Dr. Susanne Freeborn's Open Salon Blog

Life with an Architect: Soul of Beauty & Love of Craft

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 05:12:30 -0500

Our beautiful new Master Bedroom Suite

A great deal of inspiration for what we've done came from Sarah Susanka's series of Not So Big House books. My husband, retired California architect, Dan Edward McMullen and I don't think folks need McMansions to prove something about themselves. Dan's been inspired, since his days in UC Berkeley's architecture school, by it's Dean at that time, William Wurster, whose residential design was noted for its simplicity. We believe people live well and best in homes that fulfill their needs in a variety of ways. Our home has 2186 square feet. Not a tiny house, but certainly not a behemoth. We have sufficient room for visitors and for each of our activities, including my home office. We've been doing nearly all the remodeling work ourselves--that is an imperial "we"--over the past seven years. Last Christmas we resolved to get this done, and it is!

In a basic sense, we needed a better way to store our clothing. We needed new flooring. We had a wonderful bed already. We needed better lighting. On a personal level we wanted a suite that restored our souls, launched our days in peace and which included art works properly treated and displayed, and enough 'white space' to allow both the eyes and our minds to rest, whether our eyes were open or closed.

This room preexisted those ideas and our remodel was meant to bring it into line with those ideals without breaking our budget. Good rooms have thoughtful details and a high level of craftsmanship, and this one certainly does.

You can find out more about Sarah Susanka's work and philosophy at http://www.notsobig.com/

The walls in this room were already textured, and so they remained. The paint was expertly done after some corrections were made to the wall to make sure that they were straight and plumb. The closets would never have fit well if that work had not been done. Retexturing in those areas was a bit tedious, but those changes are invisible to the eye due to painstaking work. The color is called Oriental Silk and is a cream color that has a hint of warmth. It's Behr paint available through Home Depot and we learned that Behr is highly rated by Consumer Reports for durability, and standing up to cleaning. That research means we won't have to paint again for a long time. We've used it for ceilings throughout our home because of the way it warmly reflects light.

The paintings in front of the closet are by my dear friend, currently visiting her home in Spain, Maria Gracía Brunsó, who goes by Grace when she is in San Carlos, California with her husband, architect Miquel Aymerich, a friend and colleague of Dan's.

The chandelier, bed side lamps and sconces are Robert Abbey Beaux Arts designs. We have smaller models of the chandelier in our dining room and entry hall. We have pendant lighting over the island in our kitchen. This kind of consistency gives a smaller home a feeling of peace. The light from the shades is warm, like candle light.

The art works are important to us. The painting just outside this door was done by Pacific Northwest artist, Mary Moore Bailey, www.marypaints.com; the pastel of the coastal foothills above Skyline Drive not far from Pacifica, California hangs over the bed, by JoAnne Horsfall Beasley who died in 2006. We bought it just before moving to Bellingham at the end of 2004 from The Main Gallery in Redwood City. We also purchased two of the Raku pots in the next photograph at the gallery from potter Jeff Carlick. The small, lidded Raku pot is an early example of work by our brilliant nephew, Tim McMullen. He is one three partners in Silica Studios where they provide both gallery and studio space. They also teach. It's a great place to learn on every level! The large plate in the center is by Gene Buckley of Stony Clearing Studio here in Bellingham. We also have pots by his wife, Cheryl Lee, one on the table through the doorway under Mary's painting.

The rocker is an Arts & Crafts antique that was in bad shape when I got it, but Dan refinished and reglued and clamped it and we recovered the seat with a German upholstery leather remant we bought on ebay. We got enough to cover 6 dining chairs and a Morris chair & ottoman. We enjoy the sense of accomplishment that comes of being self-sufficient. The floral painting is the first purchase in our art collection and is also by Mary Moore Bailey.

The small carpets are Safavieh Anatolia. The floor is Kentwood American Cherry Natural Elite, an engineered wood floor with a 25 year guarantee. The baseboards and door frames are clear vertical grain fir, hand finished to match the doors and closets by my husband, Dan the Man McMullen.

The watercolors on the right were painted by Dan in 1959, when he was at UC Berkeley studying Architecture. On the left is a eucalyptus grove above the Greek Theater, and on the right is a bridge over Strawberry Creek, both on the campus. These paintings represent so much about Dan's life as a student and later as an architect. Their peacefulness makes them perfect for our room. Click on the photo to get a better look.

