Article August 27, 2012 Issue

No balancing act necessary

Jill Grimes

According to a recent study from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, “When just ten percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society.” Are you surprised by this study—this “tipping point”? It is astonishing to think that we could be influenced by what just ten percent of the population believes.

What can be done when we feel tipped over into feeling overwhelmed, in pain, angry, or afraid? How can we counteract this influence?

I believe the answer lies in balance. Spiritual balance. When we turn our thoughts to God, Love, we are lifted into a completely different scale—the scale of divine Spirit. In this scale we begin to listen with our hearts, not our intellects. In this scale we’re not weighing our lives according to the thoughts, beliefs, and opinions of others. Nor are we weighed down by ground-level conversation, beliefs that attribute balance or imbalance to physical chemistry, personalities, emotional pressures, or mere human timetables. In fact, in the scale of Spirit, these don’t carry any weight at all. In the scale of Spirit, we begin to listen and hear, “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalms 46:10).