your decisions June 21, 1999 Issue

How do you make big decisions? Do you discuss all the options with family and friends? Make long lists of pros and cons? Research all the ramifications?

While these may be useful steps, they may not bring the clarity necessary to make a confident decision. What's needed is spiritual light.

We hope you'll find that the prayers, spiritual study, and healing experiences authors share in this column help bring the right choices and truly satisfying decisions to light in your life.

"Your decisions will master you,  whichever direction they take." MARY BAKER EDDY

Cultivating deeper relationships

By Scott Parker Seagren

ARE you looking for just the right person in your life? Are you cultivating any special relationships? If so, what criteria are you using? Do you have a checklist that qualifies others to be your friends? Do you ever feel you're missing out on meaningful friendships? If so, finding deep, satisfying relationships may demand a spiritual outlook.

Many years ago, I made a list of qualities I thought were important in any special relationship. Fidelity, devotion, permanence, respect, and love seemed like a fine place to begin. While several past relationships had taught me a lot about some of these qualities, none of them embraced all the qualities I felt were necessary to an enduring relationship. Beginning my search with spiritual qualities pointed the way to a clearer understanding of where those qualities really reside.

One day it dawned on me that the qualities I wanted to experience in a relationship were already present in my relation to God. Right within my own thought. Since God, as Spirit, is permanent, these qualities are permanent and complete and right here. Jesus taught this lesson, too, when he said, "Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21). What more could I need than to cultivate my relation to God, instead of looking for something from a person to give me what I didn't believe I had?

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