Other Resources:

Bedding, comforter, shams & matching shower curtain are a discontinued Arts & Crafts organic print from Pottery Barn.
Sheets, wonderful cream Veratex 800 thread count -- We splurged on Overstock.com
Shaded yellow quilt and shams, a find at TJ Maxx
Box spring cover, Matlasse from Bed Bath & Beyond
Pillows, 2 sets of Sleep Innovations® Memory Foam Down Pillow online at Kohl's. So comfortable!

You can read about this remodel & construction in the first link, as well as other projects below:

This is our wedding portrait, December 31, 1990. You can tell by my dress and flowers that we agreed that we would already be doing things a little differently. I am the extra mother to these four wonderful additional McMullens. The handsome devil with his arm draped over my shoulder is the infamous cradle-robber of his class of 1962, Dan the Man, my beloved.

Life with an Architect: Soul of Beauty, Intelligence & Craft

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 05:12:20 -0500

In September of 2010 I got a bonus and took myself and my husband, Dan the Man, down to Bellingham Millwork to look at flooring. Thus, began our saga. I love this place, but it is a place that trouble goes to find its beginnings. The kind of trouble that involves inspiration, design arguments and hard work and more time than any architect will ever own up to the project taking, I promise.

Once, when we were new to our home, I thought we would put vertical grain Douglas fir flooring in our bedroom. I was dreaming. It is too soft a wood unless you don't mind scarred and severely scratched floors. So we looked at just about everything. Because we have radiant heating in our floors, it is necessary to use engineered wood flooring. I have learned that when you get it installed, there is no visible difference. We decided on a good hard cherry floor. This is a photo from the website of the manufacturer.

We have a lot of details in our house that are Vertical Grain Fir and we are very consistent in carrying through the same details for baseboards, window and door framing and many built in features that Dan has designed and constructed over the years. Once we decided on the flooring, the plan for the remodeling was discussed for months before Dan could begin. Any changes to any other feature in the master bedroom had to be taken into consideration.

Here is the incredibly ugly bedroom that we bought in November 2004. I think it really takes the cake for ugly.

That door on the right went to a 'walk-in closet' that was too narrow to walk in. You can see the room has good bones and wonderfully soaring 12' ceilings with two skylights. Dirty looking greyish Berber carpet from the big box store matched the quality of the cheap track lights that were jammed into the corners of the highest part of the ceilings. The cheapest skinny moldings were around the doors and used as baseboards.

Here's another view from the foyer. You can see the bathroom door next to the closet. You can also see that in addition to the color of dried blood, baby diarrhea was chosen to accent its architecture.

Living in this room convinced us that we needed to change it. We were unable to center the bed under the skylights because there wasn't enough room to open the closet door if we did. That notch they made to accommodate the closet simply cramped the room and did nothing useful in the closet either, which needed reconfiguring. And there were five doors, counting the two French doors that lead out to the covered deck. Where can you put furniture in such a room?

It didn't take long and we realized our new home was both generally short on closets, and specifically in our bedroom, there just wasn't enough wall space for dressers to make up for the lousy closet in the corner. Plotting a change commenced shortly after we moved in but various events pushed remodeling our bedroom away from the top of the list of remodeling plans.

Once I had enough money for the flooring it was time to begin. Dan is retired and all of our remodelling has been pay as you go so that we could stop at any time if we had other needs arise. And Dan is the one who has done 98% of the work with heavy bits assisted by our neighbor's son, Nate McConnell, who works in his father Gene's cabinet making business. He may be young, but he is knowledgable and creative when Dan needs help with something big or heavy and he has good ideas for alternative ways to accomplish things. His father has been indispensable at times when Dan's tools are inadequate to something that we need, or when Dan needs a better idea for how to build or finish something. We've got fine neighbors.

Things started with demolition, as they always do with remodeling. That notch was removed and so was the doorway. Lighting was arranged around the perimeters of the room and installed both in front of, and inside, the new closets which flanked the French doors. The chandelier was installed earlier and shades were removed to protect them. I can't stress highly enough how much you have to protect what is done from what is being done when you remodel. One of those shades cost $30 to replace.

