Many poems have helped me over the years. One is called “Mind’s outcome: income” by Steven Alan Avey, published in the May 1979 issue of The Christian Science Journal.
The poem employs a lovely rhythm and repetition that
invite me to press on to the next idea and are helpful in memorizing. It also
employs all seven synonyms for God found in the Christian Science textbook (Science
and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy). This encourages
the reader to continue on to see the role of each of those synonyms in working
out that our income is Mind’s outcome – what Mr. Avey calls “usable ideas that
develop themselves into action”. I love this!
I couldn’t quite remember the name of this poem and thought
it used the word “outgo”. (It doesn’t; it uses “outcome” instead.) Anyway in my
search on jsh-online.com
I found a lovely idea that seems relevant to the topic of income. Writing in
the Christian Science Sentinel, 29 Jan 1979, Geoffrey Barratt states that “there
is no "fixed income," because the "outgo" from God is not
limited, the infinite good that floods from eternal Love is not frozen” (More
than ‘millionaires’).
We can’t print Avey’s entire poem here, so here’s a morsel:
Mind’s
outcome: income
Steven
Alan Avey
Yield
to Spirit, and
in
come usable ideas
that
develop themselves
into
action.
Look
to Love, and
practice
kinder ways
of
caring for yourself
and
your community…
I hope everyone can read the whole poem and perhaps pop a
copy up on their fridge, where it sat in our family home for many years.
Do you have a favourite poem? Please share it with us.
Julie Swannell
