Picture a boomerang leaving your hand on a bright Monday morning. It sails out over the field, turns in a wide silver arc, and comes home right to your palm.
Florence Scovel Shinn believed every word we speak travels the same way. The kind remark to the barista, the sentence you mutter at your inbox, the hope you whisper over coffee. Each one goes out, and each one finds its way back.
I love that picture for the first Monday after the clocks fall back. We get a little more light at dawn this week, and a fresh week to fill with better words.
This is part of Timeless Authors, our daily series on the writers who change ordinary days. Yesterday Iris Murdoch taught us to look again with a just and loving gaze. Today Florence Scovel Shinn shows us how our words shape the days we walk into.
Florence Scovel Shinn (1871 to 1940)
American illustrator turned New Thought teacher, author of The Game of Life and How to Play It and a joyful guide to faith, love and the spoken word.
The Teaching of Florence Scovel Shinn
Florence Scovel Shinn taught that life is a game of giving and receiving, and that our words and inner pictures set the rules. Whatever we send out in thought, word and deed returns to us, so the wise player speaks good, expects good and acts in faith. She saw a Divine Design for every person, waiting to unfold.
Through his spoken word, man is continually making laws for himself.
Florence Scovel Shinn, The Game of Life and How to Play It, The Power of the Word (1925)
Continually. I love that word. Every sentence you say this morning is a tiny law you are writing for your own life, which means you also hold the pen for every kinder law you want to live by.
In Their Own Words, Favorite and Lesser Known Quotes
Every quote below comes from The Game of Life and How to Play It, which Shinn first published in 1925. You can read the whole book free on Wikisource. It is short, warm and full of stories from the people she helped.
Life Is a Game of Giving and Receiving
The Game of Life is a game of boomerangs.
Florence Scovel Shinn, The Game of Life and How to Play It, The Law of Karma and the Law of Forgiveness (1925)
This means that whatever man sends out in word or deed, will return to him; what he gives, he will receive.
Florence Scovel Shinn, The Game of Life and How to Play It, The Game (1925)
Shinn turned an old teaching into a playful image. When I picture my words as boomerangs, I suddenly get choosier about which ones I throw.
Your Words Shape Your Days
We know now, that words and thoughts are a tremendous vibratory force, ever moulding man’s body and affairs.
Florence Scovel Shinn, The Game of Life and How to Play It, The Law of Prosperity (1925)
By the word he starts in action unseen forces and can rebuild his body or remold his affairs.
Florence Scovel Shinn, The Game of Life and How to Play It, Intuition or Guidance (1925)
Moulding and remolding. Shinn saw a life as soft clay in the hands of the one who speaks over it. That makes every morning a fresh chance to shape something lovely.
Faith Is a Bridge You Walk
In fact, active faith is the bridge, over which man passes to his Promised Land.
Florence Scovel Shinn, The Game of Life and How to Play It, Casting the Burden (Impressing the Subconscious) (1925)
Active is the key word. For Shinn, faith shows up in what you do today, the small step you take as if your good is already on its way.
Love Is the Strongest Force
Real love is selfless and free from fear.
Florence Scovel Shinn, The Game of Life and How to Play It, Love (1925)
Its joy is in the joy of giving. Love is God in manifestation, and the strongest magnetic force in the universe.
Florence Scovel Shinn, The Game of Life and How to Play It, Love (1925)
This might be my favorite chapter in the whole book. In these pages love is generous and light, the kind that gives for the pure pleasure of giving.
A Divine Design for Every Life
There is for each man, perfect self-expression.
Florence Scovel Shinn, The Game of Life and How to Play It, Perfect Self-Expression or the Divine Design (1925)
The perfect plan includes health, wealth, love and perfect self-expression. This is the square of life, which brings perfect happiness.
Florence Scovel Shinn, The Game of Life and How to Play It, Perfect Self-Expression or the Divine Design (1925)
Shinn believed each of us carries a place only we can fill. I find that thought so comforting on a Monday, when the week ahead can feel like a blank page. That page already holds a pattern meant just for you.
Who Was Florence Scovel Shinn?
Florence Scovel was born on September 24, 1871, in Camden, New Jersey. She studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where she met the painter Everett Shinn, whom she later married.
In New York she built a lively career as an illustrator, drawing for Harper’s and other magazines and for popular novels such as Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (1901). In 1903 the Society of Illustrators elected her an associate member. She and Everett divorced in 1912.