This is the other side of that wall! A new closet is born, with entry from the bathroom. All I lost was one wall hook. What I gained was a lot of shoe storage, lighting and a wonderful cedar lined closet! Since this photo was taken the towel rods and switch plates have been added.

There are multiple shelves overhead and beside the hanging space, using the soaring heights of the space for storage of suitcases and extra linens & blankets. And Dan added that sweet mirror and lighting with an outlet so I could style my hair someplace where I could actually see what I am doing without my glasses.

And of course, there are more closets! Another one for me, and one for Dan, who here is taking down protective paper from the staining of the closet. We started with selecting the floor, but it is the LAST thing that gets installed as you can see in these photos.

This was a test of the lighting and depth of the pottery display we decided to have between the wardrobes. It creates a kind of nook for my Craftsman Rocking chair too. There will be collection of pots.

The floors are all done but for the last bit glued down and the trim will all be going in very quickly. The last photo is Dan visually fitting the next course. Next, a peek into what's nearly finished, first my closet, then Dan's.

"Defining craftsmanship far more broadly than “skilled manual labor,” Richard Sennett maintains that the computer programmer, the doctor, the artist, and even the parent and citizen engage in a craftsman’s work. Craftsmanship names the basic human impulse to do a job well for its own sake, says the author, and good craftsmanship involves developing skills and focusing on the work rather than ourselves. In this thought-provoking book, one of our most distinguished public intellectuals explores the work of craftsmen past and present, identifies deep connections between material consciousness and ethical values, and challenges received ideas about what constitutes good work in today’s world."

From Yale University Press regarding Richard Sennett's book The Craftsman.

From my point of view, such craftsmanship is the signature of one profound way that love, intelligence, soul and beauty are truly expressed. No one in my life has shown me more about these than Dan Edward William McMullen, who I am happy to have call me his beloved, for as you can see in this wonderful gift, I most certainly am.

"It is our duty - as men and women - to behave as though limits to our
ability do not exist. We are co-creators of the Universe."

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Soon enough, I will show you the finished product in another post.

Toad Hollow in Summer

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 21:08:24 -0400

In case you can't read it, "this is the exact center of the universe which explains why none of the usual rules apply here."

Another view:

Coppertina Ninebark

Blackeyed Susans (Rudbekia )

Sutherland's Gold Elderberry

4th of July Breakfast on the Sunny Deck

Shaded Sculpture Garden

Hummingbird in the Bee Balm

And it all started in the Spring with quite a lot of bare dirt.

For a larger view of these photos and more visit Flickr

Fireflies in the Garden

By Robert Frost

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.

FOR LOVE OF A GARDEN: Autumn Leaf Color Even in Summer

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 22:06:06 -0400

"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of
strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something
infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature— the assurance
that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter."

Rachel Carson

Dan replanted this minature lace leaf Japanese Maple the second Spring after we moved to Toad Hollow because it wasn't in a good location. Now it's size and color contrast with the enormity of the Douglas Firs, Cedars and Alders that grow here naturally. We love that contrast found in the Fall, its bright, clear red against the deep greens of the needles, the grey brown of bark and the brighter greens of the moss. That color contrast is our inspiration for many of the plants we continue adding in recent years to the garden.

Just yesterday, I helped Dan, a little, to plant one of these Emperor 1 Japanese Maple trees in the front bed with the enormous, shiny leafed Rhododendrons. Emperor 1 turns bright red in the Fall and will stand out against the brown shingles of our house.

We live on a corner lot. The mailboxes for our neighbors are congregated in front. The trash and recycling bins are collected just around the corner of our lot from those mailboxes, also in front of our house. This is what we see from our front window on Tuesday night through Wednesday when the trash is collected. So we need screening. Already we have a beautiful lilac and Forsythia that we planted there the first year. They were bareroot plants and it took them some time to get some size.

As I get older I don't think I have so many years to wait for things to grow. I have moved on to 1 gallon to 5 gallon potted shrubs in hopes of seeing a beautiful multi-colored screen of plants such as this Golden Ninebark, which will grow to be about 8 to 12 feet high eventually. Love the color!

