Midweek Faith Lift
June 17, 2026
Contentment and the Christ Spirit
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
Spiritual Passages
June 8, 2026
Lou Gehrig, the "Iron Horse" of baseball famed for his 2,130 consecutive-games-played streak, made one of the most memorable speeches in the annals of sports. Heartfelt and poignant, this man whose life was being shortened by ALS, shared his feelings in front of an enraptured audience that left tears rolling down the cheeks of all. It was on July 4, 1939, Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day, when the longtime Yankee first baseman uttered the famous words at a home plate ceremony at Yankee Stadium: “For the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break. Yet, today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”
Love is like a wildflower growing through a crack in the sidewalk – not planted by design, not found where beauty was expected, but rising anyway through the hard places. It illustrates that love sometimes appears in the ordinary moment, the inconvenient season, the unlikely person, the place we nearly walked past. And when it does, it changes the landscape.
And for a bit of humor:
"Jim is my enemy, but it turns out that Jim is also his own worst enemy. And the enemy of my enemy is my friend. So, Jim is actually my friend. But, because he is his own worst enemy, the enemy of my friend is my enemy, so actually, Jim is my enemy." – Dwight, a character from “The Office”
And that, dear ones, is how confusing and unexpected this divine/human journey can be, isn’t it? Now here is a picture of what Todd and I were feeling like “the enemy” was as she was trying to live in the space above our front porch! The truth is she was just a critter who was hanging out in the wrong place and we weren’t willing to share our porch with her…not even a little bit! I have to admit that at times I was so frustrated trying to relax on the porch and hearing her scratching and running around above my head that I had really strong feelings of dislike toward this critter. I even took it to the prayer circle!
I was ready to plug up the hole and let her die up there….but not really!
When I saw her in the cage, I knew we had done the right thing. $428 later, she was released on a farm south of Indianola where she can live the good life….just please don’t come back! And we are praying that she did not leave behind a litter of babies! More will be revealed! The guy who collected her told us it was a she and set more traps….
This week we are exploring Contentment and the Christ Spirit in Myrtle’s book, How to Let God Help You! It is worth noting that her chapter on Contentment is only 1.5 pages long! She doesn’t spend a lot of energy or time on contentment. Myrtle says the only place to find true contentment is in the “state of consciousness” that Christ the Truth has prepared for you. We do have to align our consciousness with the Divine in order to manifest our highest good and this requires wisdom, discrimination and good judgement. This sounds simple, but it is not easy. She continues on p. 74:
So the first thing to do is to bring every desire of the heart into the light of wisdom, to see what we desire is practical and conducive to our highest good. Thus, we are able to go straight to our goal.
Romans 8:28 tells us “And we know that to them that love God, all things work together for good.”
It is interesting to note that when we finally decided to get serious about removing our racoon friend, realizing that just praying her away wasn’t going to work, all the pieces began to fall into place. Todd found the right company, they came on Monday, set the trap and we had her by Tuesday morning. The roofers came to plug up the hole by Tuesday afternoon and contentment prevailed! That is the 5th Unity principle, put feet to your prayers! In this case, traps!
When we explore what Myrtle says about the Christ Spirit, she has a very interesting opening statement. She notes that the Christ Spirit in you is a magnet to attract Christ love along with all that is needed to sustain your human needs. She also has a warning: “Realize this Truth: Whatever is your own under the law of good comes to you; whatever does not belong to you is taken away to find its right place.” (p.75) How that translates to me is that you cannot have your good at someone else’s expense and they cannot have their good at your expense. At least not for very long! That is a spiritual truth! Pause and imagine how that might impact humans if we really understood that and let it be a guide to all our choices, decisions and actions. That alone would change the world for sure.
That leaves us with a profound faith that our good is coming to us in ways we cannot easily see, kind of like the love Lou Gehrig felt with all the fans cheering him at Yankee Stadium, despite his debilitating disease. Kind of like the wildflower growing through a crack in the concrete sidewalk….our good springs up like that. We just need to be open and receptive so that we see it and have the mindfulness to embrace it when it appears. Myrtle assures us that if we make ourselves open and receptive to the leading of Spirit, “It will be revealed to you just what steps to take in doing your part to establish divine order.” (p.76) Spirit, or love will show the way, the next right step.
She also says that when you truly go to the Christ within yourself instead of to your own thoughts, you will receive whatever you need. If you don’t do this, you will go through “an eternity of confusion and lack and hungering.” That sounds like the character Dwight who cannot seem to figure out if Jim is his enemy or his friend. I have been in a tangle like that in my own ideas, thoughts, beliefs and feelings about situations and people in my life. It sounds funny, but it is in Truth, a frustrating road to nowhere and certainly not contentment. I call it ruminating and I am practiced enough to be really good at it.
If I am going to step out of that familiar pattern, I am going to need to let God help me. I am going to have to decide to let God “rework” me so that I begin to see things differently. And I am going to have to be patient and loving with myself as I go through this process of “divine reworking.” Myrtle is very clear and firm about this:
Stop trying so hard to know that everything is as it should be. Just rest your mind and heart and emotions and body in God Mind…It is when you are thinking of self that you struggle and see nothing but darkness, grief and failure. No one, not even God, can change you or your circumstances so long as you insist upon looking at and thinking of and worrying about yourself and your problems. (How to Let God Help You p.78)
I want to also note that on the bottom of that same page, Myrtle says, “There is only one Presence, one Power in the earth and the universe: God the Good omnipotent.” I did not know that it was Myrtle who said that! Now we know!
The antidote to my human problems and dilemmas is to raise my consciousness to the place where I am able to see “the perfect image and likeness of God in all people.” We see the likes and dislikes of human nature because we are human. But real change, real transformation does not happen at that level. Real growth, real change, real spiritual maturity happens when we step out of the problem and into a greater reality, allowing Spirit or love to guide us and speak through us. Being still, listening, praying and waiting for the mud to settle so that we can see what is truly there is the Christ path, the Christ Spirit at work in us.
I don’t like waiting, but just like I don’t like waiting for the process of reducing my calorie intake to show up in how my body looks, I also have to wait for the process of reducing my “pissiness” to show up in how my relationships look and sound. And I have to listen within to the still, small voice of love that says, Deb, you really don’t want to kill the racoon, you just don’t want her living in your house. When I pause and look at all the dilemmas in my life, most of them have happened because of my lack of pausing to reflect on my choices, pausing to consider my responses…seems to come back to me each time. Dang! Pause, Deb and see your own divinity, your own Christ center first and take the time you need for wisdom to speak in your heart.
Another way of expressing this showed up in Richar Rohr’s June 9, 2026 blog “Mutual Interabiding” written by theologian, Cynthia Bourgeault:
One of the most familiar of Jesus’s teachings is “Love your neighbor as yourself” [Mark 12:31; Matthew 22:39]. But we almost always hear that wrong. We hear “Love your neighbor as much as yourself.”… If you listen closely to Jesus’s teaching however, there is no “as much as” in there. It’s just “Love your neighbor as yourself”—as a continuation of your very own being. It’s a complete seeing that your neighbor is you. There are not two individuals out there, one seeking to better herself at the price of the other, or to extend charity to the other; there are simply two cells of the one great Life. Each of them is equally precious and necessary.
So, my friends, go forth into your human/divine life, centered in your Christ Spirit knowing how precious and necessary we all are….
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis