SENTINEL WATCH November 4, 2002 Issue

Voting from the heart

By Margaret Rogers

As I read up on candidates' positions and ballot initiatives in preparation for elections in the United States, three scenes related to decision-making come to mind.

Scene One took place a couple of decades ago at a crossroads in my career. I was in a line of work that felt right to me. Unexpectedly I got an attractive job offer that would have taken me on a somewhat different path. After mulling over the pros and cons, I called a man whose warm spirituality had often helped me see things more clearly. He asked me what my first thought had been when I was offered the job. I said it had been not to take it. After we talked a little more, he assured me that I could trust my intuition.

When I hung up, I thought how wrong he was. Intuition was not my strong suit. I'd made my share of mistakes and didn't have a lot of faith in my judgment. I wondered why he trusted me more than I did. Then it dawned on me that he didn't think of me as merely a fallible person. He saw me in a spiritual light—as a representative of the infinite divine Mind, as the image of God. His larger view of me nudged me into willingness to admit this as the truth about who I was — however faintly I felt I lived up to it. I could accept insight and good judgment as my heritage from the Mind that originates all being. From this perspective, I had the confidence to follow my intuition. I declined the offer and never regretted it.