We also planted a Diabolo Ninebark, and a Black Lace Elderberry as well, an example is shown second below. When I buy plants in pots I still need to research their eventual size and I search the internet for pictures so that I can imagine how it will work out in the future. The pictures I am posting here are all but the very first, examples from my research.

This is the type of Black Lace Elderberry we planted along with the two Ninebarks. I am hoping it's branches will arch out over the others gracefully.

The first year we were here I planted two of these Sutherland's Gold Elderberry in a fairly shady area of the garden and we planted Rhododendron and Azalea beneath them. The color is a standout, especially in the low early evening sun. I added two somewhat shorter Black Beauty Elderberry just adjacent to those a couple of years later. These provide both a backdrop to the garden and some colorful, taller structure.

The type of Ninebark below is called Coppertina. She is progressing very well near a Karmijn de Sonneville Apple and an Australlian Pear tree since we planted her last year.

In the perennial garden I added Euphorbia and Spurge, which are really from the same family and are often noted for their crazy neon green flowers. This low growing, ferny leafed variety really appealed to me. I also got another variety that has striped leaves, red, yellow & green, with similar neon green flowers. Nice addition to the garden for being a bit unexpected. The various Rudbeckia will look wonderful alongside these.

"If you have a mind at peace, and a heart that cannot harden,
Go find a door that opens wide upon a lovely garden."

Author Unknown

NEW THOUGHT: Forgiveness Is Always a Good Place to Begin

Mon, 6 Jun 2011 05:06:48 -0400

Readings

“Love points the way and Law makes the way possible.”_[1]

The Person Who Is Awake

She is awake.

The victory is hers.

She has conquered the world.

How can she lose the way

Who is beyond the way?

Her eye is open.

Her foot is free.

Who can follow after Her?

The world cannot reclaim Her

Or lead Her astray,

nor can the poisoned net of desire hold Her.

She is awake!

The gods watch over Her.

She is awake

And finds joy in the stillness of meditation

and in the sweetness of surrender.

Hard it is to be born,

Hard it is to live,

harder still to hear of the way,

And hard to rise, follow and awake.

Yet the teaching is simple.

Do what is right.

Be pure.

At the end of the way is freedom.

Till then, patience.

If you wound or grieve another,

you have not learned detachment.

Offend in neither word nor deed.

Eat with moderation.

Live in your heart.

Seek the highest consciousness.

Master yourself according to the law

This is the simple teaching of the awakened.

The rain could turn to gold

And still your thirst would not be slaked.

Desire is unquenchable

Or it ends in tears, even in heaven.

She who wishes to awake

Consumes her desires

Joyfully.

In Her fear a person may shelter

In mountains or in forests,

In groves of sacred trees or in shrines.

But how can She hide there from Her sorrow?

She who shelters in the way

And travels with those who follow it

comes to see the four great truths.

Concerning sorrow,

The beginning of sorrow,

The eightfold way,

And the end of sorrow.

Then at last She is safe.

She has shaken off sorrow.

She is free.

The awakened are few and hard to find.

Happy is the house where a person awakes.

Blessed is their birth.

Blessed is the teaching of the way.

Blessed is the understanding among those who follow it,

And blessed is their determination.

And blessed are they who revere

the person who awakes and follows the way.

They are free from fear.

They are free.

They have crossed over the river of sorrow.”

The Dhammapada

How God Forgives

“Spiritual wisdom says that God manifests through everything and is incarnated in all men; that all is Divinity and that Nature herself is the body of God. The mechanical laws of nature are set and immutable, but the spontaneous recognition of these laws gives us the power to bring them into practical use in everyday life and experience.”^[2]

THE ANSWER IS IN MAN

The answer to every question is within man, because man is within Spirit and Spirit is an Indivisible Whole. The solution to every problem is within man; the healing of all disease is within man; the forgiveness of all sin is within man; the raising of the dead is within man; Heaven is within man. That is why Jesus prayed to this indwelling "I am" and said: "Our Father Which art in Heaven." He also said: "The Kingdom of God is within you."

