Dare to Be Rare

Copyright © 2012 Elnora M. Bratland

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ISBN: 978-1-4525-6094-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-6096-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-6095-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012919276

Balboa Press rev. date: 01/23/2013

CONTENTS

DEDICATION

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

DEDICATION

I lovingly dedicate this book to my parents for their love and guidance, to my beautiful children and grandchildren for their love and faith in me, to my large, diverse family, friends, teachers and students for sharing time, talent and friendship with me on my life’s journey.

I was so blessed by my beloved friend, Virginia Rogers for introducing me to The Science of Mind and to Dr. Carleton Whitehead who became my teacher, counselor and friend. I am grateful to Drs. Frank and Anita Richelieu for their teachings of the Science of Mind and to Dr. Barbara Lunde for our endearing friendship and for the years I served at the Boca Center for Spiritual Living.

I am especially grateful to my editors, Dorothy Spelman, and to my daughter Rhonda Toppel, both who labored long hours, editing this book. A big thanks to Mark Johnson for his computer assistance and to my husband Bill for his support and patience during the book’s seemingly long gestation period.

Most of all, I am filled with gratitude for those teachers who had the courage to break free from tradition to bring to the world a new understanding of God, especially Dr. Ernest Holmes. Finally, dear reader, I am so grateful for YOU.

Introduction

As a child of seven or so I longed to know who, what and where God was, but for some reason religion and God seemed to be forbidden topics in my family. However, I was determined to get some answers and I believed my Mother was the person who would listen to my questions about God and give me those answers. So one morning, feeling especially brave, I searched her soft brown eyes and asked, Where is God? Her face changed from a smile to a frown as she answered, Ask your Father and I was dismissed.

I didn’t understand my Mother’s reluctance to speak to me about God but I felt her disapproval for having asked. On that day I was driven to get an answer so I trudged up a long hill to where my father was. He was overseeing the men who worked for him. They were busy skinning the bark off long, pine logs that would soon become part of another cabin at my parents’’ tourist camp.

I waited until he finished speaking to them and moved close to his side, reaching for his hand for added security. I managed to get the question out, my heart pounding hard in my chest, Daddy, what is God? And where is He?

My dad looked shocked at the questions I had blurted out. But he paused in his work, and then, squeezing my hand, looked up to the sky as though he was receiving information from the heavens before he answered thoughtfully, Well, I’m not a religious man, but I believe that God is in everything and is everywhere. I wanted him to say more, but at that very moment one of the men called to him and he turned back to his work.

I felt sad and disillusioned, as if I had lost my best friend and I wandered back down the path through the tall pine and birch trees to the Lodge. Until that day my childlike idea of God was that He resided on a white fluffy cloud in the sky and resembled my grandfather whom I dearly loved. Now, suddenly, that concept had disintegrated and was floating down through the trees, past the lodge, landing in the lake at the bottom of the hill, to be in everything everywhere. Later, after I had pondered my father’s words of wisdom, I secretly decided to put my former God back upon his throne in the clouds because I felt a lot safer with Him up there watching over me.

Believing in an anthropomorphic God put me in good company. Many still believe that way. It does seem a lot more secure, believing that God is our Father who is watching over us and taking care of us no matter what. This belief allows one to play the role of the child, secure with a Big Daddy who will make life’s important decisions. It also might encourage a helpless attitude regarding choices that we need to make if we want to make changes in our life. I clung to my childhood version of God until I realized I could no longer believe that way.

My interest in God was fueled by my elderly, bed-ridden grandfather who periodically read to me from his well-worn Bible as I sat beside his bed laughing at his colorful renditions of Bible stories. A great storyteller and a deeply spiritual soul, Grandfather didn’t believe in burning in hell for one’s misdemeanors, nor did he talk about having to be saved. I heard from a classmate about the importance of being saved and I began to fear a wrathful God. Since I was labeled a sinner by her standards I was convinced I was destined to burn in hell. Grandfather didn’t verbally refute my personal fear of God as I had not told him how afraid of God I was. But his humor, love of nature, personal support of me and a reverence for all life planted a different picture of God within me. And perhaps it was through my relationship with Grandfather that I was encouraged to overcome my fear and to pursue my quest for God throughout my life.

Years later, as a young mother of four, I was grateful I could take my children to Sunday school and Church as I believed I was introducing them to a source of strength that would serve them all of their lives. As a family, we attended a small United Church of Canada and I volunteered for many years as the chairperson of the Church board. We were a tiny group working hard to keep the small church alive during the long cold winters. I attended Bible studies in a Free Methodist Church whenever I could and we attended midnight mass on Christmas Eve at the local Catholic Church when our church was closed. We were on good terms with the Catholic priest who spent hours playing gin rummy with my husband and often dined at our home. There were musical programs at the Baptist Church which I attended and became friends with the Lutheran minister. Everyone in the community knew everyone else. I realize now that my background in the hospitality industry had given me a broad view of others’ differences, including their religious beliefs. I wanted my children to have the opportunity to know and accept different denominations and I laughed when friends jokingly called me Ecumenical Elle!

My life changed on an icy cold day in February, 1976. That day I attended a Religious Science lecture, presented by Dr. Carleton Whitehead, minister and leader of the Science of Mind Church in Chicago. There were no available seats in the old Esquire Theatre so my friend Ginny and I stood at the rear of the room for the duration of the lecture. The words, spoken softly by Dr. Whitehead, were profound. He spoke of an unlimited God that was everywhere and a Law that responds to our individual thoughts and beliefs. My heart was pounding as I acknowledged inwardly that I had come home to a way of thinking that felt right for me. I leaned forward to grasp every part of the lecture. Later I shared with Ginny that, Spirit clapped its hands in my heart that day!

I wanted to take the Science of mind classes that Dr. Whitehead offered at the Chicago Science of Mind Center. But since I lived in Northern Ontario, Canada, eight hundred miles from Chicago, it appeared that was next to impossible. Science of Mind wasn’t offered anywhere near my area. Aside from that reality, I was fully engaged as wife, mother and active business partner with my husband in a demanding, seasonal, multi-faceted, service oriented business that catered to the travelling public and tourist who frequented the area to fish, hunt, sightsee and vacation. Yet I believed that somehow, one day I would study and even teach Science of Mind classes. At the time it seemed highly improbable.

As I learned more about Dr. Ernest Holmes, founder of the Science of Mind, I appreciated and admired his work. He was a student who had studied many religions and his references to God are of a magnificent, all powerful Intelligence, One that abides within each and every one of us and is everywhere present, all knowing, all powerful and yet acts through us, and