RECENTLY MY WIFE AND I SANG IN THE BERKSHIRE CHORAL FESTIVAL in western Massachusetts. All 228 choristers were strong singers, and they willingly rehearsed five hours a day, Monday through Friday. This culminated in a performance of two major works with a professional orchestra on the following Saturday.

In a world that is often seen as divided along the lines of race, gender, faith, social class, politics, and economic opportunity, the chorus united in a common purpose to add a little harmony to the world. We shared one simple yet noble objective: To do our best to convey the beauty of the music before us.

From that week of rehearsals, the message that stands out to me above everything else is something that our conductor said about preparing our thoughts for the performance. Maestro Donald McCullough of Washington, DC's Master Chorale, asked us to weed out all "conversations." By that he meant thoughts such as, "I wish we had one more day to rehearse," or "The basses need to learn their parts better at measure 324," or "Wouldn't it be wonderful if my spouse were here to be a part of this?" He wanted us to eliminate needless inner chatter so that we could be ready to sing the music beautifully.

While Maestro McCullough was not espousing a particular religion, he was encouraging a process that I find prayerlike. One aspect of prayer and of the prayer process involves eliminating thoughts that detract from the original perfection—and that applies whether one is speaking of a composer's composition or the divine Creator's creation. Prayer can begin as a fresh acknowledgment that what God has made must be like Maker—perfect whole.

Through the chorus's daily rehearsals, McCullough nurtured the growth of all the singers in their performance, helping them with vowels, exacting clarity of diction, and shaping our phrases. At the dress rehearsal, he was very pleased with the sound of the choir. Finally, he pronounced our preparation of the music "perfect."

We performed according to our preparation, and it was clear that the audience enjoyed the result. When we listened to the recording during breakfast the following Sunday morning, everyone felt the performance was very good. The mental exercise of practice, including that of weeding out useless conversations, had a beneficial result. Since then, I've had more opportunities to improve my "performance" by weeding out negative conversations of various kinds.

Right after the Berkshire Festival, I taught a short astronomy course for adults. I had prepared ahead of time, provided a clear outline, and focused the course on helping each student become familiar with the sky. But still I found myself wondering if there was enough substance in the outline to make each day worthwhile for the students. Might bad weather prevent us from enjoying this experience to the fullest? But as I prayed about those concerns, the doubts ebbed away as I realized that God was the organizing force behind our schedule, and this divine Principle could be trusted to care for every detail. The class and I moved through the material smoothly, enjoying some lovely clear skies, and several members showed appreciation for what they had learned.

In another case, I had spent 18 months trying to install a system to improve the ability of my telescope to track stars. When I started the project, I came to an early dead end. Each time I restarted the work, the result was the same: The computer failed to recognize a signal that I knew had to be present. I consulted vendors and other experts, but to no avail. In frustration, I decided to lay the project aside for a while.

OF SILENCE

When I went back to the project, building on what I'd learned in the choral rehearsals, I resolved to put out of mind these disturbing inner conversations:

• "Maybe the computer software is unable to detect the signal." (Isn't that thought just the "noise" of anxiety?)

• "The vendors don't understand my difficulty." (Sounds like exasperation now.)

• "I don't have the time or expertise to get to the bottom of this." (Call it thoughts of stress and self-doubt.)

It occurred to me to try replacing some computer circuit boards and making a measurement that I hadn't made before. And since I believe that intuitions of that kind come from the infinite Mind, from God, I tried doing that. To my surprise, the computer recognized the signal. Difficulty solved.

From a strictly human-logic standpoint, there was no clear reason why I followed a different process that last time, or why the process resulted in success. What's clear, however, is that when I turned to the divine intelligence to show me the way, I was able to clear out negative, confusing thoughts from my mental garden. Success blossomed in a situation that had seemed tangled and bleak.

Perhaps the first rule in any endeavor is to set a clear objective, whether it involves a musical performance, an athletic event, or a scientific project. But once you've set an objective, there is a power beyond yourself—the divine source of all intelligence, strength, talent, wit, and ingenuity—that will pave the way to reach the goal. As I'm learning it, our work is to remove any mental roadblocks, those negative conversations, that prevent us from seeing the ideas God is constantly sending our way.