Each of us, then, represents the Whole. How should we feel toward the Whole? In the old order, we thought of the Whole as a sort of mandatory power, an autocratic government, an arbitrary God, sending some to Heaven and some to Hell; and "all for His glory." Now we are much more enlightened and we realize that there can be no such a Divine Being. We have meditated upon the vastness of the Universe of Law, and we have said: "God is Law; there is a Divine Principle Which is God." In the new order, we are liable to fall into as great an error as the old thought fell into, unless we go much deeper than thinking of God simply as Principle. God is more than Law or Principle. God is the Infinite Spirit, the Limitless, Conscious Life of the Universe; the One Infinite Person within Whom all people live. The Law is simply a Force.^[3]

Forgiveness Is Always a Good Place to Begin

Most of us have heard plenty about forgiveness. Personally, when the topic of forgiveness comes up in the common everyday sense, to be completely honest, I feel impatient with the way it is handled. I suppose I feel that the very deep power of forgiveness is as much misunderstood as is Love and I really don’t want to hear much more said unless it will make a difference in our expression of Love, which I consider to be the primary activity and nature of living. There is this idea that forgiveness need only be about as deep as a puddle that we ought to be able to do it in the snap of our fingers. While that level of ease may be possible, it is not the way forgiveness works for most of us. There is also the misimpression that forgiveness implies condoning the acts of a perpetrator. It doesn’t. I try to remind myself that everyone is doing the best that they can, and I include myself in that category.

With recent events looming, there are many who are deeply angry and the idea of forgiveness is very difficult for them to accept, particularly when the basis for forgiveness and the concepts in the common understanding of the nature of forgiveness have been handled so tritely. So let’s try today to see if we can do something to clear up what is meant by forgiveness and what is its power for returning us to peace and joy within ourselves.

I read that, if we would spend at least half the time that we spend complaining, finding fault, fussing over our dissatisfactions, being sad and sorry for ourselves, and holding things against others; if we would spend just half as much time in affirming that which we truly want, that would be the time in which we would be healed and living in the circumstances which we truly desire. So I suppose this points to our being empowered first off, to quit wasting our time on what we don’t want, and to begin with moving on to that which we most deeply desire.

In New Thought we believe that the wisdom that is within God is also within the individual. I like to think the phrase "Infinite Wisdom within me"; and then stop and think what this means. It means that the Intelligence that operates through everything, visible and invisible, is operating within us. Let’s see how we can use this power of infinite wisdom as a place to begin, and then we shall use it to empower our process of forgiveness as a foundation, for our spiritual life.

First, let’s agree that forgiveness is an act of flushing out the lethal, repetitious thoughts that devastate our happiness and cause havoc in our lives. Forgiveness is an act that restores our minds to wholeness. Forgiveness is very clearly something powerful we do for ourselves, not something nice we do for someone else. Through forgiveness, we take responsibility for our thoughts and mental state, for our own integrity, and yet, no particular action is implied beyond the change of our thinking.

Since forgiveness is one way of taking responsibility, it is accomplished by first acknowledging the nature of our own thoughts, and secondly, seeing clearly the conflicted beliefs that our mind holds. This is a powerful choice. It is a natural expression of Love. Forgiveness is not accomplished by merely denying our thoughts, arguing against them, or by trying to replace them with “good thoughts.” This is what happens when we mistakenly blur the distinctions of “denial” as it is commonly meant in modern day psycho-babble. We don’t really know what people mean by denial who are not engaged in Affirmative Prayer, but let’s just agree that this kind of denial is a kind of pretending that some condition or circumstance, some feeling or behavior is not really happening even though we are clearly living with the outcome of its existence. You know what I mean, it would be as if I were to sit here and say “There is not a piano in this room.” So what is that object to my left? (points to the baby grand piano) Perhaps someone would come and take my piano if I kept saying this with sufficient feeling, but you can presently see the piano has not moved and can infer that I don’t mean it.

This common definition of denial is clearly not the same meaning for denial that is used in Affirmative Prayer, which is to look beyond the appearances to the perfection that exists within. Affirmative Prayer requires more of us than simply saying that something isn’t so. It is to combine our faith in the wholeness of all that exists with the deepest feeling and the knowledge that this wholeness exists within the situation at hand, knowing that God hears these prayers and acts upon them. This is a consciously chosen communication with God within the One Universal Mind that is common to all humankind. This is the kind of prayer we practice. We don't beg God for anything. Within our recent national experience, it has become a very challenging thing to ask of oneself to look beyond the circumstances to celebrate the good. This requires so much of us, more than most of us have ever been called upon to do.

