Monthly Archives: March 2015

Who Am I?

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Phrenology makes man knavish or honest according to the development of the cranium; but anatomy, physiology, phrenology, do not define the image of God, the real immortal man. 

– Mary Baker Eddy

Years ago a professional astrologer who found me “an interesting case” asked if she could do an astrological chart on me free of charge. When she reported back to me with her findings, she was sort of shaking her head and looking a little flummoxed. I guess I was not at all what the astrological chart indicated I should be (according to the chart I should have been like a computer – unemotional, unsentimental, incredibly brilliant – which… well, I’m sure my chart was right about the last bit there 🙂 ).  She knew I was a Christian Scientist and mused aloud, “Maybe it’s the Christian Science.”

Whenever I take personality tests, I always end up coming out of them sort of evenly spread out over everything. I’m some of this. I’m some of that. I may be one thing on one day, and another thing on the next. I’ve been INTJ and ENFP. I’ve been labeled an “explorer” and a “counselor”, been told I was serene and calm, energetic and passionate, bookish, physically active, out-going, introspective, solitary, friendly. creative, analytical, timid, and brave.

I don’t take any of that too seriously.

Like probably everyone else, I’ve sometimes found myself asking, “Who am I?” I’ve wondered about my identity and individuality and purpose. I’ve wondered what makes me unique and what makes me special – things probably most of us have thought about now and then. And, for me, the answers to those wonderings and questions have come to me through my study of Christian Science.

In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy gives this response to the question “What is man?” : “Man is not matter; he is not made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material elements. The Scriptures inform us that man is made in the image and likeness of God. Matter is not that likeness. The likeness of Spirit cannot be so unlike Spirit. Man is spiritual and perfect; and because he is spiritual and perfect, he must be so understood in Christian Science. Man is idea, the image, of Love; he is not physique. He is the compound idea of  God, including all right ideas; the generic term for  all that reflects God’s image and likeness; the conscious identity of being as found in Science, in which man is  the reflection of God, or Mind, and therefore is eternal; that which has no separate mind from God; that which has not a single quality underived from Deity; that which possesses no life, intelligence, nor creative power of his  own, but reflects spiritually all that belongs to his Maker.”

For a while I wondered (and worried) if being the expression of God, with all of God’s other expressions, meant that I was just like everyone else – that maybe we were like The Borg in the Star Trek series – with no individuality or uniqueness of our own. I mean, wouldn’t we all be beautiful and smart and talented in the exact same way, if we were expressions of one Mind? But at some point I realized that Mind has infinite expressions, infinite manifestations, and that all of Her creation is the reflection of that infinity. Eddy writes, “Through spiritual sense you can discern the heart of divinity, and thus begin to comprehend in Science the generic term man. Man is not absorbed in Deity, and man cannot lose his individuality, for he reflects eternal Life; nor is he an isolated, solitary idea, for he represents infinite Mind, the sum of all substance.”

Through discernment of the spiritual opposite of materiality, even the way through Christ, Truth, man will reopen with the key of divine Science the gates of Paradise which human beliefs have closed, and will find himself unfallen, upright, pure, and free, not needing to consult almanacs for the probabilities either of his life or of the weather, not needing to study brainology to learn how much of a man he is.
– Mary Baker Eddy

Absorbed in material selfhood we discern and reflect but faintly the substance of Life or Mind. The denial of material selfhood aids the discernment of man’s spiritual and eternal individuality…
– Mary Baker Eddy

Personality is not the individuality of man. A wicked man may have an attractive personality.
– Mary Baker Eddy

        Material personality is not realism; it is not the reflection or likeness of Spirit, the perfect God.
– Mary Baker Eddy

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Karen’s Totally True Personality Chart

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The only Personality Chart you’ll maybe ever need…

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Listening

Freckle Rose (1998-2015)

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I scratch her behind her ears.
She gives a sweet little meow,
and puts her paw on top of my hand
one last time before she moves on…

 

My cat, Freckle Rose, passed on yesterday. She was almost 17. I guess we recognized she was dying for the last several weeks. There were decisions to make or not to make – should we take her to the vet and let him “put her to sleep” or should we let her die in her own home, in her own time, in her own way? She didn’t seem to be in pain (but who knows with cats, right?) and the last time I’d taken her to the vet she’d been really scared and unahppy – so I decided to keep her home and let her move on in her own way.

She stopped eating. Finally stopped drinking, too. I kept waking up every morning expecting to find she’d died in the night.

Yesterday morning when I went downstairs Scott said he’d found her lying on the floor next to a little stuffed animal that he thinks our dog maybe brought to her. Scott had put her on the couch. He told me he wasn’t sure if she was still with us. I went over to her. She didn’t seem to be moving. I started scratching behind her ears and she stretched – like cats do when they’re enjoying something. She meowed once – but not a grown-up cat meow – it was the same kind of meow she’d had when she was a little kitty – a sweet little meow. And she put her paw on my hand. I sang to her, and told her to look for my Aunt Junie – told her Junie would take care of her – and I told her to look for her mentor-cat, Paws. (She’d loved Paws. When she was still a youngster, she’d seen Paws get run over in front of our house, and had come running to the door to tell me – she’d led me to Paws in the same way that a dog would.)

After awhile I brought her outside into the sunshine – the birds were busy out there and the air was full of birdsong. Freckle meowed three times – really loud – kind of excited – and then her head dropped against my arm. I brought her back inside and laid her back on the couch. Her breaths became gasps with long spaces of nothing in between. I kept my hand on her body and could feel it still pulsing. And then I stopped feeling the life. Her eyes dilated. I think I knew when she was gone – but I’m not sure – it was a very gentle, gradual thing – no definite moment between life and death.

Scott had to go to work, but he said he’d help me bury her when he got home, if I wanted. But I wanted to bury Freckle while the sun was still out and the birds were still singing. So I went out to bury Freckle in my Secret Garden – I was going to do it by myself – I dug a hole and put her in it – but it wasn’t big enough and her little paws were sticking out of it. That was not going to work. So I found another place and started to dig, and then I turned around and my sons had come out to the garden to help me. They dug a nice deep hole for me, and we put Freckle in it and put a spring pansy in it on top of her, and covered her in the good earth.

I think of all Freckle Rose lived through with me. When I got her she was a feral little ball of fluff – only a month or two old. She’d shared most of her entire life with me, and a big chunk of my life: She’d been alive when my youngest had started kindergarten and been alive when he graduated high school; She’d been alive when we moved, and built our new house and moved again; She’d been alive on 9-11-2001;  She’d been alive when I’d lived through my life-changing depression, when I’d published my first book, and my second and third and fourth books; She’d been alive as I’d worked my way through my Master’s program; When my Aunt Junie had passed, Freckle Rose had been here; And when we’d acquired our rambunctious Labradane pup five years ago, Freckle had been alive and might have wondered what in the hell we were thinking. Freckle Rose had lived through a lot.

It’s weird to live in a world with no Freckle Rose.