In her middle years Shinn became a teacher of New Thought, the American movement devoted to the creative power of the mind. In 1925 she self published The Game of Life and How to Play It, followed by Your Word Is Your Wand in 1928 and The Secret Door to Success in 1940.
She died at her home on Fifth Avenue in New York on October 17, 1940. Her small books are still read and shared around the world today. You can read more in her Wikipedia biography.
What the Power of the Word Really Means
When Shinn talks about the word, she means something wonderfully practical. The sentences you repeat become the pictures you hold, and the pictures you hold become the way you move through your day.
So instead of asking what this week will bring me, try asking what I am speaking into this week.
It pairs beautifully with James Allen on thought and vision and with our look at Neville Goddard, Florence Scovel Shinn and Joseph Murphy on the inner life.
Why This Teaching Fits Today
Today is Monday, the first workday after the clocks fell back. Mornings feel brighter for a little while, and the whole week is wide open.
Monday is the perfect day to choose your words on purpose. One sentence spoken this morning can travel with you all the way to Friday. Shinn once told a worried student to act rich and expect her good by Monday. Today, that Monday is yours.
Your Morning Practice, the Boomerang Word
This takes about ten minutes.
- Choose your word. Write one present tense sentence about the good you want to grow this week.
- Speak it aloud. Say your sentence three times, slowly and with a smile, so it lands deep in your mind.
- Picture it. Close your eyes for one minute and see your sentence already true in a single vivid scene.
- Act in faith. Take one small step today as if your good is already on its way.
- Throw a kind boomerang. Send one sincere compliment or thank you to someone before noon.
Make it stick with an if then plan. If I pour my first cup of coffee, then I will speak my Boomerang Word aloud.
Essential Reading
- The Game of Life and How to Play It by Florence Scovel Shinn (1925), free on Wikisource. Ten short chapters you can savor over a week of mornings.
- As a Man Thinketh by James Allen, free on Wikisource, a perfect companion on thought and character.
- Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1841), free on Wikisource, for trusting the voice within.
- Your Inner Life Is Writing Your Outer Life, our guide to Shinn alongside Neville Goddard and Joseph Murphy.
Quick Answers About Florence Scovel Shinn
Who was Florence Scovel Shinn?
Florence Scovel Shinn (1871 to 1940) was an American illustrator and New Thought teacher born in Camden, New Jersey. She became known for short, cheerful books on faith, prosperity and the power of the spoken word.
What is The Game of Life and How to Play It about?
Published in 1925, it describes life as a game of giving and receiving. Shinn explains how words, faith, love and intuition shape our experience, with stories from the people she helped.
What is Florence Scovel Shinn’s most famous quote?
One of her best loved lines is “The Game of Life is a game of boomerangs.” It comes from the chapter The Law of Karma and the Law of Forgiveness.
Can I read Florence Scovel Shinn for free?
Yes. The Game of Life and How to Play It was published in 1925 and is in the public domain in the United States. The full text is free on Wikisource.
What did Shinn mean by the Divine Design?
She taught that every person has a perfect plan for their life, held in what she called the superconscious mind. For her, that plan includes health, wealth, love and perfect self expression.
Back to the Boomerang
Picture that boomerang again, sailing out over the field this Monday morning and curving home to your hand. Whatever you send out today is already on its way back to you.
Through his spoken word, man is continually making laws for himself.
Florence Scovel Shinn, The Game of Life and How to Play It, The Power of the Word (1925)
What is one sentence you want to send out into your week?
Start early. Start speaking. Start today.
Complement this with Iris Murdoch on Attention, Love and Unselfing, Emerson’s Case for the Life Only You Can Live and Your Inner Life Is Writing Your Outer Life.
Want a calm, intentional start every day? Hold Until Sunrise is our little app for mornings that matter.
For a little goodness in your inbox every Sunday, join us here.
With love, Paolo
Sources
- Florence Scovel Shinn, The Game of Life and How to Play It (1925), Wikisource
- Florence Scovel Shinn, Wikipedia
- Florence Scovel Shinn, Notes on Illustration
- James Allen, As a Man Thinketh, Wikisource
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance, Wikisource
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Carry this into tomorrow morning
The practice in this post lives in an app we built, Hold Until Sunrise. Your alarm becomes a moment of stillness. You hold your phone, rest with one affirmation, and let the sunrise welcome you into the day. Begin tomorrow gently and on your own terms. Find it on the App Store here.