A freedom within

When “the things of life seem / like too much,” we can lean into our true, spiritual nature as God’s children – inherently joyful and free – as this poem conveys.

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The ocean beach speaks to me
of boundless, wide-open freedom –
ungrudging light blazes, dogs
romp with unscripted glee, kites
synchronize with the wind.

At times the things of life seem
like too much, and no one is there
or too many are there and there’s no
room to move, and we long for release.

Beach or not, there is a forever
place within where God, Soul – our
divine Parent – floods our hearts
with the light of Truth, unveiling
our spiritual nature as His, as Her,
reflection.

As such, we are all pure gleams of
loveliness, receptivity, joy – moving
unhindered with Soul, with each other,
not confined by the surge of only
what the eye sees, the ear hears;
O Soul, show us Your bountiful,
cloudless glint.

Then, like swells that roll in and sink
from sight in the sand, constraints
begin to ebb, then fade; our freedom
bursts forth.

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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