and calm when my thought is focused on the degrees of divine Mind, then on the physics of mortal mind.
Enjoy entertaining the ideas of God today! They will warm your heart, comfort your mind and preserve your health.
Let’s hope those Indians are not still living in your wife’s book…:-)
Good point! Could have been a little clearer there… 🙂
Aw, the joys of blogging on the run…
Thank you Evan! Your blog was very inspiring and I appreciated it.
Which Indians? The Florida Indians? Or the northern tribes that slept under bison skins with the fur turned to the inside…gadfly
I like the story but didn’t understand about the Indians not still living in the book. Wouldn’t that be a good thing? A neat thing? I often think of this same concept, people of all kinds who lived without indoor heat or a/c. We have become material weaklings!
Sancy
I’m not sure what Indians! I’ll have to ask my wife…
Hi Sancy,
I believe the reference about the Indians not living in the book was in regard to my grammar! I made it sound like the Indians were actually living “in” the book, rather than in North America, or wherever they were…
Evan,
I think there’s hope on this one, even though we may never make it to the point of no covers, ala the Indians. I was in Denver last week and was standing outside at the airport waiting for a taxi. I wasn’t overly dressed and, while waiting, couldn’t help but think, “Gee this feels like about 15 degrees.” When I got to the hotel and comfortably checked into my room, I turned on the television where the commentator was finishing up the weather forecast. Turns out that the actual temperature at the airport wasn’t 15 degrees, it was 15 degrees BELOW zero.
So, my internal thermometer was telling me I was actually 30 degrees warmer than the actual temperature. In the mean time, I’ll be praying for another, say, 30 degrees?
Seriously, a good reminder of how Love warms and keeps us…
Thanks for the post!