When we are on the road to forgiveness, and have admitted to ourselves that we have certain shadowy impulses, once we know what those impulses and ideas are and how they operate in us, then and only then, can we turn to the place of stillness and wholeness within ourselves. This is the moment when what it is that we are seeking to express within ourselves IS accessible and ready for realization. AND, if we take this second step before the first step is completed, if we don’t honestly face the troublesome lines of thought we have been engaging in, they will soon return and repossess our mind. Did you see the movie “Repo Man?” Picture the wraithlike Harry Dean Stanton character coming to claim your peace of mind like a car that is about to be stealthily repossessed. Whatever we do not honestly face within our thinking will continue to come and repossess our peace until we consciously set each thought in its appropriate place, state its truth and affirm our own wholeness.

We can and do get such mixed feelings about ourselves for having had endless scores of awful negative feelings, it can become downright difficult to let go of the harmful thoughts we may still carry about whatever it is that we have left unaddressed. Whatever awful things we have been willing to say, and have done to another human being, these things cut through our consciousness like razor blades, even when it seems that they “deserve it.” Consider this: By dwelling on these thoughts, it is like we are gossiping about ourselves, and anyone else involved, to our selves, and if that is not enough, then we throw the same net over anyone else we may have engaged in listening to our painful ideas. What a thing to do to a compassionate listener! Zen teacher Robert Aitken says "More people get hurt by gossip than by guns." The Dalai Lama counsels "If you find yourself slandering anybody, first imagine that your mouth is filled with excrement. It will break you of the habit quickly enough.” When we keep carrying around the opinions we formed when we were angry, disappointed, surprised, hurt, unfulfilled in some way, the less than generous things we had to say about anyone at all, we have to face that we have committed a kind of interior slander on another and even upon ourselves.

Can you see how that works? Can you see the cost to our vitality and self-expression? Whenever you experience someone glowering and stewing, that is a person who is in need of the practice of forgiveness. Forgiveness begins with understanding and releasing the hold of self-righteous judgments.

Forgiveness is taking responsibility. It is the acknowledgement that the incident that gave rise to our suffering is over and that we alone reenact the damage. Confusion and discouragement can mask our unwillingness to take responsibility. We have to stop getting bogged down in either of these emotions and move on to what we need to do to restore ourselves in relationship to whomever we say is the source of our disappointment within ourselves. This is all happening within us, no matter what happened before. Whomever we thought of as the source of our sorrows lives on within us controlling our lives so long as we do not forgive them.

You may recall my telling you about forgiving my mother, so please grant me some little forbearance for repeating this, but it is one of my life’s greatest lessons. For me, this began to take place around the age of 28, however, it took years to complete the process. I don’t know if it took so long because of how stubborn I am or how difficult my childhood, but it did take me nearly ten years to complete the forgiveness process with my mother. So if it takes you a little while, I suggest you extend some forgiveness to yourself! Forgiveness is one of those qualities like love that seems to expand much like the loaves and fishes upon our need for it.

Perhaps maturity is the moment when we begin to realize that we don’t have to continue thinking ungenerously and cruelly about our parents, that whatever it was that led us to have the ideas and opinions we held against them, and whatever was going on with them at the time, is all in the past and is best left there. Our relationships with parents are an excellent model for all other opportunities for forgiveness. So what can we do?

Before “leaving it there” we can first, reinterpret events in light of a larger understanding available to us now, "My parents were the way they were, and this is simply what happened." We can take the spin off! Telling yourself that it shouldn't have happened, engaging in “what if” this part had been different, is a form of denying that it did happen, so try to concentrate on honesty rather than resentment. Be with the truth of what happened without embellishment.

The second step is to add God back into each scene. God was there when it happened, and God's love protected your heart, your spirit, your soul, as well as anyone else involved. Clearly, Love does not micromanage events. Each party to any event is using Love and Law at the level of their awareness. We are not protected from our experience, the way that life is leaves the door open to our choices and this is true for all involved. The Divine protects and blesses us but on the level of the material, we reap the consequences of our thinking. If we are thinking that whomever we are thinking perpetrated against us is the incarnation of Satan or the resurrection of a World War II despot, then what else could we experience?

A third step you can take is to begin noticing how resentment and other emotional patterns connected to withholding forgiveness cost you your vitality. What kind of moods do you get yourself into when you continue to hold things against another? How many opportunities for happiness go sailing down the river of sorrow and regret so that you can be self-righteous about what somebody should have done another way so long ago? Or last week! It doesn’t take long for resentment to begin eating up your life.

How do we defuse this challenge? Once we have been honest with ourselves, we can effectively take the matter into prayer. If we can’t find a way to be completely honest with ourselves, we can affirm and seek support for our ability to be honest. And we can keep in mind that we are doing the best that we can. Once we have been honest with ourselves, in prayer we can release what happened. We can release our need to see things the way that we once did. We can begin to look upon the events of our lives and our parents lives with some compassion. God remained in and through you and could never reject you, nor could God reject your family. Remember this. As you begin having some compassion and forgiveness for yourself, and for whomever the perpetrators are, you will begin exhausting these old “mental horror movies” of the source of their pain.

While you are working this out through telling the truth, correcting your thoughts as you go along, and by taking the matter into affirmative prayer, you can refuse to act out the damage this negative thinking causes whenever possible. In this way, you will no longer put others on the defensive and make the situation more complicated. Once you have refused to make things worse, and have found some forgiveness for yourself and the persons you once viewed as perpetrators of your suffering, you must then open your heart to the grace of God. God will return you to the experience of your Divinely inspired and sacred feelings, not one of which was ever touched by this experience of difficulty, suffering and sorrow. Silently repeat: "I choose now to see as God sees and feel as God feels. I express Love as God expresses Love. I want nothing more than to be as God created me."

In the beginning of this talk I quoted Holmes saying, “Love points the way and Law makes the way possible.” And the Bible For if you forgive men their faults, your Father in heaven will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive even your faults. Since we believe that God is in all that exists, including you and I, this Biblical quotation has an interesting meaning. If we are to be forgiven by God we have to begin with ourselves! Even this forgiveness thing is an inside job. This is another one of those things where having faith the size of a mustard seed is a sufficient beginning. Just seeing the possibility that what we had once thought of as the truth about someone else is no longer a useful idea for us, just the inkling that there could be another deeper interpretation of events, that idea “blows the doors off” and lets the fresh air back into our lives.

As I said before, it took me years to work this all out with my mother. During that time, I had to learn to keep my mouth shut about when I wanted to blurt out some horrible stuff about my mother in order to absolve myself of responsibility for some condition in my life. I think my rather tart-tongued grandmother told me “If you can’t find something good to say, then don’t say anything at all.” This is a difficult practice, one I am sure the Buddha would recommend, as would Confucius and Lao Tzu, who wrote in Verse 56 of the Tao te Ching:

Those who know don't talk.
Those who talk, don't know.

It is said in the Dhammapada that Buddha said:

If you speak or act with a corrupted heart, then suffering follows you like the cart's wheel follows the foot of the ox. If you speak or act with a calm, bright heart, then happiness follows you, like a never-departing shadow.

Sometimes, when we are looking for that calm, bright heart within ourselves it takes us awhile to find it under the dirty laundry of our past, and if we can keep our mouth shut at those moments when we would gossip about those whom we have judged, before we know it, our prayers will be answered and we will no longer think the thoughts that led to that struggle. We will be returned to our original state. In the book of Proverbs it is said: “For lack of wood the fire goes out; and where there is no whisperer, quarreling ceases.”

We are told that God will forgive us after we have forgiven others. This is a direct statement and one that we should ponder deeply. Can God forgive until we have forgiven? If God can work for us only by working through us, then this statement of Jesus stands true, and is really a statement of the law of cause and effect. We cannot afford to hold personal animosities or enmities against the world or individual members of society. All such thoughts are outside the law and cannot be taken into the heavenly consciousness. Love alone can beget love. People do not gather roses from thistles.

The Father who seest in secret will reward us openly. Shall we not learn to enter the “secret place of the Most High,” within our own soul, in gladness? We are to fast without outward sign, but with the inner mind open and receptive to the Good alone. Our treasure is already in heaven, and our thought can take us to this treasure only when it is in accord with divine harmony and perfect love.^[4]

This is a picture of my Mother when she was in third grade. It came to me when I was struggling with the memory of some painful childhood experience, that if I ever wished to hold anything against her, that I would get out this picture and think of this Peppermint Patty face, of this tender adventurous girl with the thick coppery hair and full-bodied set of freckles. This is a girl who saved her brother from Polio. I think of the great difficulty of her life. I remember that no matter how tall she grew to be--and she was very tall, and no matter how she towered over me all my life--that inside the heart of her was still that wonderfully devilish girl who would try anything, who was terribly generous, and not particularly fearful of the consequences of the choices she made. And I cannot be angry with her.

I choose to remember this as the Spirit of my mother, and just as I would forgive any adventurous girl her mistakes, I can still forgive my mother, as I did many many times on the way to complete forgiveness. It is easy to be angry with the 5’10” threatening God that she was to me when I was the shortest child in my class at school. But as an adult I can see the perfect and playful child of God within my Mother.

In learning this with my Mother I found that I could forgive anyone for just about anything, and that includes myself. Maybe you don’t have a picture of the person you wish to forgive, but I am sure that you can imagine them as a child, or you could picture their vulnerability, their tenderness, with a loving heart you can find a way to understand how they might have come to do the things that they have done.

Recently, we have spent nearly a decade of time thinking of terrorists and I wondered in the beginning, how can I include them in my forgiveness practice? Terrorists who have killed innumerable people. Being able to do this is probably the supreme act of forgiveness, the capstone of forgiveness in our lives. I know there are those who say that forgiveness ought to be easy. I don’t know that I can agree with that now. If you had asked me before September 11 happened if forgiveness was easy I would have told you that sometimes forgiveness is a repetitive practice that has the power that water has upon stone.

I know this because in my family of origin I had so much that I had to forgive: Rape, incestuous molestation, great physical abuse, neglect and failure to protect and nurture the possibility of my life. This is why I say that the number of occasions that I forgave my mother number somewhere above half of a million times. It took a lot of work to get my life back. It took a lot of work to be returned to Love. The last words I said to my mother were I love you. Had I not engaged in this practice I would have been left with something the nature of which I would not want for myself. These things that happened to me occurred within a family that loved one another. I know that, I was there.

Underneath all suffering and all acts that cause suffering lies a commitment to Love. Perhaps the commitment is not fully realized, but it is there, and in finding it we find our way back into the recognition within ourselves of the grace of God. Forgiveness can certainly be challenging, though it does not have to be. It is the passage back to the center of our being. It is the note upon which life begins to balance, achieves harmony and it is the passageway into the life of Spirit. Forgiveness is the key to our own complete spiritual freedom.

Yes others really do benefit from our forgiveness, even when they don’t know about it. In that sense, forgiveness works like prayer, it doesn’t matter who knows or how far away they might be from the person doing the acts of forgiveness. It is truly the light of freedom that ignites within ones own heart. Forgiveness clears away all the stuff that is between us and a mystical union with God.

Forgiveness is a worthy use of the Law. It changes us from hard, ungenerous, unsympathetic and self-righteous angry people into thinkers capable of Divine thought. Forgiveness rebuilds our capacity for compassion and understanding. It clears away the debris from the portals of our Spirit and unifies it with the Divine. Forgiveness is a mystical act that uses the Law to create this experience of divinity within ourselves. You have the keys to the kingdom and you are free right now to use them. Who might you begin forgiving today?

Forgiveness does not change the past, but it truly does enlarge the possibility of the future. Gandhi said it best when he said “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” Just by beginning to forgive, we begin to experience our own innate strength. Kahlil Gibran reminds us of how horribly we injure ourselves when he says: “If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury, but if you injure him you will always remember.”

By forgiving and giving up the gossip against those who we need to forgive, we reclaim our souls from any further self-inflicted damage, and we create for ourselves a powerful place to begin our lives again. This is the wisdom of the ages: that there is a power for good in the universe greater than we are, and we can use it!

^[1] Dr. Ernest Holmes, The Science of Mind, 1938 Ed.

^[2] Ibid.

^[3] Ibid.

^[4]Ibid.